Pa. Democrats benefit from ‘blue shift’ in absentee voting

Something has been happening in Pennsylvania elections.

When a Democrat leads on election night, that advantage grows as absentee and provisional ballots are counted in the days after. When a Republican leads, that edge shrinks.

It happened in 2018, when Gov. Tom Wolf and Sen. Bob Casey, both Democrats, saw their winning margins grow by more than 28,000 votes after election night. In each of the last four presidential elections, the tallies moved in favor of Democrats by more than 22,000 votes after Election Day.

It’s called the “blue shift.” It’s a little-known phenomenon researchers have identified only in the past few years. And it could further complicate the already complex task of declaring a winner on election night, in a critical swing state that helped elevate Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 and that is again expected to be close in 2020.

In short, as more voters began using nontraditional voting methods such as absentee and provisional ballots in recent years, a partisan split emerged in many states: Democrats tended to vote using those methods more often than Republicans.

That means the blue shift will only become more significant, voting experts say, as more and more ballots are cast outside of polling places. And it may take on particular importance in Pennsylvania, where a new election law means anyone can vote by mail starting in this year’s presidential primary — a dramatic expansion from the previous system, which required a justification for why voters couldn’t appear in person. The number of absentee ballots is expected to balloon this year and continue growing after that.

If the blue shift continues, that would mean election night leads — which are tabulated using the initial returns from precincts and often don’t include other votes — could be narrowed or even flipped in high-profile races, including for president.

“This is the new normal,” said Edward B. Foley, the Ohio State University law professor who first identified the blue shift in 2013. “This is how we conduct elections now, in a world with absentee voting on demand . ... We just have to be patient, let the system work, let the ballots be counted, and whoever wins the authentic votes is the winner.”

None of this changes the official, certified results that already come in long after the world knows who won. But being able to call a race in the hours after polls close has become an expectation for the public, with news organizations building sophisticated models for projecting winners based on unofficial results as they come in.

As unofficial election night tallies become even less complete than they are now, voting experts fear the spread of misguided claims of fraud and malfeasance: Will voters and candidates, accustomed to knowing the winner on election night, accept the ever-changing numbers as they roll in over several days? Or will they quickly jump to accusations of foul play?

As Mr. Foley put it: “No one’s trying to steal an election or cheat or anything like that. It’s now an additional feature of our system, but it’s one we haven’t completely psychologically caught up with.”

Electoral systems have changed significantly over the last two decades, with states adopting a series of reforms meant to make voting more accessible. The spread of provisional ballots, under federal law, was meant as a fail-safe for voters encountering trouble at the polls, and expanded access to absentee ballots was meant to make voting more flexible.

The reasons for the partisan split that emerged in who uses those methods are still being studied, election experts said. But factors appear to include that young voters, voters who move often and low-income voters who use absentee and provisional ballots tend to lean more Democratic than other voters.

“There is nothing inherently blue or red about this, by law or by design,” Mr. Foley said.

In fact, he said, some states may experience a “red shift,” and even Pennsylvania’s blue shift may change in the future as different voters adapt to the new absentee ballot system and counties that used to process them on election night stop doing so.

The number of mail-in votes, in particular, has grown significantly. While absentee ballots used to be meant largely for voters who were literally absent on Election Day, states began to aggressively expand mail-in voting over the last two decades. Some states, including Oregon and Colorado, conduct elections almost entirely by mail.

Pennsylvania largely resisted that movement. But Mr. Wolf reached an agreement last year with Republicans who control the state Legislature to allow all voters to qualify for mail-in ballots.

Absentee ballots have been about 5% of votes cast in Pennsylvania. Election officials expect that number to grow to 15% or 20% this year.