New Research from USC Center for Inclusive Democracy and EVIC Collaboration on Ballot Tracking
We’re excited to share some new research from the Center for Inclusive Democracy (CID) at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy and our team here at the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC).
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Nice history and overview of the system, by Jen Kirby:
Oregon already votes by mail. Here’s what it can teach us in 2020.
Reform from the Trenches: How Local Election Officials Weigh the Vote By Mail Option
COVID-19 has forced much of the country to reevaluate the way it does business, and elections are no exception. We’ve already seen primaries postponed in 15 states and cancelled in New York. Wisconsin’s in-person primary at the start of April saw shortages of polling places and poll workers, as well as difficulties managing a tenfold increase in absentee ballot requests. All of this has unfolded in an atmosphere of partisan bickering about how to best assure a safe, secure, and accessible November election.
While many decisions about elections are being made at the state (or even national) level, the job of implementing these changes and administering elections falls on the roughly 8,000 local election officials (LEOs) across the country, a group that we have called the “stewards of democracy.”
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Vote by Mail during COVID-19: Insights from Oregon
As we learn all the ways the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting our lives, one looming concern is our elections. Sixteen states have already postponed in-person primaries to protect voters from gatherings that could expose them and poll workers to the spread of the virus. This has in turn resulted in a growing call for legislative action to address the health threat created by in-person balloting.
As we look ahead to the upcoming primaries and the general election this fall, there are a series of possible election tools that might mitigate the impacts of COVID-19. One of these tools is vote by mail (VBM), which increasingly is simply vote at home with most voters in some states personally returning ballots to drop boxes.
What should election administrators worry about if this shift proceeds? What are the possible challenges or barriers to running a new vote by mail election? And what can be learned from states that have already shifted to this system?
To answer these questions, we turn to one of the country’s most experienced administrators running a full by-mail election system, Multnomah County, Oregon’s Director of Elections, Tim Scott.
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I’ve always been proud of the description bestowed upon me by John Lindback, previously the director of elections for the State of Oregon and now a senior officer in the Elections Initiatives at the Pew Center on the States.
John once introduced me by saying: “Paul Gronke, who is frustratingly even handed with respect to vote by mail.”
Today’s posting is in John’s honor. It doesn’t make an argument for or against voting by mail, but it does show how well VBM can work in a mature system, and how many of the concerns that have been expressed about “early” early voting simply aren’t an issue in the Beaver State. (For illustrations, see CNN’s election blog here, or Bloomberg here which I addressed earlier here.)
After 12 years, how many Oregonians are “early” early voters?
Today’s Oregonian reports 30% of registered voters in the state have returned their ballots by the close of business on Tuesday, one week before election.
This return rate is comparable with past elections. Column 7 in this Table from the Secretary of State’s office shows ballot returns one week out: 34% (2012 primary), 26% (2010 general), 30% (2010 primary), 42% (2010 January special, 29% (2008 general).
Oregon’s voter turnout is high–69.3% of voter eligible population and 85.7% of registered voters so it’s not the case that these ballot totals reflect a disengaged electorate.
The facts are these:
- In a state that has had one of the most liberal early voting regimes for 12 years, as few as 25% and seldom over 40% of ballots arrive a week before Election Day.
- In most elections, approximately 25% (18-38%) of ballots are returned on Election Day.
- Finally, as I’d blogged about previously, Oregon (and Washington) somehow manage to make this all work even though they mail their domestic ballots approximately two weeks before election day, the shortest by mail transit time in the country.
Say what you will about vote by mail, but make sure what you say comports with the facts on the ground.
A Boise Public Radio story today describes Oregon and Washington, the only fully vote by mail states in the nation, as late to the party:
But the push for “early voting” across the country is making vote-by-mail states look like late arrivals to the party. In Idaho, voters in some counties have been going to the polls since late September.
Here’s an alternative interpretation: Oregon and Washington realize that it does not take two months to deliver a vote by mail ballot a few miles verssus the few thousand miles that it takes to deliver a UOCAVA ballot.
Perhaps Oregon and Washington are latecomers to the party. All that is left on the table are a few meager morsels. The bar closed long ago.
Perhaps they are not late to the party after all. Perhaps the thirty states that mailed their absentee ballots in September (led by North Carolina, a superbly administered state, yet mailed ballots way back on September 6th) are like those early arriving guests, knocking on your door when you don’t even have the hors d’oeuvres ready. Give them some cold cheese slices!
Somehow, Oregon and Washington manage to mail their ballots just over two weeks before Election Day yet still rank near the top in terms of voter participation. It seems to me that the two states time things just right, and it’s those states that encourage voters to cast a ballot two months before Election Day that may need to rethink things.
By Malen Cuturic ‘23 (exp.), EVIC Data Science Research Assistant and Paul Gronke, EVIC Director
Among the historic and unprecedented features of the November 2020 election was an enormous shift in the rate of voting by mail, from 21% in 2016 to 46% in 2020. As Nate Persily and Charles Stewart note, part of the “miracle” of 2020 was that local election administrators managed to adapt so rapidly to the demand for alternatives to in-person voting in the face of a global pandemic.
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