With the sudden surge of interest in mail balloting because of the COVID-19 emergency, there’s also been some interest in questions about who tends to use mail ballots now and who would like to use mail ballots. Here is some basic demographics related to the question. Because there’s so much going on right now, I won’t provide much commentary, allowing the numbers to “speak for themselves,” which is rarely a good idea.
The tables here address the following questions:
1. Who voted by mail in the 2016 presidential election, by salient demographics (i.e., age, race, education, income, partisanship)?
2. Who supports expanded voting by mail?
3. How do people return mail ballots? CONT.
Charles Stewart III (MIT), Election Updates