The “Vote by Mail” exhibit at the National Postal Museum in Washington, DC, traces the long history of mail-in voting in the United States through a collection of historic voting envelopes, election mailings and photographs.
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Four years ago, millions more American voters became accustomed to voting by mail.
but, New Exhibition The exhibit, which opens Saturday at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, is a reminder that previous generations of voters used the postal service to cast absentee ballots. Decades before the COVID-19 pandemic It overturned the 2020 election.
“During the pandemic, voting by mail has presented itself as something of a new concept to a lot of people who have never been exposed to it before,” says Carrie Biller, curatorial director of the museum, which is free and open to the public in Washington, D.C. “With the 2024 presidential election looming, we thought there was no better place than the National Postal Museum to have an exhibition that talks about voting by mail, and how it’s not something new. Voting by mail, in various forms, has been around for more than 160 years.”
On one wall inside the museum’s stamp salon, Villar’s team of curators has assembled a selection of mail-in ballot envelopes, election mailings, photographs and other artifacts to create a timeline that begins with the 1864 Civil War election, which marks the beginning of large-scale use of mail-in voting in the United States.
“That was a big moment in the nationwide adoption of mail-in voting,” Biller said, noting there were examples at the state and local levels dating back to the 18th century.
The exhibit also includes election mailers sent to Fulton County, Georgia, and Orange County, California, ahead of the 2021 elections encouraging voters to vote by mail.
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Biller hopes the exhibit can one day be expanded with more artifacts to fill gaps in the exhibit’s long history of mail-in voting.
For example, while the exhibit notes that the pandemic has “focused attention on concerns about the integrity of our elections that have existed since the beginning of polling places and voting by mail,” there are no exhibits that address the spread of unfounded claims about widespread fraud in absentee ballots during the 2020 election and how those claims stoked distrust of voting methods among conservatives.
The museum hopes to engage the public in helping to tell this story more fully in the future. Donations of historical objects and archival materials.
“We’re actively collecting this election and beyond because we want to keep telling this story,” Biller said. “So many things are printed and put out there and they get thrown away, and we hope that some of them will be saved.”
Biller added that while there is limited research on voting by mail over the years, he hopes that eligible voters “will be motivated to vote however they choose and that voting by mail has a long history of being implemented successfully.”
Here are some highlights from the exhibit, “Vote by Mail: From Civil War to COVID-19.”
Anne Envelopes used in the 1864 election Mailing ballots of Civil War soldiers from Highland County, Ohio to a Union Army field hospital in Georgia
Envelope used to mail votes of Civil War soldiers from Highland County, Ohio, to a Union Army field hospital in Georgia during the 1864 election.
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“Each state has a different approach, but we all wanted to give our soldiers who are out of state at war the opportunity to vote in elections,” Biller said. “Voting by mail and absentee voting has been a big part of what’s made voting by mail go forward over the last 160 years. When you really think about it, these men and women are risking their lives for our country, and to take away their rights by not being able to vote in elections just doesn’t make sense.”
a Japanese American Photos 1942: World War II prisoners wrongfully detained at Tule Lake prison camp in California wait for their absentee ballots to be notarized.
Japanese Americans who were wrongfully interned at Tule Lake POW camp in California during World War II wait for their absentee ballots to be notarized, 1942.
Francis LeRoy Stewart/National Archives
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Francis LeRoy Stewart/National Archives
“This is a really powerful story, one that forces you to think about what it means to be an American and the right to vote that we sometimes take for granted,” Biller explains. “The people held in these camps had to contend with not knowing their state’s requirements to be allowed to vote. They had limited information from home about who they should vote for. These good citizens who were sent to these camps by their own government still took the time and effort to fulfill their obligation to vote.”
Anne Unused Federal War Ballots issued in 1944 Absentee Voters Who Served in World War II
Unused Federal War Ballots issued in 1944 for absentee voters who served in World War II
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“Distributing all this material around the world during wartime is a huge undertaking, so what happened was that official ballots were printed that didn’t have the candidates’ names on them yet,” Biller explains. “Voters would actually write in by hand who they were voting for, and then someone on the other side had to read it. They had to decipher it and make sure the vote went to the right candidate. It’s unusual to see a ballot without a name on it.”
Anne Information Card What the US Postal Service sent in 2020 to help voters prepare to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic
Information cards sent by the U.S. Postal Service in 2020 to help voters prepare to vote during the COVID-19 pandemic
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“The messaging around voting by mail is very difficult,” Biller said. “The Postal Service sent out the postcard in an attempt to educate mail carriers, but quickly realized that there are no one-size-fits-all instructions for voting by mail and that each voter needs to check their own state and local rules and regulations. There was backlash to the postcard and they ended up having to correct the information.”
For those who can’t Drop in directly The exhibition is scheduled to close on February 23, 2025, but before then a virtual version of the exhibition can be viewed on the museum’s website. English and Spanish.
Editor Benjamin Swayze
Visual Editing Grace Widiyatmadja
