Absentee ballots rose to popularity during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although absentee voting has its controversies, it ultimately makes voting more accessible. This accessibility encourages people to engage in one of the most sacred privileges of democracy.
The 2020 presidential election occurred during a historic pandemic. According to a study in the European Journal of Political Economy, pandemic precautions led to poll closures and reassignment, creating structural barriers to voting.
According to County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, structural barriers to civic participation especially impact voters in rural and underserved communities. With these obstacles, absentee voting shined for its simplicity and accessibility.
State governments altered absentee practices to improve voting accessibility. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, states revised absentee voting excuse requirements, included prepaid mailers for ballots and expanded absentee voting windows. Ohio utilized absentee voting to reduce wait times created by limited polling locations, according to the Ohio State Bar Association.
State governments began to backtrack on their pandemic-related changes to absentee voting following the pandemic. In 2023, Ohio passed House Bill 458, which created stricter voter identification requirements, reduced ballot drop boxes and shortened the window for absentee voting. The bill limited the accessibility of absentee voting for the sake of increasing security.
Opponents of absentee voting argue mail-in ballots lack security, leading to increased voter fraud. However, there is little evidence to support those claims. According to Fact Check, a project from the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, voter fraud is more likely to occur through mail-in voting but is still extremely rare. Between 2000 and 2012, there were only 491 cases of voter fraud by absentee ballot out of billions of votes cast during that period, according to Fact Check.
States also have procedures in place to mitigate the risks of voter fraud via absentee voting. States can track stolen or lost ballots, can require authorization signatures on the ballot envelope and require valid voter identification to receive absentee ballots, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
According to a 2020 study from the Pew Research Center, one in four Americans thought voter fraud was “a major problem” from mail-in voting, but this is in large part from exaggerated disinformation spread through political rhetoric. However, absentee voting is at the heart of our nation’s founding. The first occurrence of absentee voting was in December 1775, during the American Revolutionary War. When a group of soldiers appealed to their towns for absentee votes, the town allowed the soldiers to vote “as if the men were present themselves,” according to the Constitutional Accountability Center.
Absentee voting also has a longstanding legal precedent, dating back to state laws during the War of 1812, which allowed soldiers to vote absentee, according to the Smithsonian National Postal Museum.
The importance of voting is so profound that politicians fight to get on states' ballots – and off. In the 2024 presidential race, former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fought to get on North Carolina’s ballots, including absentee ballots. After he dropped out of the race and endorsed the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, he sued to have his name removed, according to the North Carolina Board of Elections.
Absentee ballots are vital to America’s most sacred democratic tradition: voting. Occurring as early as 1775, absentee voting provides voters the means of participating in elections when they cannot access polling locations. Absentee voting promotes civil participation, which is vital to the health of communities and democracy. Absentee voting provides voters an option to safely and conveniently vote when in-person voting is inaccessible.
Taylor Orcutt is a junior studying journalism. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Taylor know by tweeting her @TaylorOrcutt.
