New survey research by one of President Trump’s campaign pollsters shows broad support for more absentee voting and elections spending amid the pandemic — and an openness to other vote-by-mail efforts that Trump has criticized.
Why it matters: The polling, portions of which were shared with Axios, comes as coronavirus-related election reform efforts have become a political lightning rod, with President Trump dismissing mail-in voting as “corrupt” and “RIPE for FRAUD.”
- The survey was conducted by Tony Fabrizio and David Lee for Secure Democracy, a nonpartisan elections group advocating “secure and fair” elections.
What they’re saying: Voters “want as many options as possible to vote, especially the ability for all voters to request and cast an absentee ballot regardless of their circumstances,” the pollsters write in a memo accompanying their findings.
- “They support a number of proposals that would help bring this to fruition and agree that Congress should provide additional funding to cover the increased costs of conducting elections due to the Coronavirus outbreak,” the memo says.
Be smart: Republican politicians are more supportive of absentee options that require the voter to ask that a ballot to be sent to them, rather than vote-by-mail programs in which ballots are automatically sent to registered voters.
- There is a school of thought that says if voting were made easier for lower-propensity voters it would benefit Democrats, although the evidence is more nuanced, as the New York Times has reported.
The state of play: Expanding access to absentee and mail-in ballots is a top priority for Democrats in the next coronavirus relief bill. Meanwhile, as the Washington Post has detailed, many GOP leaders have also said they support some aspects of such a push.
- The urgency to loosen some of the voting restrictions increased after Wisconsin’s April 7 primary, after which more than 50 people who voted in person or worked the polls during the state’s presidential primary tested positive for COVID-19, according to TIME.