Poll finds partisan divide on mailin ballots

DENVER — A majority of President Trump’s supporters plan to cast their ballot on election day, while about half of Joe Biden’s backers plan to vote by mail, a sign of a growing partisan divide over how best to conduct elections in the United States.

Overall, 39% of registered voters say they will vote by mail, well above the 21% who say they normally do so, according to a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The rise is skewed toward backers of the former vice president, 53% of whom plan to vote by mail. Fiftyseven percent of Trump’s supporters say they’ll vote in person on Nov. 3.

Fiftyfour percent of voters say they will vote before polls open on election day. In 2016, roughly 42% of voters did so.

Trump for months has denigrated mail voting, and Democrats have expressed concern about postal delays that could keep such ballots from being counted. The poll finds ebbing enthusiasm for mail voting: Only 28% of Americans say they would favor their state holding elections exclusively by mail, down from the 40% who said so in April as the coronavirus pandemic was first spreading in the U.S. and before Trump began his anti-mail campaign.

Traditionally, voting by mail has not been a partisan issue. Until recently, Republicans were more likely to do so than Democrats, because older voters have tended to vote by mail more often than younger voters.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended earlier this year voting by mail as an alternative to facetoface interactions at polling places, which could pose a risk of coronavirus infection. States have scrambled to adjust to an expected surge in advance voting, with nearly three dozen changing their mail or absentee voting rules in response to the pandemic.

The president has since tried to fan skepticism of mail voting, baselessly claiming that its widespread use will lead to fraud. Studies of past elections have shown voter fraud to be exceedingly rare.