(Press-News.org) PULLMAN, Wash. – A more efficient U.S. Postal Service can increase voter turnout in all states regardless of their mail voting laws, according to a Washington State University study.
WSU researcher Michael Ritter analyzed election data from 2012 through 2020, when the pandemic encouraged many more people than usual to vote by mail. He found that in general more accessible mail voting laws, such as universal mail-in voting and no-excuse mail voting, increased the probability that individuals would vote. Restrictive laws, such as requiring a witness’s signature or identification for mail-in ballots, had a negative effect.
Faster postal service helped increase the likelihood of voting especially in those restrictive states – raising the probability individuals would vote by 3.42%.
“Across the board, this study shows that having better postal administration makes it more likely there will be more positive voter turnout outcomes linked to all mail voting laws,” said Ritter, lead author of the study published in the Election Law Journal. “But in states that have the most restrictive mail voting laws, having better postal administration makes a huge difference – it may not seem huge, but for individuals who sometimes are on the fence about voting by mail or not voting at all, it can tip the balance.”
For this study, Ritter created models to estimate the probability whether individuals would become voters in the 2018 and 2020 elections in connection to mail voting laws and postal service efficiency. He drew on data from midterm and presidential elections from 2012-2020, the mail voting laws of each state and the efficiency of local postal services based on their average, on-time, first class mail delivery, which can vary by zip code.
Mail delivery speed can determine whether a ballot arrives in time to be counted, Ritter said. Other research has indicated that a “non-trivial” number of mail ballots were not counted during the 2020 election because they were not delivered in time.
This study found that in states with the most restrictive mail voting laws, such as Alabama, the probability an individual would vote was 62%. This was lower than in states with universal all-mail voting, like Washington, Oregon, Utah and Colorado, where the probability of a person becoming a voter in 2018 and 2020 was 70%. For the 33 states with no-excuse absentee laws, meaning voters can request a mail-in ballot for any reason, the probability was 65%.
In addition, so-called “cure” laws pushed voter probability higher, increasing it by as much as 3.2%. These laws mean officials will contact voters if there are problems with their mail-in ballot, such as a missing signature, giving voters a chance to correct it and have their vote counted.
Postal efficiency was particularly disrupted in 2020 with the pandemic causing huge numbers of people to vote by mail while the postmaster general at the time was reducing the numbers of postal processing machines. Then-President Trump also falsely warned that mail-in voting was rife with fraud. Ritter noted that many studies have shown that voter fraud of any kind in the U.S. is very rare.
Even with the pandemic officially over and a new administration in office, disputes over mail-in voting are likely to continue, Ritter said, making evaluation of the postal administration’s role in elections even more important.
“Mail voting is very popular for the elderly, the disabled and even for individuals who just simply want more convenience to cast a ballot,” he said. “My research and research from others in the field have indicated that mail voting is a key driver of higher turnout, so it will likely continue to be very pivotal in the 2024 election.”
END
Faster postal service linked to better voter turnout
2023-09-05
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Scientists synthesize new organometallic “sandwich” compound capable of holding more electrons
2023-09-05
Organometallic compounds, molecules made up of metal atoms and organic molecules, are often used to accelerate chemical reactions and have played a significant role in advancing the field of chemistry.
Metallocenes, a type of organometallic compound, are known for their versatility and special "sandwich" structure. Their discovery was a significant contribution to the field of organometallic chemistry and led to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1973 to the scientists who discovered and explained their sandwich structure.
The ...
Study confirms it: Opposites don't actually attract
2023-09-05
Opposites don’t actually attract.
That’s the takeaway from a sweeping CU Boulder analysis of more than 130 traits and including millions of couples over more than a century.
“Our findings demonstrate that birds of a feather are indeed more likely to flock together,” said first author Tanya Horwitz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG).
The study, published Aug. 31 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, confirms what individual studies have hinted at for decades, defying the age-old adage that “opposites ...
Poor water quality disproportionately affects socially vulnerable communities
2023-09-05
A new study published in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters examines the links between drinking water quality violations and social vulnerability in the United States, revealing that these violations disproportionately affect the most vulnerable communities. Approximately 70% of the population affected ranked in the highest social vulnerability category, with many different social parameters, beyond income, linked to different drinking water quality violations.
The study, led by researchers from the Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas in Austin, used new water quality data ...
Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on emergency department use in British Columbia
2023-09-05
A new study showing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigation strategies used to manage the virus on emergency department (ED) visits in British Columbia can help with future planning. The study is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.221516.
"Evaluation of the effects of the pandemic and associated measures can provide a historical account and inform health care service planning for both postpandemic recovery and mitigation of potential consequences ...
THE LANCET PLANETARY HEALTH: Experts warn 'green growth' in high income countries is not happening, call for 'post-growth' climate policies to meet Paris targets
2023-09-05
Peer-reviewed / Empirical study
New study challenges political claims that some high-income countries have achieved “green growth”– revealing that under current growth-oriented strategies, emission reductions in these nations fall drastically short of meeting the climate goals and fairness requirements of the Paris Agreement.
If current trends continue, even the 11 high-income countries that have "decoupled" carbon emissions from GDP growth would on average take over 200 years to get their emissions close to zero, and would emit more than 27-times their fair share of the “global carbon budget” ...
Pharmacy discount card programs like Amazon Prime and GoodRx gold could save patients millions of dollars in out-of-pocket costs for commonly prescribed generic medications
2023-09-04
Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 04 September 2023
Annals of Internal Medicine Tip Sheet
@Annalsofim
Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.
----------------------------
1. New ACP paper addresses ethical issues in determining death; recommends clarification to the Uniform Determination ...
Farms that create habitat key to food security and biodiversity
2023-09-04
It seems intuitive that forests would provide better habitat for forest-dwelling wildlife than farms. Yet, in one of the longest-running studies of tropical wildlife populations in the world, Stanford researchers found that over 18 years, smaller farms with varying crop types – interspersed with patches or ribbons of forest – sustain many forest-dependent bird populations in Costa Rica, even as populations decline in forests.
In a paper published Sept. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nicholas Hendershot and colleagues ...
The art of wandering in vertebrates: new mapping of neurons involved in locomotion
2023-09-04
For those fortunate enough to walk normally, wandering is such an expected behavior that we hardly consider that it involves complex, partly involuntary processes. “Animals move to explore their environment in search of food, interaction with others, or simply out of curiosity. But the perception of danger or a painful stimulus can also activate an automatic flight reflex”, Martin Carbo-Tano, a post-doctoral fellow at Paris Brain Institute, explains. In both cases, movement initiation relies on the activation of so-called reticulospinal control neurons, which form an intertwined network in ...
Most species are rare. But not very rare
2023-09-04
Halle/Saale, Fort Lauderdale. More than 100 years of observations in nature have revealed a universal pattern of species abundances: Most species are rare but not very rare, and only a few species are very common. These so-called global species abundance distributions have become fully unveiled for some well-monitored species groups, such as birds. For other species groups, such as insects, however, the veil remains partially unlifted. These are the findings of an international team of researchers led by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg ...
Extreme El Niño weather saw South America’s forest carbon sink switch off
2023-09-04
Extreme El Niño weather saw South America’s forest carbon sink switch off
Hot and dry conditions resulted in increased tree death
Evidence that most forest areas withstand periods of severe drought
Greatest impact in forests with drier climates
Tropical forests in South America lose their ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere when conditions become exceptionally hot and dry, according to new research.
For a long time, tropical forests have acted as a carbon sink, taking more ...