Does Mail-in Voting Actually Benefit Republicans?

Older voters are more likely to vote Republican, right?

Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash

During the days 2020 presidential election, I remember refreshing my New York Times app on my phone every five minutes or so. I wanted to see what the latest numbers on Trump-Biden were, and the chances of either one pulling away in a swing state. I was pulling for Biden, and it wasn’t looking good for him once Trump won Florida, but slowly and surely, as more ballots were counted, Biden pulled away.

That election cycle, Donald Trump declared war on mail-in voting, tweeting it was “fraud and abuse and will be an embarrassment to our County.” Trump repeatedly claimed mail-in ballots were used for voter fraud and manipulated to be sent to Democratic areas rather than Republican ones.

The message was simple: mail-in ballots would lead to widespread fraud. It’s also not true.

Conventional wisdom has shifted in recent years to purport that mail-in voting gives Democrats an advantage over Republicans. More educated, particularly college-educated, people are more likely to vote by mail, and Democrats are increasingly the party of the educated. Republicans have, especially since the 2020 election, aligned with Trump’s messages of voter fraud and mail-in voting benefiting Democrats.