The Atlantic: America’s Elections Won’t Be the Same After 2020

This year’s democratic presidential primary was tumultuous from beginning to end—starting with a record field of two dozen major candidates and ending in the middle of a pandemic.

But its lasting legacy could be far more fundamental: The chaos of the 2020 election season could radically, even permanently, change how Americans vote.

By November, a majority of the country—and possibly the overwhelming majority—could cast their ballot by mail for the first time. In the years to come, more and more voters will pick their candidates not by selecting one favorite, but by ranking several under a system designed to give people more choices and less chance for regret. And by 2024, the final vestiges of a 200-year-old tradition—caucuses—could be gone, buried for good by the debacle in Iowa that launched this year’s nominating process. …

“In the same way that 2000 led to no more hanging chads,” says Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a nonpartisan good-government organization, “I would hope that this election leads to proper investment and modernization in our election system.”