By Aidan Rickaby
COVID-19 has fundamentally altered the way elections are conducted in the U.S. With more early voting options being offered, Americans are redefining Election Day. According to the US Elections Project, over 100 million Americans cast their ballots in person or by mail prior to Nov. 3. That’s more than double the number of votes cast before Election Day in 2016. The 2020 election is on track to set record turnout for any U.S. election in over a century. The pandemic certainly helped to establish early voting as a safe and legitimate alternative to voting on Election Day. However, the United States continues to lag behind other countries’ turnout rates, and the Trump administration continues to push misinformation about mail-in voter fraud. Despite these claims, Americans must consider the benefits of expanding vote-by-mail to ensure that elections can continue to operate smoothly. As seen with the coronavirus, our election systems are not foolproof, and any future election must take into account catastrophic events that limit people’s ability to vote. A fully enfranchised voting population can only be guaranteed by removing voter registration hurdles, extending early voting periods, and creating more alternatives to voting in person.
Because of the pandemic, states have expanded access to early forms of voting more than ever. Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington have all implemented systems of universal mail-in voting. In these states, voters do not need a reason for voting absentee –– every registered voter is mailed a ballot. Some states, including Georgia, allow voters to request absentee ballots without an excuse, but ballots are not automatically mailed to registered voters. Other states place various restrictions on who can request ballots. Six states require voters to have an excuse for requesting an absentee ballot, while ten states are temporarily allowing vote-by-mail because of COVID-19.
As far as early voting goes, each state determines its own rules with windows ranging from four to forty-five days to vote early. Six states––New Hampshire, Connecticut, Missouri, Kentucky, Mississippi, and South Carolina––do not offer in-person early voting at all. All other states offer some form of early voting either through in-person absentee ballots or through normal early voting.
Since each state determines its own election laws, the process of voting can be radically different depending on in which state a ballot is cast. Voting in a state like Colorado, which mails every resident a ballot by Election Day, seems like voting in an entirely different country when compared to a state like Mississippi, which does not conduct early voting at all and requires an excuse to request an absentee ballot. On some level, having states decide their own election rules allows for greater experimentation with voting. Every state decides what is best for its citizens and acts as a “laboratory for democracy” in the process.
The problem, however, comes from the lack of consistency with voting procedures and the history of disenfranchisement within the United States. Without consistent voting practices, voters are treated as pawns in a political chess game. Southern states have a history of disenfranchising voters of color through literacy tests and poll taxes. The infamous Shelby Co. v. Holder Supreme Court ruling in 2013 upheld Voter ID Laws and struck down key components of the Voting Rights Act. Even today, voter suppression continues with reports of armed militias showing up to polls, voters waiting five to eight hours to vote, and several states conducting illegal voter purges. While suffrage movements of the 19th and 20th centuries may be relics of the past, the 21st century must usher in a new era of voting reform. Recent efforts by Congressional Democrats to push forth the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a bill that would restore the federal government’s oversight into state and local election laws, are currently underway.
New political science research conducted in the run-up to the 2020 election demonstrates the necessity of universal mail-in voting as a component of voting reform. The study, which analyzed a Colorado election where every resident was mailed a ballot, showed that turnout rates increased among all voter groups––especially among low-propensity voters. The researchers calculated a turnout increase of 16% among youth voters, 9.6% among voters with less than a high school diploma, and 10% among voters with less than $10,000 in wealth. They also note how the system benefits both Democratic and Republican voters by about 8%, so no one political party receives a substantial gain over the other. Additionally, any voter who decided not to mail their back their ballot could choose to vote in person without penalty. Colorado and the handful of other states with universal vote-by-mail offer a model to the entire country: no voter should be intimidated at the polls, be forced to wait in long, crowded lines, or have their voter registration removed without any legal basis. In the midst of a pandemic, the U.S. must nationalize voting procedures like these and many others to ensure that voting is a safe and simple process.
Voting reform must also include automatic voter registration (AVR). AVR streamlines the voting process by allowing voters to opt-out of registering instead of opting-in. Most AVR systems will automatically register someone to vote when they visit a government agency like the DMV or social services. Each individual has the option to opt-out of automatic registration, meaning no one is forced to register against their will. Because of AVR, governments and citizens alike benefit from a streamlined election process conducted electronically. Currently, 17 states have initiated these reforms, and 39 states have proposed legislation that expands voter registration in their respective states.
Though much like the universal mail-in voting experiment in Colorado, the benefits of AVR will not be felt by every citizen if not implemented in every state. The litany of different voting procedures in each state creates problems for voters who decide to move to a different state or need to research their state’s election laws. It is imperative that voters experience as little difficulty as possible when registering to vote and when actually voting. AVR guarantees that the voting franchise is expanded to as many voters as possible with safety and ease.
The expansion of the voter registration process does not come without opposition. President Trump spent the better half of 2020 demonizing mail-in voting as fraudulent and rigged. Furthermore, in the months before the November election, Republicans in multiple states launched legal lawsuits against the counting of ballots. In Harris County, TX, for instance, the local Republican party unsuccessfully attempted to nullify 127,000 ballots already cast through curbside voting just days before Nov. 3. While the appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs had no standing, the victory is only a slight reassurance. Had the local GOP succeeded, a massive number of votes already cast would have been removed because of a legal technicality with curbside voting. Hundreds of other lawsuits about the counting of mail-in ballots are also in play. Republicans in Minnesota are challenging a consent decree that allows mail-in ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 to be counted up until Nov. 10. In Virginia, Republicans are also challenging the state’s ruling that absentee voters do not need to be witnessed signing their ballots after concerns were raised about safety during the pandemic.
While not a partisan issue by nature, the lawsuits and opposition to the expansion of voting clearly indicate some alignment among party lines. Even though the right to vote is not explicitly outlined in the Constitution, voting is a fundamental part of our democracy. Future politicians must ensure that the voting franchise continues to be expanded, not contracted, as consistent with this country’s history of successful suffrage movements. A strong and healthy democracy with expanded voting access is critical to the longevity of the republic.
What does this mean for future American elections? Unfortunately, claims of voter fraud with mail-in ballots and voting, in general, will almost certainly continue. If the U.S. is to guarantee election safety and voting accessibility, though, early voting and mail-in voting will persist. Despite the opposition, studies show that mail-in voting is particularly safe, and early voting only helps to enfranchise more Americans. The question becomes how to nationalize a uniform standard of election procedures across all fifty states that maximizes the right to vote. Systems like automatic voter registration, curbside voting, universal mail-in ballots, and early in-person voting all maximize this right. Ballots sent by mail that are postmarked before Election Day must be counted the same as “normal” ballots. Therefore, the U.S. government must implement legislation with standardized election laws and accessible voting options in mind.