Democrats' Retreat from Mail-In Voting Is a Sign the COVID Fever Is Finally Breaking
The party that built its entire 2020 strategy around mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting sees its voters sour on the idea.
Most of the leftist excesses of COVID-19 have fallen by the wayside, and mail-in voting is no exception. With the pandemic's politics fading from view, more voters are choosing to vote the old-fashioned way—in person, at a polling booth.
For half a decade, the Democratic Party treated mail-in voting as sacred. It met any suggestion that elections require a trip to the polls as an attempt to kill grandma with COVID-19 or disenfranchise car-less widows. Even reasonable requests, like ballots that include a voter's driver's license or Social Security number, Democrats have attacked as an attempt to suppress minorities and the poor.
But as with forced masking, lockdowns, vaccine requirements, and remote learning, this too doth pass.
In 2020, about 46 percent of voters cast ballots by mail. This included 58 percent of Democrats and 33 percent of Republicans, according to Pew Research Center's study of validated voters. That pattern has faded. A new NBC News poll finds that 69 percent of registered voters now plan to vote in person and only 21 percent plan to vote by mail.
The poll shows that among Democrats, 72 percent plan to vote in person—split evenly between early voting and Election Day. Only 23 percent plan to vote by mail, down from 34 percent two years ago and far below 2020 levels. Five percent are unsure if they will vote at all.
Independents are moving the same way. Twenty-eight percent plan to vote early in person, up six points from 2024, and 20 percent plan to vote by mail, down from 28 percent in 2024.
Republicans recovered from COVID-19 brainrot by 2024 and are the only group that shows no change in its voting pattern since then. Over half plan to vote in person on Election Day, and 16 percent plan to vote by mail.
Republicans Can Speed Up the Slow Death of Mail-In Voting
There are inherent risks to mail-in voting. Depending on the state, these include automatic registration, chain-of-custody challenges, delayed counts, and—often fraudulent—ballot harvesting. Those who recognize these risks understand the surest way to reduce the possibility of fraud is to restrict mail-in voting as much as possible. It would be preferable for Congress to lock in the way most states handled it before COVID-19: needs-based absentee voting.
The House of Representatives passed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote by mail. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) introduced an amendment to that bill that would restrict mail-in voting to needs-based cases, such as for military members, the sick, and those traveling out of state during the election cycle. However, the bill currently languishes in the Senate due to a lack of Republican support.
Democrats sold mail-in voting on a massive scale in 2020 to a frightened public under the banner of public health. They quickly found they liked the electoral edge that came with it, so they made it a permanent demand. Meanwhile, a compliant press insisted that any voter who wanted to cast a ballot in person the old-fashioned way was endangering his neighbors. Americans accepted this the same way they accepted school closures, mask mandates for toddlers, and vaccine passports for restaurants.
The mass psychosis that led to this obedience has given way since that infamous year. Mail-in voting is simply the last to go. As the memory of COVID-19 recedes, even Democratic voters are drifting back toward normalcy—showing up, marking a ballot, and going home, the way Americans did for two centuries before 2020. Left alone, that drift will likely continue through the rest of this decade, and by the 2030s, mail-in voting will be no more common than it was in the 2010s.
But Republicans don't have to wait for normalcy to run its course. They can course-correct now with little resistance. The SAVE America Act would put safeguards around mail-in voting by requiring voter ID. And, if a Senate version like Schmitt's passes, it would convert no-excuse mail-in voting back into a needs-based system for those with a genuine reason they can't appear in person.
The United States is on the mend from the political side effects of COVID-19. It's time to speed-run a full recovery on the electoral front. Americans can contact their senator today at SaveActNow.com and demand that they force a vote on it.
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