Posted on 04/23/2023 4:50:36 PM PDT by DoodleBob
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a variety of changes in voting methods across the country in 2020, and the ways people could cast ballots varied widely from state to state.
Many states maintained traditional voting procedures, but some expanded early voting, and others automatically sent all registered voters a ballot that could be returned by mail.
New data from the Current Population Survey's November 2020 Voting and Registration Supplement released today show us in detail the ways voters cast their ballot at the national and state levels and allow us to compare voting methods and voter turnout across elections. Since these estimates are derived from survey responses, they differ from official reports from each state and estimates from other data sources.
In the 2020 election, 69% of voters nationwide cast their ballot nontraditionally — by mail and/or before Election Day. This is the highest rate of nontraditional voting for a presidential election (Figure 1) since questions regarding voting method have been included in the survey.
By comparison, about 40% of voters cast their ballots by mail and/or prior to Election Day in 2016.
Much of the surge in nontraditional voting was due to an increase in mail-in voting.
In 2020, 43% of voters cast ballots by mail and another 26% voted in person before Election Day. In 2016, 21% mailed in their ballots and 19% voted in person prior to Election Day.
Who Voted Using Nontraditional Methods?
The degree to which voters used nontraditional methods in the 2020 election varied across demographic groups by age, education, sex and race/ethnicity (Figure 2).
A larger share of voters age 65 and over voted nontraditionally (77.7%) than those in younger age groups (69.7% or less).
Those with a bachelor’s degree or higher also voted early or by mail at a higher rate (74.5%) than those with lower educational attainment (63.2% for high school graduates).
Women (71.2%) used nontraditional voting methods at a higher rate than men (67.4%).
Of the racial groups, the highest share of nontraditional voting was among Asian alone, non-Hispanic voters (82.4%).
Educational attainment appears to have played a greater role in White alone, non-Hispanic voters’ decision to cast their ballot in a nontraditional way in 2020 than in 2016 (Figure 3), an outcome not evident for other race and Hispanic origin groupings.
Among race and Hispanic groups, the growth in the gap in the use of nontraditional voting based on education was statistically significant only among the White alone, non-Hispanic population.
In 2016, among the White alone, non-Hispanic population, there was a 5.1 percentage-point gap in the use of nontraditional voting between those with less than a bachelor's degree (37.7%) and those with a bachelor's degree or more (42.8%). That gap grew to 9.4 percentage points in 2020: 63.4% of those with less than a bachelor's degree voted nontraditionally, compared with 72.8% of those with a bachelor's degree or higher.
How Voting Methods Varied by State
Use of nontraditional voting also varied across states. Map 1 displays nontraditional voting rates in the 2020 election at the state level.
In states such as Washington and Oregon, which have sent all registered voters a mail-in ballot for multiple electoral cycles, over 95% of voters cast their ballot by a nontraditional method.
Other states continued to rely on traditional voting methods. For example, only 15.1% of voters in Alabama and 18.5% in Mississippi cast ballots nontraditionally (the two percentages did not differ statistically).
Map 2 displays the change in estimated nontraditional voting rates by state from 2016 to 2020, reflecting the varying degree to which states adapted their voting procedures prior to the 2020 election.
Some states that relied heavily on nontraditional voting in 2016 continued to do so in 2020. For example, the nontraditional voting rate in Colorado was 90.4% in 2016, compared with 97.2% in 2020.
Other states that did not use nontraditional voting methods extensively in 2016 continued to make limited use of those methods in 2020. For example, in Oklahoma, 17.0% of voters cast ballots early or by mail in 2016, compared with 23.2% in 2020.
A third group of states saw large shifts in their use of nontraditional voting between 2016 and 2020. In New Jersey, for example, 7.9% of voters cast ballots early or by mail in 2016, compared with 92.3% in 2020, when all registered New Jersey voters received a ballot in the mail.
Record Turnout
In addition to changes in method of voting, the 2020 election saw among the highest levels of turnout recorded in recent elections. Is the use of nontraditional voting methods associated with the change in voter turnout?
As shown in Figure 4, people living in the quartile of states that used nontraditional voting methods at the highest rate in 2020 also saw a larger change in turnout between the 2016 and 2020 elections than that of people living in the remaining states.
Among those living in states that used nontraditional voting methods at the highest rate in 2020, turnout increased by 7.7 percentage points compared with the 2016 election. For example, in Hawaii, 97.6% of voters cast ballots early or by mail in 2020 and turnout increased by an estimated 17.0 percentage points.
The 2020 election will long be remembered for having taken place during a pandemic. As the above findings indicate, the methods of voting used by those casting a ballot were significantly different from prior elections, though the magnitude and nature of the changes varied from state to state.
We NEED Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona or some combo theirin.
I get it....the Dems don't play fair. But Mail-in balloting isn't going away.
I'm done hearing about fraud.
I'm done hearing about Dominion.
Leaders LEAD. If Trump or DeSantis cannot tell us how the f they're flipping these states, against a backdrop of mail-in ballotting that will be weaponized, they don't deserve the nomination.
Yeah we need a “plan” to do what dems have perfected - stealing elections
I’m sure we can set up our own drop-boxes at inner city McDonalds.
“Republicans need a plan”
They do. Here’s the plan: Adopt policies that meet the needs of Americans, close the Southern border using the Army and Marine Corps until a wall is built, excise tax on imports at 75%, remove the citizenship and deport employers who hire illegal aliens, renounce foreign wars on behalf of alien peoples, enforce the Civil Rights Act when whites are discriminated against or repeal it, or, dissolve the party.
That’s a plan.
Hannity and Ingraham have plenty of bright ideas on how to be like dems and just hack our election system... the same system their network helped FUBAR.l
Everyone needs to just ballot harvest now.
Unfortunately the only the real answer is ballot harvesting.
If Republicans win they need to make sure they push for secure elections as soon as they have any real power.
Welcome to TURD World America - where the best ballot harvesters win. Just have everyone in inner-cities paper their windows over and take weeks to count votes.
We’ll run America THAT way.
But then again, Doofle Bob is kind of a moron, and always has been.
Hey Doofle-Bob (half-wit/half-n00b), can we also get some Soros/Zuckerburg level funding, some ballot harvesting in nursing homes and soup kitchens?
The Republican party does not care. They don’t want Trump and so will allow all kinds of cheating. They’re long term goals are the same as Democrats. They play good cop/bad cop.
Six states will decide the election. Trump nor anyone else is doing anything about election fraud so we’ll lose again.
Republicans need a plan
FIX 2020.
True. They stole 2020. They will steal 2024. And people will act surprised.
The plan would be for Republicans to get daily reports during the voting month, and call, visit each address that shows as not voted and offer to bring it to the polling place. Especially in battleground states urban counties. I was a technical inspector in San Diego county.
The best thing the GOP can do is the same thing the Dung Beetles are going to do. Flood the postal system with banana ballots. Fight fire with fire.
“Trump nor anyone else is doing anything about election fraud so we’ll lose again.”
Make America Florida
Now THAT is an Americans First Constitutional platform that needs to be chiseled in stone and brought down from the mountaintop
My two cents
A MEGA party or Republican Party needs to do the following:
Creates a standard of measurement / a one of a kind voting coin in which a duplicate is held at a voting bank.
A voting coin which cannot be hacked or altered and fits into an inalterable precinct puzzle map, it is only redeemed and exchanged when one moves or dies.
Voting coins exceed the legal standard for identification and stands in opposition to disqualified voters.
Describe the voting coin as precious, as a symbol of freedom, which it is. Contrast self-government vs serfdom to the general public.
Organize the structure to store these coins in local voting banks where only registered republicans are identified with verified eligibility coins.
Add a pin number to the coin for verification purposes
Produce only Mega or republican ballots to prevent vote switching, these ballots will be matched or contrasted against the votes when counted a general election.
A mismatch would prove voter fraud if they were to disagree.
And make sure these voting banks are independent and controlled by those who vote. NOT THE ONES COUNTING THE VOTE
Thanks.
Instead of worrying about “Demonrats” and what awful things should be done to them, start to wonder why there isn’t a political party to deliver my platform, which would win every election 75-25.
Yuuup
That will be the next big thing. And the Dems will take total control.
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