Abstract
COVID-19 caused worldwide disruption to virtually every aspect of human life, including elections. This study assesses the impact of potential COVID exposure, convenience voting policies, and partisanship on voter behavior in the 2020 US general election. Using a new data set comprising county and state data, we demonstrate that countywide COVID-death rates depressed turnout from 2016 levels. COVID mortalities, partisanship, and the availability of different balloting options contributed to changes in the use of mail and early-in person voting. Early spikes in COVID deaths had the largest impact, suggesting once voters chose whether or how to vote, they kept to their decisions, despite the availability of new information about declining infection rates, new vaccines, and improved treatments.