The Vote-by-Mail Switcheroo.

• Date: 01 November 2022
• Author: Glastris, Paul

It's hard to imagine, given the right wing's freak-out about vote by mail, but when the Washington Monthly first championed the idea a decade ago, the biggest pushback we got was from the left. Democratic operatives assumed that mailing every registered voter a ballot would advantage the GOP because most voters who utilized absentee ballots were right-leaning. Republicans were not full-throated fans of the idea, but neither were they hostile. Quite a few red states in the 2000s and 2010s made mail voting easier.

Beginning in 2012, the Monthly published a series of stories--many by contributing editor Phil Keisling, who pioneered vote by mail as Oregon secretary of state--to persuade progressives that their worries were misplaced. Vote by mail, we argued, not only boosts overall turnout, which is good for democracy generally; it does so disproportionately among low-propensity voters, especially young ones, whom Democrats most need to mobilize. And while there are plenty of low-propensity white working-class Republican voters, too--which is why studies show that vote by mail doesn't advantage one party over another--it...