A majority of United States residents support measures to make it easier to vote by mail, according to new results from a national survey led by researchers from Northeastern, Harvard, Rutgers and Northwestern universities.
The results, which come as states across the country plan for a very different election showdown in November, show that 60% of US residents say voting by mail is easier, while 16% oppose and 24 percent neither support nor oppose it.
David Lazer, distinguished university professor of political science and computer and information science at Northeastern, holds joint appointments in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern. Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University. Photo by Adam Glanzman/Northeastern University
“This is a relevant policy issue right now because of COVID-19,” says David Lazer, university distinguished professor of political science and computer and information science at Northeastern, and one of the researchers who conducted the study. “The concern is that maybe showing up and waiting in line and in crowded rooms in November is not going to be very good. Clearly, this is something that is being actively considered in many places.”
Researchers surveyed 20,333 people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia between May 2 and May 15 and found stark regional differences in support for efforts to make voting by mail easier.
They found that a majority of US residents supported making it easier to vote by mail in all but four states – Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Wyoming. At the other extreme, there were four states (and the District of Columbia) in which more than 70 percent of residents supported such efforts—California, Delaware, Hawaii, and Iowa.
Every state in the US already offers absentee voting for residents who cannot go to their designated polling places on Election Day. Five states — Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah — conduct elections entirely by mail, and another 16 allow some local elections by mail, according to the survey.
Postal voting, also called absentee voting, is likely to be one basic ingredient of holding national elections during a pandemic for which public health guidelines would prevent mass gatherings to vote in person.
“We don't know where we'll be in November,” says Lazer. “We have to fund it, we have to do planning and logistics, and we have to do it now.”
Concerns about being infected by the virus or the disease it causes appear to be affecting US residents' support for voting by mail, the survey shows. 67 percent of people who said they were “somewhat” or “very” worried about being infected by COVID-19 supported voting by mail, compared to 48 percent of people who did not share their concerns.
“People who are concerned about COVID-19 are also more likely to support voting by mail,” says Lazer. “You can see a strong correlation in the data.”
The results were almost identical when people worried that a family member, not themselves, would get sick. 65 percent of people who were worried about a family member contracting COVID-19 supported voting by mail, while 43 percent of people who weren't worried did.
The influence that people's concern for their own well-being or that of a family member had on their support for postal voting transcended party politics.
“We see it beyond partisanship,” Lazer says. “Republicans most concerned about COVID-19 are also most supportive of mail-in voting.”
The researchers found that 82 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans who were concerned about their family's health supported voting by mail. The results show a slight increase from the baseline positions of Democrats and Republicans: Overall, 80 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans support such measures.
However, the results show that there is a clear partisan divide, and it persists when researchers probed respondents' ideological differences in alternative ways as well.
64 percent of US residents who said they trust their city government to handle the COVID-19 pandemic supported making it easier to vote by mail, compared to 46 percent of people who said they did not trust the government their.
But that trend reversed when he came to the White House.
Only 46 percent of people said they trust President Donald J. Trump, who has openly opposed Absentee voting supported voting by mail, while 73 percent of people who said they did not trust the president supported it.
But researchers found that measures to allow people to vote by mail could inspire more people to vote in November. They found that more than a third (36 percent) of adults surveyed would be more likely to vote if they had the option of voting for president by mail.
“You can see this nexus of concern about the health risks of in-person voting as something that would actually deter some people from voting,” Lazer says. “Our data suggests that voting by mail could enable some people to vote who otherwise wouldn't.”
For media inquiriescontact Shannon Nargi at s.nargi@northeastern.edu or 617-373-5718.
