Who Votes by Post? Understanding the Drivers of Postal Voting in the 2019 British General Election

Abstract

While most voters in democratic countries still cast their ballot on election day, the proportion of the electorate which opts for postal voting has been steadily, and often dramatically, increasing. This transformation in electoral politics, however, is under-researched, particularly with regards to the motivations underlying the decision to cast a postal vote. In this article, we analyse the factors that drive an individual to vote by post rather than at the polling station. Using data from the 2019 British Election Study, we show, among other findings, that citizens for whom in-person voting would entail higher costs, such as the elderly and disabled, are more likely to opt for the convenience of postal voting. In addition, we find that partisans are unlikely to vote by post, suggesting that they derive greater expressive benefits from voting in a public setting. Finally, our analysis demonstrates that constituency marginality matters when it comes to opting for postal voting: citizens in more competitive constituencies are significantly more likely to ensure their votes by casting their ballots by post rather than on election day.