Participation in Mail Ballot Elections

LECTIONS are typically conducted on a single day during specified hours. With few exceptions, voters wishing to exercise their franchise must vote on that day at specified polling places. Although different cities or states use different ballot formats and voting systems (Rusk 1970; Walker 1966), the reliance on a single election day with voting at neighborhood locations has been a given in American politics. A major exception to neighborhood election day voting is absentee voting. Provisions for absentee voting have been liberalized in some states so that voters may now request and return their ballot through the mail (Walrath-Riley 1984). In the past few years, local governments of varying sizes have experimented with a new idea conducting an entire election by mail.2 Mail ballot elections differ from recent changes in absentee voting in that all registered voters are mailed a ballot and a return envelope. Mail ballot elections have the potential to increase voting, but do they? Are those who participate in mail ballot elections more representative than the kinds of people who vote in polling place elections? This article examines these questions in light of the elections conducted through the mails.