This analysis is really frustrating, and not something I would signed off on at @FiveThirtyEight. Let me try and go through some of the reasons why. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/us/politics/wisconsin-mail-voting.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/2...
1. The framing: one election doesn& #39;t "upend" a whole host of much better evidence showing that vote-by-mail tends to have neutral effects, most recently e.g. http://www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/Thompson_et_al_VBM.pdf">https://www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/Thompson_... by @danmthomp and others.
*Especially* an election held under such unusual circumstances.
*Especially* an election held under such unusual circumstances.
2. The article says that none of the prior studies have compared in-person and mail results. But that& #39;s not actually interesting, since people who vote by mail differ from those who vote in person. That& #39;s especially true in this case...
since we know that how seriously people take COVID-19 differs by party (e.g. https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/31/21199271/coronavirus-in-us-trump-republicans-democrats-survey-epistemic-crisis).">https://www.vox.com/science-a... So showing that mail votes are more Democratic in an environment in which staying home is partisan doesn& #39;t tell you anything about what more widespread VBM would do.
https://www.votwitter.com/science-and-health/2020/3/31/21199271/coronavirus-in-us-trump-republicans-democrats-survey-epistemic-crisis
The parties also had different strategies: Democrats called for their voters to vote by mail (see e.g. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/01/wisconsin-dems-support-postponing-spring-elections-160318),">https://www.politico.com/news/2020... while Republicans didn& #39;t. It would be weird if we *didn& #39;t* see a difference in how the different parties voted.
And Democrats and Republicans live in different areas (even within municipalities, see e.g. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republicans-democrats-cities/),">https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/republica... so even if they did take COVID similarly seriously, Democrats might be likelier to want to vote by mail than Republicans.