Vote by mail advantageous to one party?
August 10, 2024 9:03 AM Subscribe
Regarding electing candidates, certain Republicans think it is to their disadvantage for vote by mail to exist, and is to Democrats' advantage. Can you explain where the disadvantage would be? Are Republicans less likely to vote if they must do it by mail? Is there some other reason??
Any increased access to voting favors democrats, because there are just more registered democrats than republicans.
posted by furnace.heart at 9:15 AM on August 10 [15 favorites]
posted by furnace.heart at 9:15 AM on August 10 [15 favorites]
Common wisdom is vote-by-mail is better for Democrats but this Democracy & Polarization Lab, Stanford University study from 2020 says otherwise.
A big motivation for anti-voting rhetoric is the Republican strategy of undermining American confidence in voting in general. A lot of commentary about voting has no factual basis and is just propaganda to delegitimize elections.
posted by Nelson at 10:23 AM on August 10 [6 favorites]
We 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. We 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.I don't think this paper represents a consensus view, I'm sure there's conflicting political science reports that measure different things. But it's an interesting study of a natural experiment that happened in Washington, California, and Utah as they rolled out universal vote-by-mail.
A big motivation for anti-voting rhetoric is the Republican strategy of undermining American confidence in voting in general. A lot of commentary about voting has no factual basis and is just propaganda to delegitimize elections.
posted by Nelson at 10:23 AM on August 10 [6 favorites]
Yeah I don't think the theory is that Republicans will vote less by mail, but that most of the people who have trouble voting any other way would vote Democrat. Like voter ID requirements, reducing polling sites, and every other trick it's about overall voting suppression in hopes that the most-suppressed would be Democrat-leaning and that Republicans would be willing and able to jump through more hoops than Democrats to cast their vote.
And like Nelson says, sounds plausible but might not actually work like everyone imagines.
posted by ctmf at 11:31 AM on August 10 [1 favorite]
And like Nelson says, sounds plausible but might not actually work like everyone imagines.
posted by ctmf at 11:31 AM on August 10 [1 favorite]
This almost certainly varies by state and even by congressional district as well, and as mentioned above in the general case it does not appear there is much difference.
However, it’s likely the reason this became a big deal in 2020 was that Covid was going on and a lot more Republicans were willing to show up at polling places than Democrats.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:27 PM on August 10 [2 favorites]
However, it’s likely the reason this became a big deal in 2020 was that Covid was going on and a lot more Republicans were willing to show up at polling places than Democrats.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:27 PM on August 10 [2 favorites]
Reducing mail-in-votes also leads to longer polling lines, which usually benefits Republicans because long lines are almost always in cities with too few polling sites, which is often by design.
posted by credulous at 12:54 PM on August 10 [4 favorites]
posted by credulous at 12:54 PM on August 10 [4 favorites]
Historically, vote by mail was considered by political scientists who study this stuff to be primarily advantageous to Republicans. This is because it required advanced planning and jumping through administrative hoops in a way that meant it was primarily used by a whiter, older, more educated, and wealthier demographic. That effect has diminished in recent years as voting by mail has been made easier (deadlines to register are later and registration can often be done online) and educated voters have swung more heavily to the Democratic party.
The cultural and political valence has shifted starting in 2020 because COVID-cautious Democratic officials pushed hard to expand vote by mail during the pandemic, while Trump and other Republicans argued that vote by mail was more vulnerable to fraud and that Democratic efforts to expand it were part of an attempt to steal the election. But even with the cultural and demographic shifts of the recent years, the studies that I've seen don't support the idea that vote by mail is a big win for Democrats on a purely partisan basis. (Of course lots of Democrats would argue that it's still the right thing to do purely because it makes voting easier and more accessible).
posted by firechicago at 3:30 PM on August 10 [2 favorites]
The cultural and political valence has shifted starting in 2020 because COVID-cautious Democratic officials pushed hard to expand vote by mail during the pandemic, while Trump and other Republicans argued that vote by mail was more vulnerable to fraud and that Democratic efforts to expand it were part of an attempt to steal the election. But even with the cultural and demographic shifts of the recent years, the studies that I've seen don't support the idea that vote by mail is a big win for Democrats on a purely partisan basis. (Of course lots of Democrats would argue that it's still the right thing to do purely because it makes voting easier and more accessible).
posted by firechicago at 3:30 PM on August 10 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Nelson's, "A big motivation for anti-voting rhetoric is the Republican strategy of undermining American confidence in voting in general. A lot of commentary about voting has no factual basis and is just propaganda to delegitimize elections.", had crossed my mind, i.e., they are just setting the stage to, once again, claim that the election was stolen.
posted by SageTrail at 4:05 PM on August 10 [1 favorite]
posted by SageTrail at 4:05 PM on August 10 [1 favorite]
There's a widespread belief among Republicans that the Democratic Party routinely engages in voting fraud by having their supporters vote in place of dead people and non-voters as well as "harvesting" ballots by filling out large numbers of absentee ballots for elderly people as straight-ticket Democratic votes. In this perspective, the integrity of the vote is under attack and this must be countered by routinely purging voter rolls and requiring as many people as possible to vote in person after displaying a photo ID.
As to how many people genuinely think this is a serious issue versus how many people are deliberately using it as a cover story to suppress turnout among groups that lean Democratic, I can't say.
posted by Chuck Barris at 7:00 PM on August 10 [1 favorite]
As to how many people genuinely think this is a serious issue versus how many people are deliberately using it as a cover story to suppress turnout among groups that lean Democratic, I can't say.
posted by Chuck Barris at 7:00 PM on August 10 [1 favorite]
Fortunately we don't have to determine ourselves whether there's significant voter fraud. Judges and political scientists have that job. And time after time every investigation finds no significant voting fraud. A particular debacle was Trump and Kobach's Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in 2017. Kobach, a significant enforcer of voter suppression, was given presidential authority to produce any possible evidence of voter fraud in 2016. He gave up after six months with nothing to show for it.
Back on topic, I don't have references at hand but I've read a couple of articles earlier this year suggesting that unlike previous elections, increased voter turnout would help Trump over Biden. That hinges on the polling that a lot of new Trump support was from groups of people who don't ordinarily vote. That analysis has prompted Republicans and the Trump campaign to reverse their position on mail-in voting. Now they're all for it!
posted by Nelson at 8:04 AM on August 11 [1 favorite]
Back on topic, I don't have references at hand but I've read a couple of articles earlier this year suggesting that unlike previous elections, increased voter turnout would help Trump over Biden. That hinges on the polling that a lot of new Trump support was from groups of people who don't ordinarily vote. That analysis has prompted Republicans and the Trump campaign to reverse their position on mail-in voting. Now they're all for it!
posted by Nelson at 8:04 AM on August 11 [1 favorite]
Firechicago is correct. Prior to 2020, the longstanding effect was that vote-by-mail was preferred by older, more affluent and conservative voters, specifically homeowners over renters, and these were already high-propensity voters. Switching to vote-by-mail generally had the effect of decreasing overall turnout, except when it was accompanied by a robust, official and institutional communication program to ensure that voters saw vote-by-mail as legitimate. It still has the effect of decreasing low-propensity voters when vote-by-mail is the only option offered, but the massive communication effort of 2020 offset that significantly.
"Any increased access to voting favors democrats, because there are just more registered democrats than republicans."
This is conventional wisdom that was proven wrong, in part due to the shifting voter coalitions under Trump, where non-college Whites went more Republican than previous leans. In this cycle, higher turnout models benefit the Republicans. But this was basically the thesis that the Sanders campaigns for president tried to test, and the answer is that no, what benefits Democrats is when low-propensity registered Democrats vote, not when you expand the electorate across the board. Most rarely/never voters have honestly a weird set of political views that are generally well outside the political mainstream for a reason, and one of the reasons why Trump was able to gain from rare/never voters was because he embraced many positions that were outside the political mainstream (e.g. much friendlier to Nazis than any other mainstream candidate since the 1930s).
posted by klangklangston at 7:52 PM on August 11 [1 favorite]
"Any increased access to voting favors democrats, because there are just more registered democrats than republicans."
This is conventional wisdom that was proven wrong, in part due to the shifting voter coalitions under Trump, where non-college Whites went more Republican than previous leans. In this cycle, higher turnout models benefit the Republicans. But this was basically the thesis that the Sanders campaigns for president tried to test, and the answer is that no, what benefits Democrats is when low-propensity registered Democrats vote, not when you expand the electorate across the board. Most rarely/never voters have honestly a weird set of political views that are generally well outside the political mainstream for a reason, and one of the reasons why Trump was able to gain from rare/never voters was because he embraced many positions that were outside the political mainstream (e.g. much friendlier to Nazis than any other mainstream candidate since the 1930s).
posted by klangklangston at 7:52 PM on August 11 [1 favorite]
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posted by SageTrail at 9:09 AM on August 10 [4 favorites]