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Present-Chemical-909 t1_j778atn wrote

Reply to comment by sunburner in Political views can be predicted by differences in brain activity. Study says political differences don’t just emerge when it comes to how we interpret reality around us; our brains actually ‘see’ different things depending on our politics. by mossadnik

This obviously isn't scientific research, but this is my partial theory for why in states where you can vote by mail up to election day (so long as it's postmarked), the late ballots tend to be better for Democrats. (Not saying this as an insult, I'm a pretty scattershot person with left-of-center views who tends to get my mail-in ballot in on the later end myself.)

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FraseraSpeciosa t1_j77dwbh wrote

Say what you want about republicans, but they will happily stand in line for hours in the cold November air to cast a vote. It’s a ritual I think to them. It’s the traditional way of voting and they find comfort in the physical act of standing in line and voting. To the conservative a mail in vote will be seen as alienating, impersonal, and even fraudulent. To a liberal mail in voting is seen as convenient, efficient and saves time to do literally anything else.

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Present-Chemical-909 t1_j77eyu5 wrote

It is true that generally, conservatives have tended to support more strict voting laws, but I'm actually not sure if I buy a fundamental psychological explanation for liberals voting more by mail specifically, since most research I can find suggests that states introducing mail-in voting didn't really make a significant difference in election results and turnout before 2020. It seems to me like the divide we see now is because of the specific context of Trump saying mail-in ballots were illegitimate and making it an explicitly partisan issue + liberals broadly taking the pandemic more seriously (making them more likely to pick the option that you can do from home).

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