There may be an intriguing clue later this month about the effect, and political consequences, of President Trump's claim that increased voting by mail will lead to widespread fraud. (A claim, I should add, that is not supported by credible evidence.)
On August 18, the state of Florida will conduct an intraparty primary election* to select candidates for both chambers of the national legislature, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, it appears likely that many more Floridians will vote by mail than in previous primary elections.
Primary elections are low-turnout events which tend to attract more highly-motivated voters. For a variety of mostly demographic reasons, voters who identify with the Republican Party are generally believed to be proportionately more predisposed to vote than those who favor the Democratic Party.
This year, it may be different. A number of political professionals from both major parties reportedly believe Trump's claims about mail-in voting are indeed reducing confidence in it ...
but mostly among likely Republican voters. There are reports that in many states, a much higher proportion of self-identified Democratic voters are requesting mail-in ballots than self-identified Republicans.
So the interesting things to watch in the Florida vote will be the respective
turnout in this month's primary elections, rather than which candidates are selected by the voters of the respective parties, and what proportion of each party's voters cast ballots by mail instead of showing up at a polling place in-person.
Florida is a "swing state" in presidential elections, and the winner of the state election is awarded all of Florida's
electoral votes. Trump won Florida by a 1.2 percent margin in 2016 and it's a crucial state for him again this year; in fact, it's difficult to come up with a plausible path for him to be re-elected if he loses Florida. The result of the November election may well turn on which of the two major parties is more effective in getting its potential voters to cast ballots.
Florida also one of the states with the highest incidence of COVID-19 infections, and if that persists―especially if 2020 turns out to be a bad autumn for influenza infections―in-person voting may be seriously depressed in November. And therefore who votes by mail could be unusually significant.
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*For those of you unfamiliar with American political terminology, political parties in the United States conduct "primary" elections in the individual states during which voters who consider themselves members of a political party select the candidates the party will put forward in the November general election. (Most states require advance registration for party selection; a few allow voters who appear at a polling place in-person to decide on the spot which party's primary they want to participate in.)
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