Resources

Authors collect data from 1996-2018 on all three U.S. states who implemented universal vote-by-mail in a staggered fashion across counties, allowing us to use a difference-in-differences design at the county level to estimate causal effects. They find that: (1) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to affect either party's share of turnout; (2) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to increase either party's vote share; and (3) universal vote-by-mail modestly increases overall average turnout rates, in line with previous estimates.

Examining two states that have conducted a staggered rollout of mandatory vote-by-mail (Washington and Utah), this research finds that mandatory vote-by-mail slightly increases voter turnout but has no effect on election outcomes at various levels of government.

In this research, voters were randomly assigned to either an in-person or absentee voting condition. Participants assigned to the absentee condition expressed lower levels of confidence that their votes would be counted correctly than those assigned to the in-person voting condition. Voters who had to ask for assistance during the experiment also reported lower levels of confidence.

This research finds that expanding universal vote-by-mail has not dramatically advantaged either party historically.

In Washington, the research finds that distance to the closest ballot drop box increases one's probability of voting but primarily in off-year elections and primaries.

Using the largest California VBM dataset to date, this research finds that turnout among registered voters in VBM precincts is discernibly lower than traditional precincts in general elections, though the research is unable to detect an effect in primary elections.

This research finds that get-out-the-vote efforts to target voters using absentee ballot request forms are effective at shifting more voters to vote absentee. However, while pushing absentee vote-by-mail balloting may bank votes for a campaign before Election Day, the overall effect of partisan campaigns’ use of absentee ballot efforts to increase turnout appears limited.

This paper explores the use of absentee and early voting in U.S. elections. Authors state that absentee voting is often marginally more convenient and might be less expensive to administer, but it also carries unique costs in terms of ballot insecurity, higher odds of error and fraud, and a concomitant reduction in public confidence. They assert that states intent on making the act of voting easier should prefer in-person early voting to absentee voting, while continuing to focus on improving the experience of Election Day voting.

This paper is an early quasi-experimental study of the effects of rolling out all-mail elections in Washington State. In contrast with similar ear studies conducted using Oregon data, this study finds that the Washington roll-out led to turnout increases in the range of 2-to-4 percentage points, and that the effects were focused on otherwise low-propensity voters.

Extending the "lost-votes" concept developed by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, this law review article estimates the number of mail ballots "lost" in the 2008 election through problems with ballot transmission and ballot rejections.

This paper is an early experimental study of the effects of vote-by-mail elections. Using individual voter data from California, the authors find that as-if random assignment of voters to cast mail ballots reduces turnout in state elections, although they do find positive turnout effect for special local elections.

A foundational study of the early consequences of all vote-by-mail elections. This paper studies individual-level voter turnout data in Oregon and concludes that all vote-by-mail elections increase turnout by retaining voters in the electorate, rather than by allowing more low-propensity voters to participate.