In contrast to recent concerns that U.S. democracy is on the brink, in jeopardy, or under threat, a report released Tuesday finds it difficult to vote in 2024. This provides some good news for American voters who are worried that the
Simply put, new data shows that voting in America has gotten easier over the past two decades. More voters will be able to vote before Election Day, and most states in the U.S. now offer some form of early voting and mail-in voting to all voters.
“While we often talk about voter fraud and voter suppression and whether voters have access to their ballots in a partisan context, the reality is that over the past 25 years almost all Americans have lost the ability to vote. “There has been a significant improvement in performance,” he said. said David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), which authored the new report.
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The study was inspired by NPR’s request for historical data on voting access, and NPR was the first news organization to report the findings.
The data shows that despite serious efforts by some Republican-led parliament To limit access to the periphery, the trend in the United States since 2000 has been toward making voting easier, with nearly 97% of Americans of voting age now living in states where they can vote before Election Day. is.
“The lies about early voting, the lies about voting machines, and the efforts of some state legislatures to roll back some of the election integrity and convenience measures that have evolved over the past several decades. Almost all of them failed,” Becker said. “In almost every state, voters have the choice to vote when they want to vote.”
The report tallied that 46 states and Washington, D.C., offer some form of early voting, and 37 of those states also offer mail-in voting to all voters without needing an excuse.
The analysis focused on broad categories of how people can vote, but has been subject to partisan debates in recent years, including mailing ballots to all registered voters, how to return mail-in ballots, and ID requirements. The more specific voting policies that caused this were not considered. .
Chris Mann, research director at CEIR, said many people may be surprised to see the overall picture reflecting access because of other voting policies. In recent years, there has been a great deal of political focus.
Several political trends emerge in the data.For example, of the 14 states that do not offer mail-in voting to all voters, 12 are supported by Republicans.–led the legislature.
But perhaps the more striking trend is geographical. States in the Western United States have offered some form of early voting and mail-in voting to all voters since 2004, according to the data. And those states span the political spectrum, from conservative Idaho to liberal California.
“It’s really hard to talk about partisanship on this issue because historically it hasn’t been very partisan,” Mann said. “We’ve seen Republican legislatures, Democratic legislatures, Republican governors, Democratic governors support mail-in voting and early voting. Voters of both parties are using both methods. can be seen.”
In other regions of the country, such as the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, the coronavirus pandemic has necessitated reforms to increase voting access.
In 2020, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts all made changes to make voting more accessible that have since become partially or fully permanent. Delaware is currently embroiled in a legal battle over whether changes to early voting and mail-in voting can be implemented this election cycle.
The South has long lagged behind when it comes to voting access because of its history of slavery and Jim Crow laws. CEIR data shows that while some states have begun to gradually expand voter options, they generally remain the most difficult areas for voters to vote.
As options expand across the country, voters are also taking advantage of them.
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, in the 2000 election, 86% of voters cast their ballots at a polling place on Election Day.
In 2020 during the pandemic, that number fell to less than 31% of eligible voters. By 2022, it had returned to about half of eligible voters, but it was still consistent with a 20-year trend of increasing early voting.
It is a little unclear whether this trend will continue in 2024. Former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to demonize mail-in voting, at times imploring Republican voters to vote on or as close to Election Day as possible to avoid unsubstantiated claims. Tampering.
But in reality, having more voting options makes elections more secure and less susceptible to malicious activity and human error, Becker said.
“If there’s a problem, if there’s a cyber event, if there’s a breakdown, if there’s bad weather, if there’s a traffic jam, if there’s a power outage, all kinds of situations can happen. “The more spread out across multiple modes over several days, the less likely it is to influence voters,” he said.
Yet tens of millions of voters in the United States do not cast a ballot in every federal election, even in states where voters have many choices in how they vote. Even in the 2020 election, which had the highest voter turnout in modern history, approximately one-third of eligible Americans did not vote.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber has increasingly said this is not a reflection of the difficulty of voting, but of people not feeling empowered or motivated by the system. Election experts generally agree that efforts to delegitimize election results are more worrying than efforts to actually prevent people from voting in 2024.
“I think we’ve done everything humanly possible to allow people to vote,” Weber said. ”[In California] Your ballot will be mailed to your home. No stamp required. If you have lost it, please call us and we will send it again. If you go to a voting center, you can get a new ballot and vote on the spot. ”
Still, the state ranks near the bottom of the nation in terms of turnout.
“What we need to do now is make sure people understand that whether a candidate wins or loses, their vote matters,” she says. ”[You’re] Voting for yourself is essentially about having the dignity of having your issues considered, and whether you win or lose, people will listen to you and listen to your opinions. It will be given to you. ”
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