Correspondence Elections in Bavaria (29 March 2020) and COVID-19: Empirical Analysis on the Background of the Debate on the Validity of the Elections' Organization During the Pandemic

In March 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, local elections were held in Bavaria: the first round of voting took place on 15.03.2020 (traditional and postal voting) followed by the run-off ballot on 29.03.2020 (postal voting alone). The political decision to rely solely on postal voting in the second ballot was made unanimously by all the political fractions represented in the Bavarian parliament in the sense of responsibility for public health. The run-off ballot was held in constituencies where voting in the first round did not yield a winner. There were 34 such constituencies out of a total of 96. In this way, a research sample was created embracing the above-mentioned 34 constituencies, randomly and evenly dispersed throughout the entire Bundesland, and a control sample comprising the remaining constituencies. The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesis according to which the postal voting held in Bavaria in March 2020, amidst the pandemic, led to an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases. The results of this study may be relevant for the discussion that in April and May of 2020 was going on in Poland - and never eventually settled - where public health concerns were raised. The Bavarian example was invoked by both supporters and opponents of postal voting as the sole form of voting in the Polish presidential elections originally scheduled for May of 2020. The Bavarian precedent was instrumentalized as an argument made - respectively in favor or against - sticking to the originally adopted electoral timeline