Many reasons for absentee voting by mail.
Info on U.S. absentee voting: www.vote.org/absentee-ballot-deadlines.
The longer time spent in crowded locations, the more likely you are to pick up various circulating infectious diseases, so more absentee voting by mail could reduce infectious disease transmission at the polls for both the people voting by mail and the people still going to the polls and working at them.
There are other reasons that voting by mail is a good idea such as long wait times at some locations, poll worker shortages, disinformation campaigns causing tense times at some poll locations, not having to drive to the poll yourself, or being freed up to do election day work yourself. And just feeling relaxed to take as much time as you need to peruse the ballot is a plus, especially in local elections and primaries where there are many candidates running to choose from.
Different states have different rules and it’s important to follow the instructions, and prepare in advance. Most places have provisions for absentee voting for a medical reason, age, or plans to be out of your district on Election Day. In Oregon everyone votes by mail. In Ohio voters must request a mail ballot each election. Here in Pennsylvania we now have no excuse absentee mail ballot voting and must request to have mail ballots each year. Also in Pennsylvania, if a disabled person needs someone else to drop a ballot off at a designated drop box, there is a form that must be filled out by both the voter and the person carrying the ballot, and carried by the person delivering the ballot to the drop box. I have used this form myself.
In another reversal, nowadays even the Republicans in Pennsylvania are on board again with mail ballots, as they were prior to 2020. In fact there has been a lot of Trump campaign ads playing here where Donald Trump is shown at a gathering telling voters to sign up to vote by mail in Pennsylvania. However, he seems to flip-flop on this issue.
A U.S. campaign to promote Vote By Mail.
Activate America is an organization that works with other organizations to run “postcards to voters” campaigns, where the volunteer provides their own (topic neutral) postcards and postcard postage stamps, and Activate America provides the addresses to send them to and the message to put on the postcards. (There is no minimum commitment, and I typically request just a handful at a time.) They are rolling out a “501(c)(3) compliant Vote By Mail (VBM) enrollment program” in multiple states that “do not include any partisan or candidate messaging anywhere on the postcard” by The Movement Cooperative with BallotReady. (Civil servants and government workers subject to the Hatch Act should of course still always consult the rules before volunteering with any election related organization or campaign.)
This is an opportunity to encourage people to choose voting by mail and I’m doing it myself.
Write reps writing prompt:
Please support and promote vote by mail because it makes voting more accessible especially to the high risk elderly and disabled and can reduce the spread of respiratory diseases heading into winter.
Feel free to repurpose for your own letters to reps.