Study: No Mail Voting Partisan Benefit 03/06 09:33

   

   (AP) -- Donald Trump last year publicly worried that the explosion in voting 
by mail during the pandemic would increase turnout so much that "you'd never 
have a Republican elected in this country again." But a new study shows the 
record rates of mail voting in 2020 didn't help Democrats or lead to an 
increase in voting.

   The research is only the latest in a years-long number of studies finding no 
partisan benefit to mail voting. But it also draws the conclusion that making 
it easier to vote did not increase voting levels because voters were already 
highly motivated to participate in the 2020 contest.

   "We find a pretty precisely zero effect on turnout," said Jesse Yoder, one 
of the study's authors and a Ph.D. student in political science at Stanford 
University. "Voter interest was really driving turnout more than these 
convenience voting forms."

   The researchers proved this with a novel approach --- examining turnout 
rates in Texas, which, unlike many states, did not ease its mail voting 
restrictions during the pandemic. Voters 65 and older could vote by mail 
automatically, while younger ones still had to provide a legally justified 
excuse.

   The researchers compared the voting rates of 65-year-olds with automatic 
access to mail voting to those of 64-year-olds who lacked them. The two age 
groups voted at identical rates and there were only .2% more Democrats in the 
65-year-old group than in the 64-year-old one, showing mail voting didn't 
increase Democrats' share of the vote.

   The researchers found there was a modestly higher turnout rate among 
65-year-olds compared to those a year younger in 2014 and 2018, implying that 
mail voting does increase turnout in off-year elections when interest in the 
contest is typically lower.

   Democrats were more likely to vote by mail than Republicans in 2020 --- 
largely due to Trump polarizing the issue. But that didn't help them win the 
election, the Stanford study found, because they were equally less likely to 
vote early in-person or on Election Day. The 65-year-olds, for example, were 
9.5% more likely to vote by mail but 9.5% less likely to vote in person.

   Another recent study from Emory University's Alan Abramowitz found that 
states that encouraged mail voting in 2020 saw a sharper increase in turnout 
than those that did not. But, notably, Democrats did not do any better in those 
higher turnout states.

   "Eased absentee voting rules were not the only reason for increased turnout 
in 2020, but they did make a difference," Abramowitz wrote in his study, 
released late last month. However, he added, it did not help President Joe 
Biden increase his share in any of the states.

   Abramowitz noted that Republican-controlled state legislatures are now 
rushing to curtail mail voting, convinced it cost them the White House.

   "These findings suggest that efforts by Republican legislators in a number 
of states to roll back eased absentee voting rules and make it more difficult 
for voters to take advantage of absentee voting in the future are unlikely to 
benefit GOP candidates," he wrote.




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