Deep red Nebraska counties are voting by mail. Turnout has never been higher.

In 2020, as the country voted in and then sweated out a razor-thin presidential election, the voters of Clay County in rural south-central Nebraska participated in numbers never seen in this century.

The number of potential voters living in the county had barely budged since 2016. And yet, during the 2020 election, some 507 more voters cast ballots than had in 2016 — a 16% spike.

In total, some 84% of Clay County's 4,271 registered voters cast ballots, far higher than Nebraska's statewide turnout and the country's.

So what changed in 2020?

For the first time, Clay County's registered voters all automatically received a ballot in the mail. They then could either mail it back, or drop it in the drop box in the courthouse parking lot.

Clay County is far from alone, a Flatwater Free Press analysis shows. Eleven Nebraska counties are now showing consistently higher voter turnout after switching to all-mail voting — a change allowed by state law only in rural counties with fewer than 10,000 residents.

On average, 16% more voters cast a general election ballot in those all-mail counties in 2020 than did in 2016, when most went to a polling place. Participation also tended to jump in lower-turnout elections like midterms, the analysis of voting data shows – even when overall statewide turnout fell as it did in 2022.

These jumps occurred in these 11 rural Nebraska counties, where 79% of voters picked Donald Trump over Joe Biden, even as Trump repeatedly attacked mail voting – baselessly, election experts say – as being rife with fraud.

Trump's campaign against mail voting, which he's tempered as he again runs for president, has roused at least a few of those counties' residents, who have complained to their county clerks. And in at least one county, there's been an unsuccessful effort to get rid of all-mail voting.

But generally, county clerks who administer all-mail voting, like Clay County Clerk Cassie Aksamit, told the Flatwater Free Press that this voting method makes sense for their counties.

"You're gonna have people that don't like (mail-in voting). You're gonna have people that think it's the greatest thing ever. You have convenience reasons. But then you have people that enjoy the ability to go to a polling location," said Aksamit.

Growth of mail-in voting

Mail-in voting has become increasingly popular in recent decades, said Ben Hovland, chair of the federal Election Assistance Commission. But it was supercharged by the pandemic, as some Americans shied away from congregating in public places. In Omaha, Lincoln and across Nebraska, voters now have the right to request a mail-in ballot.

But all-mail voting – closing polling places and simply sending a mail ballot to every registered voter – had quietly come to Nebraska long before the pandemic. It started in individual precincts and spread to entire counties, thanks to a 2005 law introduced by a then-freshman Republican state senator named Deb Fischer.

Fischer, now a U.S. senator, said she sponsored the bill to save voters time and counties money.

"I think it's going to be a money saver in many of the sparsely populated counties that I represent," she told the Omaha World-Herald in 2005.

Cherry County, Fischer's home county and the biggest, most remote county in Nebraska, quickly turned three-quarters of its precincts into voting by mail by 2006.

Then-Secretary of State John Gale said at the time that the bill helped the state's least-populous counties now that they had to follow federal accessibility laws for disabled people.

Many of these 11 counties moved to all-mail in stages after seeing initial success from early participating precincts.

Stanton County initially stopped using some rural school buildings in the southern part of the county that didn't meet accessibility requirements. Then in 2014, Pilger lost its polling sites after a tornado demolished much of the town.

Stanton County precincts that didn't vote by all-mail consistently trailed its all-mail precincts in data provided by Stanton County Clerk Wanda Heermann's office. So the whole county eventually switched, with turnout spiking each time a precinct changed to all-mail voting.

Overall, the data is clear, said Steve Smith, spokesperson for Civic Nebraska, a nonprofit promoting civic engagement. The ease of receiving a ballot automatically and not having to travel to a polling place is spurring more participation – particularly among registered voters who had rarely before voted.

This increased participation doesn't come without opposition.

Sherri Bacon, who lives a mile outside of Valentine, led a group that requested Cherry County revert to the hybrid model prior to 2020.

In an interview with Flatwater, Bacon questioned if higher voter turnout is actually a goal Nebraska should be pursuing. "Is more always better?" she asked.

Bacon's ex-husband's brother had never voted before he received a ballot in the mail in 2022, she said, but decided to "mark in some ovals, put it in the envelope and send it back in."

"That's not informed voting in our opinion," Bacon said.

Voters are more deliberate when they have to be present at the polls, she said.

Cherry County Clerk Brittny Longcor disagrees. Aside from believing that increased turnout is an inherently good thing, Longcor told the Flatwater Free Press that it has helped keep county voter rolls up to date, as required by state law.

Vote by mail a partisan issue

Earlier this year, 300,000 voters targeted by the Nebraska Democratic Party received a mailer. Inside was a vote-by-mail application form. The message shown next to Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris: "When Democrats vote by mail, we win elections."

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, designed the poster. She wants her voter base to vote by mail.

"(In) our state legislative races, where we invest heavily in vote by mail... we just think our vote-by-mail program is usually the margin of victory," Kleeb said.

Kleeb sees the option to conduct all voting by mail as an "unfair advantage" for these 11 counties that are largely rural and heavily Republican.

Some Republicans, especially Trump, have been critical of mail-in voting. But elderly, rural electorates who tend to benefit from mail-in voting, also represent an electoral stronghold for the Republican Party, said John Hibbing, a retired University of Nebraska–Lincoln political science professor.

Angie Eberspacher, communications director for the Nebraska Republican Party, didn't reply to Flatwater Free Press' request for an interview.

Sixty-seven Nebraska counties meet the population threshold to conduct all-mail elections, but only 11 actually do. Eight additional counties have at least one vote-by-mail precinct.

No counties have requested to switch to all-mail voting since the 2020 election, according to the Secretary of State's Office.

"Many Nebraskans still prefer to vote at the polls, and I will keep the polls open," Secretary of State Bob Evnen said in an emailed statement.

In 2022, the second time Clay County residents voted entirely by mail, the county's voters again participated at a higher rate than they had in the previous midterm election, even though statewide turnout dropped.

The increased turnout in all-mail counties has Hibbing scratching his head. Political science research generally suggests that voting by mail has very little effect on participation, he said.

"We will have to wait and see whether the change is lasting or a one-off thing that diminishes once the novelty wears off," Hibbing said.

Reporter Natalia Alamdari contributed to this story.

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska's first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.

The Flatwater Free Press is Nebraska's first independent, nonprofit newsroom focused on investigations and feature stories that matter.

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