Mail-in voting may be here to stay

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, Massachusetts allowed no-excuse mail-in voting for the first time this year as well as expanded early voting – and millions of voters took advantage. By Saturday evening, 2.28 million voters had cast their ballots, either by mail or in person – a number equivalent to more than two-thirds of all ballots cast in the 2016 election. For Pam Wilmot, vice president of state operations for Common Cause, said that is all the proof needed to retain no-excuse mail-in voting going forward. “This process works, and we should absolutely make it permanent,” Wilmot said. Wilmot and state Sen. Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat who chairs the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Election Laws, joined The Codcast to talk about the changes to voting made in this year’s elections and the implications for future elections.