Voting During a Pandemic: The 1918 Elections in Massachusetts

While the COVID-19 pandemic has complicated the voting process this election year, it is not the first time that consequential national and local elections have taken place during a health care crisis. In the fall of 1918, during the waning days of the First World War and just after the peak of a virulent influenza epidemic—the “Spanish Flu”—citizens of Massachusetts voted in primary, and then in state and national elections.  Did the 1918 pandemic influence the outcome of elections here and elsewhere in the United States? What can we learn from looking back at those elections today?

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