Anxieties of voting by mail in 2020
In the chaos of the 2020 election, this research aimed to understand how voters and communities with lower turnout made the decision of whether or not to vote by mail. We wanted to know how voters in these communities navigated the uncertainty of the pandemic, escalating misinformation campaigns, fears of intimidation, and mixed messages about the process of voting. We learned that for many voters, witnessing their vote count took precedence over health concerns and despite the challenges voters cast their ballots in record numbers.
Anxieties of voting-by-mail in 2020: Contending with the past, the pandemic, and the political climate
Key findings
The COVID context directly and indirectly shaped time, capacity, and tolerance for election-related changes and uncertainty for nearly every participant. In a general climate of reluctance, mistrust, and aversion to using VBM, some participants did vote by mail, often citing insurmountable safety concerns to voting in person
Key insights from this research show the challenges voters and voter outreach organizations faced in the 2020 election. The rapid introduction of voting by mail in the context of the pandemic was affected by a legacy of structural barriers to voting that compounded the challenges of rule changes and closures of voting locations for city residents.
- The most significant and consistent concern about voting by mail was the desire for tracking and final confirmation that a ballot had arrived and was counted.
- Participants conducted endless mental gymnastics in trying to account for and mitigate all scenarios in which ballots might get lost, sabotaged, or disqualified.
- News and social media stories about mail-in ballots, whether real, rumor, or speculation, reinforced many of the hesitations and concerns about voting by mail.
- Racialized histories of voter disenfranchisement, intimidation, and suppression raised concerns of violence and whether votes would count.
- Legacies of personal experiences with government-enabled exclusion, neglect, mistreatment, or criminalization of communities of color reinforced doubts about voting by mail when it was linked with fraud in political reports.
- Community organizations filled information gaps. They focused on rapid-response communications for several months as information needs and anxieties rose as Election Day approached.
- These organizations struggled to adapt to the abrupt shift to digital operations, which upended traditional social and organizational support roles.
- Community organizations also faced a dual challenge of maintaining community trust and vetting their messages for accuracy amidst continuous confusion and misinformation.
Despite the challenges, voters in our study were able to choose how they wanted to cast their ballot and did so in record numbers. However, a change in policy alone cannot undo the past. Options for voting must increase voter access in a way that meets the needs of each community, with careful attention to voter preferences and how details of new policy is communiced. Vote by mail should be designed to be trusted, convenient and familiar.
About the research
This research was conducted by Anna Levy, Fernando Sánchez and Asher Kolieboi.
Between August and November 2020, we held a series of conversations with 17 residents and 21 community representatives in four cities—Baltimore, Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia. We held two types of qualitative interviews: group listening sessions with community organizations and oral history-style interviews with individual voters.
Related resources
Visit our page on vote by mail to find more resources and tools on designing vote by mail materials.