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The Impact of Vote-By-Mail Policy on Turnout and Vote Share in the 2020 Election
... The option for postal voting is believed to increase turnout (Hodler et al., 2015;Luechinger et al., 2007), but a heterogeneous effect of postal voting regarding the absence of social pressure may also reduce incentives to go to the polls (Funk, 2010). Simplified and less costly postal voting by providing voters prepaid postage for their postal voting documents (Schelker & Schneiter, 2017) or by generally sending postal voting-related documents to all registered voters (Amlani & Collitt, 2022;Gerber et al., 2013) has a positive effect on turnout. Factors that are negatively related to turnout by increasing voting costs are the relocation of polling stations (Brady & McNulty, 2011) or knowledge of exit poll information (Morton et al., 2015). 2 The effect of voting in the aftermath of disasters and crises on turnout is ambiguous (Bechtel & Hainmueller, 2011;Bodet et al., 2016;Fair et al., 2017;Lasala-Blanco et al., 2017;Rudolph & Kuhn, 2017;Sinclair et al., 2011). ...
... The local prevalence of contagious diseases has been shown to rather decrease turnout (Godefroy & Henry, 2016;Noury et al., 2021;Picchio & Santolini, 2022;Urbatsch, 2017) but Blesse et al. (2020) find a slightly higher turnout in counties that reported infections with Covid-19 in the first round of the Bavarian local elections in 2020. Consistent with Amlani and Collitt (2022) for the United States, we show with a difference-in-differences strategy that turnout increased substantially due to lower direct voting costs induced by a state of emergency together with the introduction of exclusive and facilitated postal voting. ...
... Studies frequently employ rainfall (bad weather) or institutional changes that affect voting costs as instruments to estimate the impact of higher turnout on party vote shares. Some evidence suggests that left-wing parties profit from high turnout (Arnold & Freier, 2016;Finseraas & Vernby, 2014;Fowler, 2013Fowler, , 2015Hansford & Gomez, 2010), other research indicates that smaller parties profit (Artés, 2014;Ferwerda, 2014), and some do not find any specific effect of higher turnout on parties' vote shares (Amlani & Collitt, 2022;Knack, 1994). Recent evidence suggests that rainfall may not only increase voting costs but also may change the voting behavior of those who cast a ballot, affecting voters through their emotions which raises questions regarding the exogeneity assumption when employing rainfall as an instrument (Meier et al., 2019). ...
We analyze the effect of electoral turnout on incum-bency advantages by exploring mayoral elections in the German state of Bavaria. Mayors are elected by majority rule in two-round (runoff) elections. Between the first and second ballot of the mayoral election in March 2020, the state government announced an official state of emergency. In the second ballot, voting in person was prohibited and only postal voting was possible. To construct an instrument for electoral turnout, we use a difference-in-differences strategy by contrasting turnout in the first and second ballot in 2020 with the first and second ballots from previous elections. We use this instrument to analyze the causal effect of turnout on incumbent vote shares. A 10-percentage point increase in turnout leads to a statistically robust 3.4 percentage point higher vote share for incumbent mayors highlighting the relevance of turnout-related incumbency advantages.
... The use of mail-in ballots has increased in recent years, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic as a means for voters to reduce their risk of exposure to the virus, with a large share of the US electorate (43 percent) casting ballots by mail in 2020 (United States Census Bureau 2021). While the mail-in ballot is meant to increase the convenience and accessibility of voting, evidence suggests that voting by mail has only a modest effect, if any, on increasing electoral participation in recent elections (Berinsky, Burns, and Traugott 2001;Southwell 2009;Monroe and Sylvester 2011;Gronke and Miller 2012;Barber and Holbein 2020;Amlani and Collitt 2022). Several studies suggest that voting by mail mainly changes "how people vote" (or voter retention) rather than "who votes" (or voter recruitment), including during the 2020 election amid the COVID-19 pandemic (Monroe and Sylvester 2011;Thompson et al. 2020;Yoder et al. 2021). ...
... Several studies suggest that voting by mail mainly changes "how people vote" (or voter retention) rather than "who votes" (or voter recruitment), including during the 2020 election amid the COVID-19 pandemic (Monroe and Sylvester 2011;Thompson et al. 2020;Yoder et al. 2021). Notably, numerous studies have failed to find evidence that voting by mail confers any specific partisan advantage (Barber and Holbein 2020;Amlani and Collitt 2022). ...
Do Donald Trump’s attacks on voting by mail influence how some Canadians view mail-in ballots? The Trump effect on views and behaviors surrounding voting by mail has been well documented in the United States. North of the border, more Canadians than ever voted by mail in the last general election. In this study, we consider how right-wing populism is associated with trust in voting by mail among Canadians. Specifically, we seek to test two main hypotheses. First, we consider whether Canadians holding populist views—and, in particular, those holding right-wing populist views (would-be Trump supporters)—are less trusting of voting by mail. Second, we consider whether political media exposure amplifies this association. We analyze data from both the 2021 Canadian Election Study and Democracy Checkup Survey. We find that those who hold populist views clearly have less trust in voting by mail. This is especially true among right-leaning individuals. Furthermore, as in the United States, this effect is moderated by one’s level of political media exposure, with higher levels of political media exposure amplifying the effect of populist views on trust in voting by mail. Our findings, therefore, suggest that the politicization of mail-in voting by President Trump has important implications for the legitimacy of the electoral system not only in the United States, but also in Canada and potentially in other parts of the world.
... While there is general scholarly agreement that all-mail voting increases turnout, there is little support that other mail ballot policies affect turnout. For example, Amlani and Collitt (2022) find null county-level turnout effects in states that shifted their mail policies (from 2016 to 2020) from ''excuseneeded to no-excuse-needed or from no-excuseneeded to sending mail-in ballot applications'' (Amlani and Collitt 2022, 12). And McGhee, Paluch and Romero (2022) do not find mail balloting increased turnout outside of the vote-by-mail states. ...
... A simple LOESS line helps us illustrate that states' turnout rates averaged about 60% where the fewest percentage of voters cast mail ballots, with a ten percentage point rise to about 70% in states in which roughly 40% of voters cast mail ballots. This effect on face value appears much larger than a maximal 2.9 percentage point effect of expanded no-excuse absentee voting (Amlani and Collitt 2022). We believe mail ballot usage helps us visualize the cumulative effect of the many nuances of states' mail ballot policies that may affect the percentage of the electorate casting mail ballots. ...
... Despite partisan disagreement, most research shows that neither party gains much advantage when a new voting method is introduced (Stein 1998; Karp and Banducci 2000;Berinsky et al. 2001;Hassell 2017;Southwell and Burchett 2000;Barber and Holbein 2020;Thompson et al. 2020;Amlani and Collitt 2022). For example, there was virtually no difference in the rates by which Democrats and Republicans used mail ballots nationwide in 2016 even though the universal VBM states lean more Democratic (Stewart 2020a). ...
... The smallest increase was in states that neither had nor introduced VBM or no-excuse/COVID-excuse absentee voting. Amlani and Collitt (2022) report only states that switched from no-excuse absentee ballots to universal VBM elections experienced significantly higher turnout over 2016, and changes in voting policies did not appear to advantage one party; however, their analysis does not consider the effects of COVID. Parzuchowski et al. (2021) show COVID deaths and cases had a positive impact on turnout among Democrats. ...
... We demonstrate the use of our metrics in an empirical example that estimates the effect of a vote-by-mail policy in various outcomes (Amlani and Collitt, 2022). This work includes an analysis for the effect of a US county's vote-by-mail (VBM) policy on the Republican presidential vote share (dependent variable Y ) in the 2020 election. ...
We study conditions under which the addition of variables to a regression equation can turn a previously statistically insignificant result into a significant one. Specifically, we characterize the minimum strength of association required for these variables--both with the dependent and independent variables, or with the dependent variable alone--to elevate the observed t-statistic above a specified significance threshold. Interestingly, we show that it is considerably difficult to overturn a statistically insignificant result solely by reducing the standard error. Instead, included variables must also alter the point estimate to achieve such reversals in practice. Our results can be used for sensitivity analysis and for bounding the extent of p-hacking, and may also offer algebraic explanations for patterns of reversals seen in empirical research, such as those documented by Lenz and Sahn (2021).
In 2020, states pursued divergent voting access reforms in an effort to facilitate a safe and secure election in the midst of a global pandemic. For some voters, options like mail‐in or no‐excuse absentee voting were familiar; for others, they were novel. While scholars have explored how election reforms affect turnout, we know less about how state‐level electoral policies influence people's political efficacy and trust, and how political context and voter partisanship condition those effects. Employing a policy feedback framework, our analysis combines original data on state changes to election procedures with ANES survey data from 1988 to 2020 to understand the context‐specific effects of voting access reforms on people's political efficacy and trust. Using time‐event difference‐in‐difference analysis, we find little evidence that electoral reforms affect political efficacy and trust overall; however, partisanship and state political context appear necessary to understand the true relationship between electoral reform and political behavior.
Americans can register and vote in more ways than ever before. But do Americans think it is easy to register and vote in their state, who thinks it is easy, and how do these perceptions affect voter turnout? Despite the importance of answers to these question for theorizing, understanding, and explaining political behavior, few previous works have examined the levels, determinants, and implications of perceptions of registration and voting ease. Using data from the 2022 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, this study finds super majorities of Americans think registering and voting are very easy. Older and Republican-identifying Americans think registering and voting are easier, those in states with same/Election Day registration find registration easier while those in states with voter identification requirements find voting harder. Last, those who think voting (but not registration) is easier are more likely to vote. These findings place increased importance on not just examining the costs of voting, but also the perceived costs of voting.
This study uses multiple regression to analyze more than 1600 state and nationwide polls released from April to November 2020 concerning the U.S. Presidential election of that year. The study finds that sample composition and survey-taking technology affected the results of these polls. Specifically, polls that over-sampled Democrats and polls that used live-callers were biased in favor of Biden. Live-caller bias almost certainly argues that polls suffered from Shy Trumpers. In addition, many poll-takers are found to be biased relative to a reference set of polls, independent of sample composition and the use of live-callers.
The 2020 U.S. election saw a record turnout, saw a huge increase in absentee voting, and brought unified national Democratic control—yet these facts alone do not imply that vote-by-mail increased turnout or benefited Democrats. Using new microdata on millions of individual voters and aggregated turnout data across all 50 states, this paper offers a causal analysis of the impact of absentee vote-by-mail during the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. Focusing on natural experiments in Texas and Indiana, we find that 65-year-olds voted at nearly the same rate as 64-year-olds, despite the fact that only 65-year-olds could vote absentee without an excuse. Being just old enough to vote no-excuse absentee did not substantially increase Democratic turnout relative to Republican turnout. Voter interest appeared to be more important in driving turnout across vote modes, neutralizing the electoral impact of Democrats voting by mail at higher rates during the historic pandemic.
What is the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the 2020 US presidential election? Guided by a pre-analysis plan, we estimate the effect of COVID-19 cases and deaths on the change in county-level voting for Donald Trump between 2016 and 2020. To account for potential confounders, we include a large number of COVID-19-related controls as well as demographic and socioeconomic variables. Moreover, we instrument the numbers of cases and deaths with the share of workers employed in meat-processing factories to sharpen our identification strategy. We find that COVID-19 cases negatively affected Trump’s vote share. The estimated effect appears strongest in urban counties, in states without stay-at-home orders, in swing states, and in states that Trump won in 2016. A simple counterfactual analysis suggests that Trump would likely have won re-election if COVID-19 cases had been 5 percent lower. We also find some evidence that COVID-19 incidence had a positive effect on voters’ mobilization, helping Biden win the presidency.
Are voters as polarized as political leaders when it comes to their preferences about how to cast their ballots in November 2020 and their policy positions on how elections should be run in light of the COVID-19 outbreak? Prior research has shown little party divide on voting by mail, with nearly equal percentages of voters in both parties choosing to vote this way where it is an option. Has a divide opened up this year in how voters aligned with the Democratic and Republican parties prefer to cast a ballot? We address these questions with two nationally diverse, online surveys fielded from April 8 to 10 and June 11 to 13, of 5,612 and 5,818 eligible voters, respectively, with an embedded experiment providing treated respondents with scientific projections about the COVID-19 outbreak. We find a nearly 10 percentage point difference between Democrats and Republicans in their preference for voting by mail in April, which had doubled in size to nearly 20 percentage points in June. This partisan gap is wider still for those exposed to scientific projections about the pandemic. We also find that support for national legislation requiring states to offer no-excuse absentee ballots has emerged as an increasingly polarized issue.
Recently, mandatory vote-by-mail has received a great deal of attention as a means of administering elections in the United States. However, policy-makers disagree on the merits of this approach. Many of these debates hinge on whether mandatory vote-by-mail advantages one political party over the other. Using a unique pairing of historical county-level data that covers the past three decades and more than 40 million voting records from the two states that have conducted a staggered rollout of mandatory vote-by-mail (Washington and Utah), we use several methods for causal inference to show that mandatory vote-by-mail slightly increases voter turnout but has no effect on election outcomes at various levels of government. Our results find meaning given contemporary debates about the merits of mandatory vote-by-mail. Mandatory vote-by-mail ensures that citizens are given a safe means of casting their ballot while simultaneously not advantaging one political party over the other.
In response to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), many scholars and policy makers are urging the United States to expand voting-by-mail programs to safeguard the electoral process. What are the effects of vote-by-mail? In this paper, we provide a comprehensive design-based analysis of the effect of universal vote-by-mail—a policy under which every voter is mailed a ballot in advance of the election—on electoral outcomes. We collect data from 1996 to 2018 on all three US states that implemented universal vote-by-mail in a staggered fashion across counties, allowing us to use a difference-in-differences design at the county level to estimate causal effects. We find that 1) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to affect either party’s share of turnout, 2) universal vote-by-mail does not appear to increase either party’s vote share, and 3) universal vote-by-mail modestly increases overall average turnout rates, in line with previous estimates. All three conclusions support the conventional wisdom of election administration experts and contradict many popular claims in the media.
We extend the omitted variable bias framework with a suite of tools for sensitivity analysis in regression models that does not require assumptions on the functional form of the treatment assignment mechanism nor on the distribution of the unobserved confounders, naturally handles multiple confounders, possibly acting non‐linearly, exploits expert knowledge to bound sensitivity parameters and can be easily computed by using only standard regression results. In particular, we introduce two novel sensitivity measures suited for routine reporting. The robustness value describes the minimum strength of association that unobserved confounding would need to have, both with the treatment and with the outcome, to change the research conclusions. The partial R2 of the treatment with the outcome shows how strongly confounders explaining all the residual outcome variation would have to be associated with the treatment to eliminate the estimated effect. Next, we offer graphical tools for elaborating on problematic confounders, examining the sensitivity of point estimates and t‐values, as well as ‘extreme scenarios’. Finally, we describe problems with a common ‘benchmarking’ practice and introduce a novel procedure to bound the strength of confounders formally on the basis of a comparison with observed covariates. We apply these methods to a running example that estimates the effect of exposure to violence on attitudes toward peace.
The difference in difference (DID) design is a quasi-experimental research design that researchers often use to study causal relationships in public health settings where randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are infeasible or unethical. However, causal inference poses many challenges in DID designs. In this article, we review key features of DID designs with an emphasis on public health policy research. Contemporary researchers should take an active approach to the design of DID studies, seeking to construct comparison groups, sensitivity analyses, and robustness checks that help validate the method's assumptions. We explain the key assumptions of the design and discuss analytic tactics, supplementary analysis, and approaches to statistical inference that are often important in applied research. The DID design is not a perfect substitute for randomized experiments, but it often represents a feasible way to learn about casual relationships. We conclude by noting that combining elements from multiple quasi-experimental techniques may be important in the next wave of innovations to the DID approach. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Public Health Volume 39 is April 1, 2018. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
In the last few years policy innovators have implemented a variety of new voting reforms aimed at increasing the ways voters can cast their ballot and with it voter turnout. While these efforts have largely suggested that the net effect of these reforms has been minimal, scholars have not analyzed the effectiveness of the use of these methods by partisan campaigns to increase targeted turnout or to change the methods voters use to cast their ballot. In collaboration with a state party organization, I examine the effect of a partisan get-out-the-vote effort using an absentee vote-by-mail push. I find that these get-out-the-vote efforts to target voters using absentee ballot request forms are effective at shifting more voters to vote absentee. However, while pushing absentee vote-by-mail balloting may bank votes for a campaign before Election Day, the overall effect of partisan campaigns’ use of absentee ballot efforts to increase turnout appears limited.
This paper uses a natural experiment to identify the effect of a procedural information cost on the electoral registration of young first-time voters. We exploit the fact that information about when the minimum age eligibility requirement is due, either at registration or election-day, is only meaningful for those turning 18 after registration closing day. Using a national dataset on Chilean registration over four elections, we provide evidence of a sharp discontinuity in the registration rate of those youngsters turning 18 at closing date. The effect is both sizable and robust, persists over time, and is similar across income groups.
Voter registration, it is widely argued, raises the costs of voting, thereby decreasing turnout. Studies of turnout across states find that states with later registration dates or election day registration have much higher turnout rates. Eliminating registration barriers altogether is estimated to raise voter participation rates by 5 to 10 percentage points. This paper presents panel estimates of the effects of the introduction of registration that exploit changes in registration law and turnout within counties. New York imposed registration on all of its counties in 1965; Ohio imposed registration in all of its counties in 1977. We estimate that the imposition of registration on counties that did not have registration in these states decreased participation over the long-term by 3 to 4 percentage points. Though significant, this is lower than estimates of the effects of registration from cross-sectional studies.
Could changing the locations of polling places affect the outcome of an election by increasing the costs of voting for some and decreasing them for others? The consolidation of voting precincts in Los Angeles County during California's 2003 gubernatorial recall election provides a natural experiment for studying how changing polling places influences voter turnout. Overall turnout decreased by a substantial 1.85 percentage points: A drop in polling place turnout of 3.03 percentage points was partially offset by an increase in absentee voting of 1.18 percentage points. Both transportation and search costs caused these changes. Although there is no evidence that the Los Angeles Registrar of Voters changed more polling locations for those registered with one party than for those registered with another, the changing of polling places still had a small partisan effect because those registered as Democrats were more sensitive to changes in costs than those registered as Republicans. The effects were small enough to allay worries about significant electoral consequences in this instance (e.g., the partisan effect might be decisive in only about one in two hundred contested House elections), but large enough to make it possible for someone to affect outcomes by more extensive manipulation of polling place locations.
It is commonly believed by pundits and political elites that higher turnout favors Democratic candidates, but the extant research is inconsistent in finding this effect. The purpose of this article is to provide scholars with a methodology for assessing the likely effects of turnout on an election outcome using simulations based on survey data. By varying simulated turnout rates for five U.S. elections from 1960 to 2000, we observe that Democratic advantages from higher turnout (and Republican advantages from lower turnout) have steadily ebbed since 1960, corresponding to the erosion of class cleavages in U.S. elections.
We examine the question of whether or not reducing the costs of voting by conducting elections entirely through the mail rather than at the traditional polling place increases participation. Using election data from Oregon, we examine whether or not elections conducted through the mail increase turnout in both local and statewide elections. Using precinct-level data merged with census data we also examine how postal voting may alter the composition of the electorate. We find that, while all-mail elections tend to produce higher turnout, the most significant increases occur in low stimulus elections, such as local elections or primaries where turnout is usually low. The increase in turnout, however, is not uniform across demographic groups. Voting only by mail is likely to increase turnout among those who are already predisposed to vote, such as those with higher socioeconomic status. Like other administrative reforms designed to make voting easier, postal voting has the potential to increase turnout. However, the expanded pool of voters will be limited most likely to those already inclined to vote but find it inconvenient to go to the polling place. This conclusion is consistent with the growing body of research that suggests that relaxing administrative requirements is not likely to be the panacea for low turnout among the disenfranchised.
Although most ballots in the United States have historically been cast in-person, Americans are increasingly voting by mail, a trend that accelerated in the 2020 General Election. Mail ballots can be rejected after being cast, and our analysis of the Florida general elections of 2016, 2018, and 2020 shows that voters inexperienced with mail voting disproportionately submit ballots that end up rejected due to (1) late arrival at elections offices or (2) signature defects on return envelopes. Inexperienced mail voters are up to three times more likely to have their ballots rejected compared to experienced mail voters, and this inexperience penalty varies by a voter’s party registration, race/ethnicity, and age. Our findings hold when controlling for additional voter characteristics and geographical fixed effects. The effect of inexperience on the likelihood of vote-by-mail ballot rejection risks exacerbating existing inequities in political representation already faced by younger and racial/ethnic minority voters.
Objective
To assess the association between United States county-level Covid-19 mortality and changes in presidential voting between 2016 and 2020.
Study design
County-level ecological study.
Methods
We analysed county-level population-weighted differences in partisan vote change, voter turnout, and sociodemographic and health status characteristics across pre-election Covid-19 mortality quartiles. We estimated a population-weighted linear regression of the 2020-2016 Democratic vote change testing the significance of differences between quartiles of Covid-19 mortality, controlling for other county characteristics.
Results
The overall change in the 2020-2016 Democratic vote was +2.9%, but ranged from a +4.3% increase in the lowest mortality quartile counties to +0.9% in the highest mortality quartile counties. Change in turnout ranged from +9.1% in the lowest mortality counties to only +6.2% in highest mortality counties. In regression estimates, the highest mortality quartile was associated with a -1.26% change in the Democratic 2020-2016 vote compared to the lowest quartile (p<0.001).
Conclusions
Higher county-level Covid-19 mortality was associated with smaller increases in Democratic vote share in 2020 compared to 2016. Possible explanations to be explored in future research could include fear of in-person voting in heavily Democratic, high-mortality counties, fear of the economic effects of perceived Democratic support for tighter lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, and general exhaustion that lowered political participation in hard-hit counties.
The COVID-19 crisis has generated interest in all-mail voting (AMV) as a potential policy solution for avoiding in-person elections. However, the quality of AMV implementation has varied greatly across states, leading to mixed results in previous research. We exploit the understudied 2014 implementation of AMV in Colorado to estimate the effect on turnout for all registered voters, along with age, racial, education, income and wealth, and occupational subgroups. Using large voter file data and a difference-in-differences design within individuals, we find a positive overall turnout effect of approximately 8 percentage points—translating into an additional 900,000 ballots being cast between 2014 and 2018. Effects are significantly larger among lower-propensity voting groups, such as young people, blue-collar workers, voters with less educational attainment, and voters of color. The results suggest that researchers and policymakers should look to Colorado's AMV approach as an effective model for boosting aggregate turnout and reducing voting disparities across subgroups.
Because of the COVID-19 threat to in-person voting in the November 2020 election, state and local election officials have pivoted to mail-in voting as a potential solution. This method of voting—while safe from a public health standpoint—comes with its own set of problems, as increased use of mail voting risks amplifying existing discrepancies in rejected mail ballots. While some mail ballot rejections are to be expected, a lack of uniformity in whose ballots get rejected among subgroups of voters—whether for mistakes on a ballot return envelope (BRE) or lateness—raise concerns about equal representation. We draw on official statewide voter file and mail-in ballot data from the 2018 midterm election in Georgia, a state that until the pandemic did not have widespread use of mail voting, to test whether some voters are more likely to cast a mail ballot that does not count. Most importantly, we distinguish between ballots rejected for lateness and those rejected for a mistake on the return envelope. We find that newly registered, young, and minority voters have higher rejection rates compared with their counterparts.
This article analyzes voter identification laws in the United States and their effects on voter turnout. Theoretically, there are plausible reasons to hypothesize turnout lowering effects, though there are also reasons to hypothesize those effects might be minimal. Methodologically, there are research design hurdles to clear in order to produce effect estimates that may be attributed to voter identification laws. Empirically, a small number of studies have employed suitable research designs and generally find modest, if any, turnout effects of voter identification laws. This may indicate that voter identification laws have only minor effects on turnout, or it may be due to the fact that the type of voter identification law that may have the most significant effects—a strict photo identification law—is a relatively recent phenomenon. Future elections and the related additional data may make it possible to adjudicate among these possibilities. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science Volume 20 is May 11, 2017. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
Objective. The all-mail format of the 1996 special Senate election in the state of Oregon provides an opportunity to test previous assumptions about the effect of elevated voter turnout on the composition of the electorate, as well as reexamine the conventional wisdom regarding Republican advantage among absentee voters. Methods. This research involves multivariate analysis of 1996 data obtained from a telephone survey conducted immediately following this special election. Results. This analysis reveals that "vote-by-mail" voters in Oregon differed only slightly from "traditional" voters who went to the polls in previous elections - they were older, more urban, and less partisan. Vote-by-mail voters were as informed, educated, and involved as traditional voters. Additionally, vote-by-mail voters were similar demographically to registered nonvoters but were better educated, and informed about politics. Conclusions. In some manner, all-mail elections provide a method of converting peripheral voters into core voters even in low-stimulus contests.
We consider statistical inference for regression when data are grouped into clusters, with regression model errors independent across clusters but correlated within clusters. Examples include data on individuals with clustering on village or region or other category such as industry, and state- year differences- in- differences studies with clustering on state. In such settings, default standard errors can greatly overstate estimator precision. Instead, if the number of clusters is large, statistical inference after OLS should be based on cluster- robust standard errors. We outline the basic method as well as many complications that can arise in practice. These include cluster- specifi c fi xed effects, few clusters, multiway clustering, and estimators other than OLS. © 2015 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System.
What effect does moving to all-mail elections have on participation? On one hand, all registered voters automatically receive a ballot to return by mail at their convenience. On the other hand, the social aspect of the polling place, and the focal point of election day, is lost. Current estimates of the effect of all-mail elections on turnout are ambiguous. This article offers an improved design and new estimates of the effect of moving to all-mail elections. Exploiting cross-sectional and temporal variation in county-level implementation of all-mail elections in Washington State, we find that the reform increased aggregate participation by two to four percentage points. Using individual observations from the state voter file, we also find that the reform increased turnout more for lower-participating registrants than for frequent voters, suggesting that all-mail voting reduces turnout disparities between these groups.
The authors analyze the choice of voting mode in the 2008 presidential election using a large-sample survey with national coverage that allows a new perspective of convenience voting. Most importantly, they make clear distinctions among the major forms of convenience voting and demonstrate that not all “convenience voters” share the same attributes. In addition, the authors find little support for the hypothesis that convenience voting methods have partisan implications, despite the differences among mail, early, and election-day voters. Results like these have important implications for future moves toward convenience voting and the design of new outreach campaigns.
In the most widely cited result on the turnout effects of voting by mail, Southwell and Burchett report that Oregon’s system increased turnout by 10 percentage points. We attempt to replicate this finding and extend the analysis to additional years to test whether the originally reported effect is due to the novelty of the first three voting by mail elections in 1995 and 1996. We are unable to reproduce earlier findings, either via replication or extending the time series to include 2010 electoral data. We find evidence for a novelty effect when all elections between 1960 and 2010 are included in our analysis, and a consistent impact of voting by mail on turnout only in special elections.
Proponents of vote by mail elections often argue that this type of election facilitates participation such that elevated levels of turnout occur. The research tests this assumption by analyzing 44 statewide elections (1980–2007) in the state of Oregon—the only state that conducts all of its elections by mail. The results of this analysis suggest that the vote by mail format is a major stimulus to voter participation in special elections in Oregon, while its effect on turnout in primary and general elections is positive, but fairly minimal.
This study analyzes the potential of campaigns for ballot measures and elected offices to draw to the polls citizens who otherwise would not vote. The salience of initiatives and popular referenda in each U.S. state is measured for general elections from 1972 to 1996. Using a pooled time-series cross-sectional data set, a model of state-level turnout is estimated. Distinguishing between midterm and presidential years, the analysis tests for the effects of campaigns across those two kinds of contexts. Contrary to previous studies finding no effects at all for ballot initiatives, the results indicate that these measures - like gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns - provide a boost to turnout during midterm years but not presidential years. High-salience initiatives and popular referenda are estimated to increase turnout by about four points during midterm elections, as compared to effects for closely contested gubernatorial and senatorial campaigns of four points and three points, respectively.
Differences in voter turnout among industrial democracies are a function of political institutions and electoral law. Specifically, the presence of nationally competitive electoral districts provides incentives for parties and candidates to mobilize voters everywhere, thereby increasing turnout. Disproportionality in the translation of votes into legislative seats provides a disincentive to voting, which lowers turnout. Multipartyism assigns elections a less decisive role in government formation, depressing turnout. By generating more decisive governments, unicameralism provides a clearer link between elections and legislation, increasing turnout. Finally, mandatory voting laws produce a disincentive to not vote. Empirical analyses of average voter-turnout levels in the 1970s and 1960s across 19 democracies are consistent with these expectations, although Switzerland and the United States appear to be outliers. The results have major implications for the way we interpret national differences in voter-turnout rates.
Proponents of all-mail elections argue that this type of election facilitates participation such that elevated levels of turnout occur. The research tests this assumption by analyzing 48 statewide elections from the state of Oregon. This analysis suggests that the all-mail format is a major stimulus to voter participation, second only to the impact of a presidential contest.
Despite relatively favorable citizen attitudes, voter turnout in American national elections is far below the average of 80% of the eligible electorate that votes in other industrialized democracies. The American institutional setting—particularly the party system and the registration laws—severely inhibits voter turnout, and probably also accounts for the unusual degree to which education and other socioeconomic resources are directly linked to voting participation in the United States.
Using a combination of aggregate and comparative survey data, the present analysis suggests that in comparative perspective, turnout in the United States is advantaged about 5% by political attitudes, but disadvantaged 13% by the party system and institutional factors, and up to 14% by the registration laws. The experience of other democracies suggests that encouraging voter participation would contribute to channeling discontent through the electoral process. Even a significantly expanded American electorate would be more interested and involved in political activity than are present voters in most other democracies.
State governments have experimented with a variety of election laws to make voting more convenient and increase turnout. But the impact of these reforms vary, often in surprising ways that cast insights into the mechanisms by which states can encourage or reduce turnout. Our theory focuses on mobilization and distinguishes between the direct and indirect effects of election laws. We conduct both aggregate and individual level statistical analyses of voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election. The results show that reforms such as election day registration have a consistently positive effect on turnout. By contrast, the most popular reform – early voting – is actually associated with lower turnout. We propose that early voting has created negative unanticipated consequences, reducing the civic significance of elections for individuals, and altering the incentives for political campaigns to invest in mobilization.
This county-level study examines factors associated with the rate of voided presidential ballots in the 1996 elections. Evidence indicates that voided ballots are significantly more prevalent in counties with higher percentages of African Americans and Hispanics. The relationship between voided ballots and African Americans disappears, however, in counties using voting equipment that can be programmed to eliminate overvoting. The rate of voided ballots is lower in larger counties and in counties with a higher percentage of high school graduates. The rate of voided ballots declines as the number of presidential candidates on the ballot increases, but only up to a point, and then rises with further increases. Lever machines generate the lowest rates of voided ballots among types of voting equipment, with punch card systems generating the highest rates.
Most papers that employ Differences-in-Differences estimation (DD) use many years of data and focus on serially correlated outcomes but ignore that the resulting standard errors are inconsistent. To illustrate the severity of this issue, we randomly generate placebo laws in state-level data on female wages from the Current Population Survey. For each law, we use OLS to compute the DD estimate of its "effect" as well as the standard error of this estimate. These conventional DD standard errors severely understate the standard deviation of the estimators: we find an "effect" significant at the 5 percent level for up to 45 percent of the placebo interventions. We use Monte Carlo simulations to investigate how well existing methods help solve this problem. Econometric corrections that place a specific parametric form on the time-series process do not perform well. Bootstrap (taking into account the autocorrelation of the data) works well when the number of states is large enough. Two corrections based on asymptotic approximation of the variance-covariance matrix work well for moderate numbers of states and one correction that collapses the time series information into a "pre"-and "post"-period and explicitly takes into account the effective sample size works well even for small numbers of states.
Would holding elections by mail increase voter turnout? Many electoral reform advocates predict that mail ballot elections will boost participation, basing their prediction on the high turnout rate among absentee voters and on the rise in voter turnout after Oregon switched to voting by mail. However, selection problems inherent to studies of absentee voters and Oregon give us important reasons to doubt whether their results would extend to more general applications of voting by mail. In this paper, we isolate the effects of voting in mail ballot elections by taking advantage of a natural experiment in which voters are assigned in a nearly random process to cast their ballots by mail. We use matching methods to ensure that, in our analysis, the demographic characteristics of these voters mirror those of polling-place voters who take part in the same elections. Drawing on data from a large sample of California counties in two general elections, we find that voting by mail does not deliver on the promise of greater participation in general elections. In fact, voters who are assigned to vote by mail turn out at lower rates than those who are sent to a polling place. Analysis of a sample of local special elections, by contrast, indicates that voting by mail can increase turnout in these otherwise low-participation contests.
Election administrators and public officials often consider changes in electoral laws, hoping that these changes will increase voter turnout and make the electorate more reflective of the voting-age population. The most recent of these innovations is voting-by-mail (VBM), a procedure by which ballots are sent to an address for every registered voter. Over the last 2 decades, VBM has spread across the United States, unaccompanied by much empirical evaluation of its impact on either voter turnout or the stratification of the electorate. In this study, we fill this gap in our knowledge by assessing the impact of VBM in one state, Oregon. We carry out this assessment at the individual level, using data over a range of elections. We argue that VBM does increase voter turnout in the long run, primarily by making it easier for current voters to continue to participate, rather than by mobilizing nonvoters into the electorate. These effects, however, are not uniform across all groups in the electorate. Although VBM in Oregon does not exert any influence on the partisan composition of the electorate, VBM increases, rather than diminishes, the resource stratification of the electorate. Contrary to the expectations of many reformers, VBM advantages the resource-rich by keeping them in the electorate, and VBM does little to change the behavior of the resource-poor. In short, VBM increases turnout, but it does so without making the electorate more descriptively representative of the voting-age population.
Making Voting Easier: Convenience Voting in the 2008 Presidential Election
- R Alvarez
- Ines Michael
- J. Andrew Levin
- Sinclair
Alvarez, R. Michael, Ines Levin, and J. Andrew Sinclair. 2012.
''Making Voting Easier: Convenience Voting in the 2008
Presidential Election.'' Political Research Quarterly
65(2): 248-262.
For Many Americans, Election Day Is Already Here
- Drew Desilver
- A W Geiger
DeSilver, Drew, and A. W. Geiger. 2016. ''For Many Americans, Election Day Is Already Here.'' Pew Research Center.
<https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/21/for-manyamericans-election-day-is-already-here/>. (Accessed January
5, 2022).
Electoral Participation.'' In Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective
- Mark N Franklin
Franklin, Mark N. 1996. ''Electoral Participation.'' In Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global
Perspective, eds. Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi,
and Pippa Norris, 216-35. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
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Nonprofit Sent Ballot Applications to 400,000 New Mexicans
- Jens Gould
Gould, Jens. 2020. ''D.C. Nonprofit Sent Ballot Applications
to 400,000 New Mexicans.'' Santa Fe New Mexican,
November 10. <https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/
coronavirus/d-c-nonprofit-sent-ballot-applications-to-400-000-new-mexicans/article_51633680-dbe5-11ea-bb47-e3c
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Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections
- Dave Leip
Leip, Dave. 2020. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. September 23. <https://uselectionatlas.org/>.
How Greater Vote-by-Mail Influences California Voter Turnout
- Eric Mcghee
- Jennifer Paluch
- Mindy Romero
McGhee, Eric, Jennifer Paluch, and Mindy Romero. 2020.
''How Greater Vote-by-Mail Influences California Voter
Turnout.'' Public Policy Institute of California, September
25. <https://www.ppic.org/publication/how-greater-voteby-mail-influences-california-voter-turnout/>.
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and Mail Voting Policies in Effect for the 2020 Election.''
NCSL, October 27. <https://www.ncsl.org/research/electionsand-campaigns/absentee-and-mail-voting-policies-in-effectfor-the-2020-election.aspx>.
How To Vote In The 2020 Election
- Nathaniel Rakich
- Maya Sweedler
- Julia Wolfe
Rakich, Nathaniel, Maya Sweedler, and Julia Wolfe. 2020.
''How To Vote In The 2020 Election.'' FiveThirtyEight.
Map: Mail-In Voting Rules by State-and the Deadlines You Need
- Benjamin Swasey
Swasey, Benjamin. 2020. ''Map: Mail-In Voting Rules by
State-and the Deadlines You Need.'' NPR.org, October
14.
<https://www.npr.org/2020/09/14/909338758/mapmail-in-voting-rules-by-state>.
How Does Vote-by-Mail Work and Does It Increase Election Fraud?
- Darrell M West
West, Darrell M. 2020. ''How Does Vote-by-Mail Work and
Does It Increase Election Fraud?'' Brookings, June 22.
<https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/how-doesvote-by-mail-work-and-does-it-increase-election-fraud/>.