On voting by mail shows neutral partisan effects

The coronavirus has disrupted state primaries and forced the prospect of major reforms for the 2020 election. Election officials across the nation are mulling expansions or transitions to mail-in voting while Congress is fielding calls for a nationwide vote-by-mail program. In examining voter data in three states with staggered rollouts of vote-by-mail programs ' California, Utah and Washington ' the researchers found that the introduction of mail-in voting did not have an effect, on average, on the share of voter turnout for either Republicans or Democrats. Researchers also found that expanding vote-by-mail does not appear to increase the vote share for candidates of either political party. Taken together, the researchers say their findings essentially dispel concerns that mail-in voting would cause a major electoral shift toward one party. 'Our paper has a clear takeaway: Claims that vote-by-mail fundamentally advantages one party over the other appear overblown,' the researchers stated in their working paper. The study was co-authored by Andrew Hall , a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) and professor of political science in Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences.