Wyden, Blumenauer introduce bill for Americans to vote at home

A release said the legislation would allow all American voters to vote at home, provide pre-paid envelopes to return ballots and automatically register citizens to vote at Department of Motor Vehicles offices.

“The United States is stronger when more Americans can vote. Our bill will make elections more accessible to seniors, students and working families that might not have time to wait at a polling station,” Wyden said. “Voting at home makes elections more secure as well, since there’s a built-in paper trail for every single ballot that can’t be hacked. Voting at home is just common sense.”

Blumenauer said Oregon has led the nation in defending the right to vote. He said that vote a home laws have been extremely successful at increasing voter turnout all while upholding strong security standards. Blumenauer said, “This critical legislation will bring Oregon’s model nationwide and strengthen the fundamental right to vote that is so central to our democratic process.”

The release said in 2022, 39 million people voted at home. That was 35% of the ballots, which was a major increase over 2018 when only 25% of voters used vote-at-home ballots. Nearly half of the voters used a vote-at-home ballot in the November 2020 election, which was an all-time high in federal races. For the 2020 general election, 30 states adopted or changed their laws, allowing voters to cast their ballots from home in order to provide greater accessibility and to protect public health.

The legislation was first introduced in 2017 to build on innovative electoral reforms around the country.