Why I Vote in Person on Election Day But Shouldn't Have To
Today is Election Day. If I lived in a state in which elections are conducted primarily by mail, I almost certainly would have mailed in my ballot rather than attempted to vote in person. New York State is not such a state, although I have sometimes sought, received, and returned an absentee ballot. Effective a couple of years ago, New York has both absentee ballots--for which an excuse is required--and "Early mail" voting--for which no excuse is required. For either, one must request a mail-in ballot. Unlike some states, New York does not simply mail every registered voter a mail-in ballot. New York also has early in-person voting.
If I lived in a district in which one can expect long lines at the polls, I certainly would have voted early. However, in the 18+ years I've lived in Ithaca, I've never had to wait more than a minute or two to vote at my local polling place (sometimes an elementary school, this year the lobby of a retirement home). And because there are more polling places open on Election Day than for early voting, it's actually more convenient for me to vote on Election Day.
Moreover, voting on Election Day creates a sense of civic participation and community. I'm not saying there's anything wrong, unpatriotic, or less satisfying of one's civic obligation in voting by mail or early. I am saying that there is something of a valuable secular ritual in voting on Election Day in a jurisdiction in which there are no obstacles to doing so.
Donald Trump's years-long attack on voting by mail is cynical (and hypocritical, given that he himself votes by mail). During the COVID pandemic, more Democrats were likely to vote by mail than Republicans were (because Democrats were more likely to worry about becoming infected), so Trump attacked voting by mail as a means of undercutting Democratic voting. He persists in the attacks because he continues to perceive partisan advantage.
It is possible for motivated actors to promote a policy for one set of reasons while appealing for support based some other set of reasons. I suspect that is part of what's going on with respect to mail-in voting. To be sure, some number of rank-and-file Trumpists and other Republicans oppose voting by mail (except for members of the military and perhaps other constituencies likely to vote Republican) for the same reason that Trump and party leaders do: they think such restrictions will suppress Democratic votes. Some other Trumpists and Republicans may oppose mail-in voting because that is simply the position that they have been told is the view of their team. They thought cryptocurrency was a scam when Trump said it was a scam; now that he's all in on crypto, they support it too. For this group, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
But I also suspect there are some people to whom the anti-vote-by-mail position appeals on the merits. Some of these people might buy the anti-fraud argument, which is terribly weak but only as an empirical matter. In principle, it does seem like it would be easier to vote illegally or fraudulently via mail than in person. But in fact there's no evidence that mail-in voting increases the very low risk of individual-level voter fraud. And that's almost certainly because, no matter whether it's done by mail or in person, individual-level voter fraud is just an incredibly stupid way to try to steal an election. It requires coordination among numerous individuals, each of whom risks felony prosecution for their actions.
However, I wonder whether there might be a further appeal to the attack on voting by mail. Although people have long accepted the notion of absentee voting, in the minds of many, the paradigmatic act of voting involves pulling a lever or filling out a ballot on Election Day--just as it does for me. For these people, when Trump or someone else attacks mail-in voting, they may hear an appeal to tradition or civic virtue. Even if they don't think that mail-in voting is likely to lead to any appreciable voter fraud, they may nonetheless regard it as detracting from a civic obligation, as if people who vote by mail (absent a good excuse of the sort that would traditionally have qualified them for an absentee ballot) are shirking in the same way as someone might shirk jury duty.
That comparison is by no means chosen at random. Traditionally, the right to serve on a jury and the right to vote were both seen as core political rights, both unusual in our constitutional scheme in that they were restricted to citizens.
None of that is to say that states should not make voting by mail (or early voting) an easy option. Nor is it in any way to excuse President Trump's cynical attack on mail-in voting and just about every other element of constitutional democracy insofar as it produces results he dislikes. As the mailer I received from the New York Democratic Senate Campaign Committee (reproduced here) notes, "voting by mail is a safe, legal option in New York."
As well it should be. My flexible schedule and the fact that I'm lucky enough to live in a place with very short lines at the polls makes it easy for me to vote in-person on Election Day. But many people have work or family obligations, physical challenges, or other reasons why getting to a polling place either on Election Day or on an early-voting day is not practical. There is no reason why they should not be able to participate in the civic exercise of voting via the mail.
-- Michael C. Dorf