Scaling-up voting by mail for the 2020 elections

When there are big changes in elections, they sometimes come with years of careful planning, public discussion, and voter outreach. And then there is this year. Faced with the challenge of running safe elections in the uncertainty of a pandemic, election officials are pulling off a move to running a vote-by-mail election in a few months – or even a few weeks. 

A little help from your design friends

Scaling up voting by mail is a work in progress for everyone. For some election offices, moving to voting by mail is a big change for voters and election procedures. For others, the challenge is handling an increased use of an already-popular voting option.

Our mission is to help election officials make it easier for everyone to vote.  We worked to design all the materials for voting at home so it’s easy and accurate to cast a mail-in ballot.  

Now we are gathering great samples from elections offices around the county and we’re turning them into templates for envelopes, instructional inserts, forms, and voter outreach, so you don’t have to start from a blank page.

We are also writing guides to some of the difficult design problems like making sure that your ballot packages have everything the US Postal Service needs to get them to voters and back to your office. 

You can find them all on our tool kit of designs for scaling up vote by mail.

And we’re here to help, with advice or a quick review as you work. 

Asking the right questions

The first step in moving to an all-mail election or significantly increasing the use of vote-at-home ballots is to consider all the decisions and policies that will define the election. The answers to these 7 questions will help you assess the work ahead of you:

  • What is your starting point? How many people already vote from home?  If that percentage is low, you’ll need great voter outreach and education along with scaling up procedures that are designed for small numbers of mail-in ballots.
  • Who gets a mail-in ballot? Do voters have to request one, or will everyone get a ballot in the mail automatically? Either way, you’ll need forms and a system for managing the process.
  • How are ballots sent to voters? Do you put the ballot packages together in your office, or do you have printing and mailing vendor partners who can help you manage the new volume and make sure the post office can deliver all those ballots?
  • How are ballots returned? In all-mail states, over 70% of voters drop off their ballots rather than mail them. Without neighborhood polling places, can you set up drop boxes or other places for voters to return their ballots safely?
  • What are the options for in-person voting? Even all-mail elections need a way for some people to vote in person. How will you help voters with disabilities and others who need support? Will you have an option for accessible ballot marking?
  • When are ballots opened? Will you be able to process ballots as soon as they are returned – or at least a few days before Election Day? This is not only a head start on having ballots ready to count, it also allows more time for voters to fix a missing signature or other problems.
  • How do voters know they voted? At a polling place, voters can see their ballots get cast. For vote by mail, a good tracking system lets voters know when their ballot is mailed to them, when it’s received, and when it’s actually counted. You can even put an ‘I Voted’ sticker in the ballot package.

Resources

Scaling Up in 2020: CCD’s guide to the decisions and policies needed to support the implementation of mail-in ballots for the 2020 elections. Includes the starting questions. 

Tool kit of designs for scaling up vote by mail: Templates for envelopes, instructional inserts, forms, and voter outreach

In addition to the vote-by-mail tool kit, you might find these resources on our site helpful:

And all the wonderful resources from our friends at the Elections Assistance Commission and Vote at Home Institute

This was originally published in our Civic Designing newsletter. Subscribe on Mailchimp to get election design tips delivered to your mailbox.