Almost 30,000 Lake County voters cast absentee ballots in the June 2020 primary. (Joe Puchek / Post-Tribune)
Between the current need to stay at home and President Donald Trump sharing misinformation around voting by mail, voters can be rightfully confused about how to cast their ballot in November, political science professors have said.
But multiple studies have found that there is little to no risk of voter fraud when voting by mail and that voting by mail does not benefit one political party over another, political scientists have said. In fact, studies have shown that voting by mail is safe and increases voter turnout, particularly when there are fewer barriers in place to vote by mail, according to political scientists.
“There are no polling places. People just get their ballot in the mail and they send it back by the mail,” said Marjorie Hershey, a professor emerita of political science at Indiana University Bloomington. “One of those states is Republican led, Utah, so this isn’t entirely a partisan matter.”
“In fact, political scientists have been studying voting behavior and voting turnout literally for a century now. We’ve done a lot of statistical examinations and have found zero partisan advantage for either party in voting by mail,” Hershey said.
Since the pandemic began, officials in California, the District of Columbia and Vermont have adjusted state statutes to allow for voters to receive ballots in the mail automatically, according to research gathered by The Brookings Institution.
Most states allow for no-excuse absentee voting, meaning registered voters have to request an absentee ballot and receive one in the mail, Hershey said. Indiana is among a small number of states that require a voter to “fit a category” to vote by mail, she said.
“But the categories are pretty general and there are several that would apply to people who are worried that if they go to the polls they might catch (the virus),” Hershey said.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the state removed the requirement that an excuse was needed to cast an absentee ballot through the mail, but voters still had to request and return an application to vote by mail.
The Indiana Election Commission on Friday decided to not adjust voting guidelines at this time even as positive COVID-19 cases have topped 1,000 a day frequently in the last couple of weeks.
Vice Chairman Anthony Long said the commission should consider no-excuse voting rules the commission adopted in the primary to be applied to the general election.
“We’re not on the down swing of (the pandemic),” Long said. “People should not have to make a choice between their health and casting their vote.”
Commissioner Zach Klutz said he doesn’t support adding the no-excuse vote by mail rules for the general election because the commission approved the rules for the primary election while the state was under a stay-at-home order and it wasn’t clear initially how long that would last.
Ultimately, the commission did not approve extending the vote-by-mail rules for the general election.
The difference between absentee voting and voting by mail is effort, Hershey said. The procedure is the same: A voter gets a ballot in the mail, fills the ballot out and sends it back through the mail, but with absentee voting a voter has to request to receive the ballot in the mail, she said.
Research has shown that the more steps a voter has to take to vote by mail the less likely a voter is to vote by mail, Hershey said. Because voting doesn’t offer a reward other than feeling accomplished for completing a civic duty, the more a voter has to do to vote the less likely they are to vote, she said.
“Every single thing, just about, that you can do to make it less onerous to vote increases the vote, sometimes by a lot sometimes by a little,” said Gerald Wright, political science professor at Indiana University Bloomington.
Countless studies have found that there is little to no evidence of fraud around voting by mail, Hershey said. While it is true there have been a few reports of fraudulent mail-in ballots, studies have proven those are the exception, not the rule, said Elizabeth Bennion, political science professor at Indiana University South Bend.
For example, a recent study reviewed mail-in ballots over a 10 year period and found that out of 2 billion ballots sent through the mail there were 142 incidents of fraud, Hershey said.
“These numbers are so small as to be insignificant,” Hershey said.
The most common form of mail-in ballot fraud is when the director of some kind of group home, like a nursing home, collects the ballots, fills them out and sends them back, Hershey said. But, with safeguards like bar codes and required signatures it is virtually impossible for someone to vote multiple times or submit a false ballot, she said.
Election officials and voting organizations have to work toward educating the public about voting by mail so that their ballots aren’t rejected, which can happen, Bennion said. When voting by mail, specifically in Indiana, signatures on the ballot application and ballot envelope have to match for the ballot to count, she said.
While in some households one family member may sign all documents and forms, like a check of a joint account, voting by mail does not work that way, Bennion said. Or, Bennion said voters may not want to sign the ballot because they want to have a secret ballot, and then their ballot is rejected.
Bennion said that signatures change overtime, which impacts senior citizens and people with disabilities. But, election officials have to grapple with having a bar code on mail in ballots and some sort of signature verification to ensure the right person is casting their own ballot, she said.
The way to address this is educating the public on the importance of signing their own ballots and voting applications, she said.
“There needs to be much more public education because the issue of signing that envelope and having only the voter sign the envelope is critical for people to understand,” Bennion said. “(Bar codes and signatures) are necessary if you’re going to maintain both access to the polls and election integrity and security.”
A public misconception, advanced by Trump, is that those who vote by mail tend to be Democrats. But, research and data prove otherwise, Wright said.
If everyone received a ballot in the mail, that means everyone, including the poor or less educated, have a chance to vote, Hershey said. In the past, the poorer or less educated tended to vote for Democrats, but that has been shifting in recent years, she said.
Particularity, since the Ronald Reagan’s administration, those with less education tend to vote for Republicans, Hershey said. Trump received “a substantial advantage in voting by people who do not have a college degree” in the previous election, she said.
“But because people misperceive that Democrats are more likely to vote only when it is easier to do so, that’s what causes the political battles,” Hershey said.
Republican state chairs must be “pulling their hair out” over Trump’s vote by mail Tweets, Hershey said. Polls have shown that “pretty small percentages” of Republicans say they will vote by mail in November.
“If they think that voting by mail is a really bad thing to do, then everything comes down to their being healthy and free to take the time to vote on election day or in person early voting. If, God forbid, they were to get sick around that time and they are determined not to vote by mail, the Republicans lose a vote,” Hershey said.
Since Republicans do tend to be older voters, they risk exposing themselves to the virus if they vote in person, Hershey said. If they don’t vote by mail because of misinformation, they have to vote in person, she said.
“It’s really suicidal for the president to be suggesting to those people, ‘It’s terrible for you to cast a vote by mail. Don’t do that,‘” Hershey said.
The long-term impact of Trump making claims that voting by mail or the system “is rigged” is that people will lose confidence in the democratic process, Wright said.
“If they don’t have confidence in the procedures, then two things happen: They don’t participate and when there is an outcome they don’t believe it is legitimate,” Wright said. “It’s very unhealthy. I think that’s the biggest danger of the president’s rhetoric right now.”
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