Convenience voting methods saved pandemic elections
Keywords:
Pandemic elections; convenience voting methods; COVID-19Abstract
Facing the threat of the global health crisis, countries have needed to offer different solutions about how to run elections or whether to postpone them. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the need to re-evaluate voter facilitation and electoral engineering has become a burning question. Most of the elections held during the COVID-19 pandemic saw turnout drops. Turnout is skewed even during the normal times, but the situation has been even more complicated during the health crisis, as turnout is likely to disproportionately decline among certain groups, such as among risk groups for severe COVID-19 infection. This study identifies the issues that have arisen during the pandemic regarding political equality and convenience voting. The analysis is based on the national elections held during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic (between February 2020 and March 2021), with a total of 82 national elections in a total of 67 countries. The key findings of this study show that the pandemic caused not only a sharp decline in turnout, but a dramatic shift in organizing elections and adopting convenience voting methods. The correlation between the number of convenience voting methods used in pandemic elections and the change in turnout is evident. The more convenience voting methods were used in the pandemic elections, the more likely it was for the turnout to remain on the same level or even increase slightly compared to the same type of elections held prior the pandemic.
