Why has President Trump relentlessly attacked the opportunities of Americans to vote by mail? Putting aside his baseless claims about voter fraud, efforts to curtail registered voters from casting a ballot prior to Election Day could, in fact, limit more knowledgeable voters from turning out to vote in November.

Why has President Trump relentlessly attacked the opportunities of Americans to vote by mail? Putting aside his baseless claims about voter fraud, efforts to curtail registered
voters from casting a ballot prior to Election Day could, in fact, limit more knowledgeable voters from turning out to vote in November.

Well before the COVID-19 pandemic made it public health necessity, a growing number of
states had been expanding ways for registered voters to cast ballots prior to Election Day, either in person or by mail. Drawing on five Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES) pre- and post-election national surveys, as well as an original survey of registered voters in Florida, Enrijeta Shino and I find in our new article, “Political Knowledge and Convenience Voting,” in Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, that more politically knowledgeable voters are significantly more likely to cast their ballots before Election Day.

Why might more knowledgeable voters be willing to cast their ballot early? Won’t they possibly miss the unearthing of a scandalous 11th hour event that could tip their decision to support a different party or candidate? We argue that such last-minute information—no matter how salacious—does not alter the electoral sensibilities of voters who have higher levels of political knowledge. We argue that prospective voters who have a command over basic facts about government institutions and political actors—what are known as “static-general” facts—are more willing to take advantage of “convenience” voting opportunities, casting their ballot days, or even weeks, prior to Election Day. In short, having a greater facility of the players and the “rules of the game” affects both when and how voters decide to vote, even after controlling for standard socio-economic, political, and campaign factors, as well as a respondent’s partisanship, ideology, and political engagement and awareness.

We find that those who possess less political knowledge, as well as Republicans, are much more likely to hold off to cast their ballot on Election Day. If voters with less political knowledge across the American states are less likely to vote early—particularly by mail—is it any wonder the President has made voting-by-mail Public Enemy #1?

Latest Daily (through Thursday morning) Cumulative Early-in-Person Ballots Cast and Vote-by-Mail Ballot Cast in Florida, by Party, Race/Ethnicity, & Age, with 2014 Comparisons

Cannibals, All! Which Party in Florida has been Cannibalizing more of its 2014 midterm election voters?

To date, roughly 72% of all ballots cast early in-person and by mail in Florida as of Sunday have been by voters who cast ballots four years ago in the 2014 midterm elections.

In one of the better signs for Democrats, Republicans have cannibalized more of their Super-voters thus far: 76.6% of votes cast by Republicans have been by those who voted in 2014.  Slightly fewer, 71.5%, of votes cast by Democrats have been by those who voted in 2014 (so, by definition, no newly registered 18 & 19 year olds).  The most interesting development thus far is that only 60.7% of votes cast by No Party Affiliates have been by those who skipped (or were not yet registered) in the 2014 midterms.  Of course, NPAs have cast fewer than half of votes cast by either Republicans or Democrats.

The daily patterns are remarkably similar across the three groups, as the figures below reveal.  Regular voters were much more likely to vote by mail, earlier in the cycle; more infrequent voters started to tick up during the first week of early in-person voting.

I plan to provide similar figures in the coming days, focusing on age and race, broken down by 2014 voters and nonvoters.

Heading into Election Day, over 6.4m Early Votes have been Cast in Florida. Here’s the Race/Ethnicity and Party Breakdown by Gender

Ahead of Election Day, 2.56m Democrats have cast ballots, 2.47m Republicans have cast ballots, 1.24m No Party Affiliates have cast ballots, and 154k voters registered with 3rd Parties have cast ballots.

3.52m women and 2.76m men have voted, with another 139k votes cast by voters whose gender is not reported.

And by race/ethnicity, 4.23m whites, 980k Hispanics, 841k blacks, and 375k voters of mixed, other or unknown race have cast ballots.

By gender, what follows are tables with the share of votes cast across party registration for each racial/ethnic group.

Percent of Early Votes Cast by Women
	Other	Black	Hispanic	White	Total
Dem	43.9	88.2	43.2	34.2	44.1
Rep	23.4	2.2	27.4	47.2	36.2
NPA	30.9	9.0	28.2	16.1	17.7
3rd	1.8	0.7	1.3	2.6	2.0
Total	100	100	100	100	100

Percent of Early Votes Cast by Men
	Other	Black	Hispanic	White	Total
Dem	37.0	81.4	38.1	26.3	34.6
Rep	25.8	4.0	31.0	51.8	42.2
NPA	34.8	13.1	29.2	18.5	20.3
3rd	2.4	1.5	1.7	3.4	2.9

Cannibals, All!

So, as of this morning, some 6.4m votes have been cast in Florida.

We know that the Hispanic share of the early vote (EIP & VBM) has increased relative to 2012 share of the electorate.

The real Q, is the cannibalization rate of 2016 voters, and whether the voters who have banked their votes prior to tomorrow’s Election Day, are truly new voters, or just ones who had turned out in 2012.

The following chart has the racial/ethnic composition of early voters in 2016 who DID NOT CAST A BALLOT in 2012, broken down by when they registered to vote.

Of the 6.4m votes cast heading into Election Day, 1.69m were cast by registered voters who skipped 2012 GE. Some 607.8k of them were registered prior to 2013, but chose to sit it out. Roughly 61% of the pre-2013 registrants are white, only 22% are Hispanic, and 10% black.

The percentages of the racial/ethnic composition of 2016 voters who registered AFTER the 2012 GE, the composition of those who registered this year looks considerably different than pre-2013 as well as those who registered in 2014 & 2015.

In the table below, the column on the right reveals that only 52% of the 2016 registrants who have voted in a presidential election for the first-time are white, whereas 23.5% are Hispanic.

The Race to 270 may well come down to Florida and the votes of the voters who didn’t go to the polls four years ago, or who became newly registered. With turnout of new voters so robust, it’s hard to say there’s an enthusiasm gap in Florida.