This will be an election like none other, but rest assured, it will go on. Thankfully, our democracy is resilient. We’ve held elections in wartime, during the Great Depression, and amidst the 2018 flu pandemic. We can do this! We will do this. However, central to holding a representative election safely amidst this pandemic is read more
We recently hosted a record-breaking webinar (1000 RSVPs!) about expanding mail-in voting policies in the age of COVID-19 featuring Amber McReynolds from Vote at Home Institute, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman and Ben Hovland from the Election Assistance Commission. Simply put, we didn’t have enough time to answer all your questions during the live read more
It’s been one month since a national emergency was declared in response to the spread of COVID-19. This has brought huge changes to the daily lives of most Americans as events were cancelled, schools and businesses closed, and we were asked to stay home to save lives. The nonprofit sector has had to adapt quickly read more
Voting by Mail in Colorado, Oregon and Washington An under noticed reform that may be changing the future of how we vote Imagine a new voter walking for the first time into their polling location – hopefully the right one – nervous about lines, their ID and the check in. They then face the bigger read more
The results of a recent survey published in Forbes of voters in Utah found that 21% of the Utah voting population prefers to vote by mail. This year, ten counties in Utah offered voters the chance to cast a ballot by mail. Two years ago in 2012, only one county used vote-by mail. Oregon was read more
Early voting is on the rise as voters take advantage of increased flexibility about how and when to cast their ballot. As a result, many voters are receiving and returning their ballot by mail–potentially as many as one in five voters this year. However, in 2012 more than a quarter of a million absentee ballots read more
In most states, voters have options for casting a ballot before Election Day. (See the Early Voting Information Calendar for details.) Voting early by mail is a popular choice, and three states–Colorado, Oregon, and Washington–conduct their elections exclusively by mail. To encourage early voting, Long Distance Voter has developed a new online tool to help read more
This year, Election Day will start well before November 4th. For many years, early voting has been on the rise. In 2010, an estimated 27-29% of voters cast ballots early, much higher than previous midterms. In the 2012 presidential election, 35% of ballots cast were cast early. States currently offer three ways for voters to read more
On July 14, the California Secretary of State Debra Bowen, in a press release, noted that for the first time ever, over half the voters who voted in the recent primary cast their votes by mail. Specifically, 58.7% of all voters who voted, voted by mail. California is the third state to have experienced this read more
