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Universal vote-by-mail has no impact on partisan turnout or vote share.

ABSTRACT: In response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many scholars and policy makers are urging the United States to expand voting-by-mail programs to safeguard the electoral process. What are the effects of vote-by-mail? In this paper, we provide a comprehensive design-based analysis of the effect of universal vote-by-mail-a policy under which every voter is mailed a ballot in advance of the election-on electoral outcomes. We collect data from 1996 to 2018 on all three US states that implemented universal vote-by-mail in a staggered fashion across counties, allowing us to use a difference-in-differences design at the county level to estimate causal effects. We find that 1) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to affect either party's share of turnout, 2) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to increase either party's vote share, and 3) universal vote-by-mail modestly increases overall average turnout rates, in line with previous estimates. All three conclusions support the conventional wisdom of election administration experts and contradict many popular claims in the media.

SUBMITTER: Thompson DM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7322007 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Universal vote-by-mail has no impact on partisan turnout or vote share.

Thompson Daniel M DM Wu Jennifer A JA Yoder Jesse J Hall Andrew B AB

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200609 25

In response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many scholars and policy makers are urging the United States to expand voting-by-mail programs to safeguard the electoral process. What are the effects of vote-by-mail? In this paper, we provide a comprehensive design-based analysis of the effect of universal vote-by-mail-a policy under which every voter is mailed a ballot in advance of the election-on electoral outcomes. We collect data from 1996 to 2018 on all three US states that implemented ...[more]

PMID: 32518108

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Project description:ObjectiveIn 2001, Thailand implemented the Universal Coverage Scheme (UCS), a public insurance system that aimed to achieve universal access to healthcare, including essential medicines, and to influence primary care centres and hospitals to use resources efficiently, via capitated payment for outpatient services and other payment policies for inpatient care. Our objective was to evaluate the impact of the UCS on utilisation of medicines in Thailand for three non-communicable diseases: cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.DesignInterrupted time-series design, with a non-equivalent comparison group.SettingThailand, 1998-2006.DataQuarterly purchases of medicines from hospital and retail pharmacies collected by IMS Health between 1998 and 2006.InterventionUCS implementation, April-October 2001.Outcome measuresTotal pharmaceutical sales volume and percent market share by licensing status and National Essential Medicine List status.ResultsThe UCS was associated with long-term increases in sales of medicines for conditions that are typically treated in outpatient primary care settings, such as diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, but not for medicines for diseases that are typically treated in secondary or tertiary care settings, such as heart failure, arrhythmias and cancer. Although the majority of increases in sales were for essential medicines, there were also postpolicy increases in sales of non-essential medicines. Immediately following the reform, there was a significant shift in hospital sector market share by licensing status for most classes of medicines. Government-produced products often replaced branded generic or generic competitors.ConclusionsOur results suggest that expanding health insurance coverage with a medicine benefit to the entire Thai population increased access to medicines in primary care. However, our study also suggests that the UCS may have had potentially undesirable effects. Evaluations of the long-term impacts of universal health coverage on medicine utilisation are urgently needed.

Dataset Information

Universal vote-by-mail has no impact on partisan turnout or vote share.

Publications

Universal vote-by-mail has no impact on partisan turnout or vote share.

Similar Datasets

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