Workers in Bessemer, Alabama are currently voting on whether to form the first union of Amazon workers in the United States. Due to the pandemic, the election is taking place via a mail-in vote, rather than in-person — the company fought to force an in-person election, but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rightly rejected the request on health and safety grounds (and then rejected Amazon’s appeal on this matter).

Ballots were mailed out to the roughly fifty-eight hundred workers on February 8, and are due back by March 29. It’s unclear if the unusual voting method will help or hurt the union effort. The lengthy voting period means more time for the company to push its anti-union propaganda (it is legally barred from holding captive-audience meetings with workers during the voting period, but there is no barrier to other, more subtle forms of fearmongering).

But voting by mail may help the union. All it needs is majority support from those who vote, not from the entire bargaining unit; mail-in voting might allow the union to undertake efforts to ensure that its supporters vote, while hoping those who are ambivalent simply do not send back ballots.