Universal voting-by-mail increases voter turnout for both major US parties

In recent years, voting by mail has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and attacks that often claim the process gives Democratic nominees and legislative bills an edge. But a recent Caltech study shows that sending ballots to all registered voters boosts turnout for both major parties. Co-authors R. Michael Alvarez, Caltech's Flintridge Foundation Professor of Political and Computational Social Science and co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, and Yimeng Li (Ph.D. '22), a former graduate student in Alvarez's group, outlined their findings in a paper published in the Journal of Politics.