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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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