Vote-by-mail Ballot Rejection and Experience with Mail-in Voting

• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211022626
• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Date: 01 November 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X211022626

American Politics Research

2021, Vol. 49(6) 577 –590

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X211022626

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Article

Introduction

Americans have choices as to how they vote, either with in-

person or mail ballots.1 While in-person voting has histori-

cally been the modal method of ballot casting in general

elections (U.S. Election Assistance Commission, 2019), in

the 2020 General Election millions of American voters who

normally would have voted in-person instead cast vote-by-

mail (VBM) ballots. The November 2020 election saw

roughly 65.6 million VBM ballots cast across the 50 states

and the District of Columbia.2 The explosion of VBM voting

in the 2020 election, held in the midst of the worst public

health crisis in the United States since the Spanish Flu, con-

tinued record shifts from in-person to mail-in voting observed

in state primaries that took place in the spring and summer of

2020 (Curiel & Dagonel, 2020; Hood & Haynes, 2020).3

Although unusually prominent in November 2020, VBM

voting was used by millions of Americans prior to the onset

of the COVID-19 pandemic, with roughly 24 million

Americans voting by mail in the 2016 General Election.4

Unlike ballots cast by voters in-person at a polling site,

VBM ballots are subject to being rejected by elections offi-

cials after they are cast. The most common reasons for VBM

ballot rejection are (1) lateness and (2) a signature defect on

a ballot’s return envelope.5 Rejected VBM ballots do not

count and thus represent lost opportunities—and possibly

lost voting rights—for individuals to make their voices

heard.

We explore the relationship between VBM ballot rejec-

tion and the extent to which a voter has prior experience vot-

ing via mail. Specifically, we are interested in whether a lack

of familiarity with the rules associated with correctly filling

out and submitting a mail ballot increases the odds of a voter

casting a VBM ballot that ends up being rejected. In particu-

lar, our aim is to characterize the marginal effect of a voter’s

prior electoral experience on the probability of VBM ballot

rejection, holding voter characteristics constant. While mail

voting as of late has received significant attention in the lit-

erature on American elections, our focus on the role of

experience in ballot rejection differentiates our analysis from

(1) studies that are primarily interested in the demographic

correlates of voters who cast rejected VBM ballots, and

(2) examinations of whether expanded opportunities to vote

by mail shape turnout and/or partisan election outcomes.

We are not the first scholars to assess the relationship

between experience and participation in elections. Studies

have probed the extent to which voting begets voting, show-

ing that some voters become habituated to casting ballots

1022626APRXXX10.1177/1532673X211022626American Politics ResearchCottrell et al.

research-article2021

1University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

2Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

3University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael C. Herron, Dartmouth College, 6108 Silsby Hall, Hanover, NH

03755, USA.

Email: michael.c.herron@dartmouth.edu

Vote-by-mail Ballot Rejection and

Experience with Mail-in Voting

David Cottrell1, Michael C. Herron2,

and Daniel A. Smith3

Abstract

Although most ballots in the United States have historically been cast in-person, Americans are increasingly voting by mail,

a trend that accelerated in the 2020 General Election. Mail ballots can be rejected after being cast, and our analysis of the

Florida general elections of 2016, 2018, and 2020 shows that voters inexperienced with mail voting disproportionately

submit ballots that end up rejected due to (1) late arrival at elections offices or (2) signature defects on return envelopes.

Inexperienced mail voters are up to three times more likely to have their ballots rejected compared to experienced mail

voters, and this inexperience penalty varies by a voter’s party registration, race/ethnicity, and age. Our findings hold when

controlling for additional voter characteristics and geographical fixed effects. The effect of inexperience on the likelihood of

vote-by-mail ballot rejection risks exacerbating existing inequities in political representation already faced by younger and

racial/ethnic minority voters.

Keywords

absentee voting, election administration, ballot rejection, voter experience