Politics

What Everyone Gets Wrong About Voting

Early voting boosts turnout, voting by mail helped Biden win, and four other assumptions that aren’t supported by the data.

A voting booth in Louisville on Nov. 3, 2020.
Photographer: Scotty Perry/Bloomberg

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By Ryan Teague Beckwith

April 28, 2021 at 8:00 AM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the May 10, 2021 issue of businessweek.

What happened in the 2020 U.S. election? Here’s a quick summary that may sound familiar. Spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, states expanded early voting and voting by mail, leading to historic turnout that helped Joe Biden win.

The problem: Almost everything about that summary is likely wrong.