States and localities across the nation faced extreme challenges in administering elections during the COVID-19 pandemic. Election administrators rose to the challenge for the general election in maintaining voter access, with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) noting it to be the most “secure election in history.” However, the road to that point was not an easy one.

As political scientists here at the MIT Election Lab, we are really social scientists. We work with many others to understand what’s happening. We aim to help the public by being a fact-based center of election analysis, in the midst of what might be a foggy information environment.

Expanding the opportunities Americans have to vote by mail (VBM) has been proposed as the most important policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to keep elections healthy and secure in 2020. Our newest article, told in part through interactive story maps, is part of the attempt to visualize trends of voting by mail within the United States.

We're launching a new feature at the MIT Election Lab blog! Each week, we'll be featuring new research published in election science or related fields that we find interesting. For this first week, we've gone back in time a bit, but in future editions, you can expect to see articles that are hot off the presses.