The Relationship between In-Person Voting and COVID-19: Evidence from the Wisconsin Primary

Chad D. Cotti, Bryan Engelhardt, Joshua Foster, Erik T. Nesson, Paul S. Niekamp

NBER Working Paper No. 27187
Issued in May 2020, Revised in October 2020
NBER Program(s):Health Economics, Public Economics

On April 7, 2020, Wisconsin held its presidential primary election, and news reports showed long lines of voters due to fewer polling locations. We use county-level variation in voting patterns and weekly county-level COVID test data to examine whether in-person voting increased COVID-19 cases. We find a statistically significant association between in-person voting density and the spread of COVID-19 two to three weeks after the election. In our main results, a 10% increase in in-person voters per polling location is associated with an 18.4% increase in the COVID-19 positive test rate two to three weeks later.

Acknowledgments

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Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w27187