No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Assessing the Impact of the United States Postal System and Election Administration on Absentee and Mail Voting in the 2012 to 2020 U.S. Midterm and Presidential Elections
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.
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.
Liberal absentee laws are designed to make voting easier, which should stimulate turnout. Using data from the National Election Studies, we test the hypothesis that persons who choose to vote early are already highly motivated to participate in the political process. We find support for this hypothesis, which raises questions about the extent to which liberal absentee laws can expand the electorate. Furthermore, contrary to past research, we see the Republican advantage in absentee voting as a result of self-selection rather than party mobilization.
Does the effectiveness of a Get Out The Vote (GOTV) contact depend upon the method by which a voter casts a ballot? This study investigates whether those who must vote by mail are more or less responsive to a face-to-face mobilization message than voters who live in traditional precincts with polling places. We combine a natural experiment designed to isolate the effects of voting by mail with a field experiment probing the impact of a door-to-door GOTV drive. Implementing this design in the November, 2008 general election in San Diego County, we hired professional canvassers to target a total of 29,717 randomly-assigned registered voters. We find that a face-to-face GOTV contact has a larger effect on the participation of those who vote at polling places than it does on registrants assigned to vote by mail, but only among individuals whose voting behavior is most likely to be shaped by extrinsic social rewards.
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.
Objective
In this article,I ask whether the adoption of vote-by-mail (VBM) has resulted in the promised cost reductions. Additionally, I examine the overall determinants of election administration expenditures after the implementation of VBM.
Methods
Using Colorado as a case study, I use county level expenditures to determine the effects of institutional change on election administration finance, as well as other institutional and socio-demographic determinants on costs.
Results
I find that adopting all-VBM elections significantly reduced expenditures. Additionally, I find that after VBM was implemented, the primary institutional determinants of expenditures are the proportion of mail-in ballots received, as well as the number of poll-workers, and early voting sites. Finally, I find that socio-demographic characteristics are predictive of expenditures for election administration. Counties with higher income spent less per voter in federal elections. Counties with higher proportions of Latinx voting-aged populations spent less per voter, even when controlling for turnout.
Conclusion
The results strongly indicate that moving to all-VBM elections can help cash-strapped counties save money. However, conversion to VBM may not guarantee that expenditures will be spent equitably.
In the United States, drop box mail-in voting has increased, particularly in the all vote by mail (VBM) states of Washington, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon. To assess if drop boxes improve voter turnout, research proxies box treatment by voters’ residence distance to nearest drop box. However, no research has tested the assumption that voters use drop boxes nearest their residence more so than they do other drop boxes. Using individual-level voter data from a 2020 Washington State election, we show that voters are more likely to use the nearest drop box to their residence relative to other drop boxes. In Washington’s 2020 August primary, 52% of drop box voters in our data used their nearest drop box. Moreover, those who either (1) vote by mail, or (2) used a different drop box from the one closest to their residence live further away from their closest drop box. Implications are discussed.
This book compares the demographic characteristics and political views of voters and non-voters in U.S. presidential elections since 1972 and examines how electoral reforms and the choices offered by candidates influence voter turnout. Drawing on a wealth of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the American National Election Studies, the book demonstrates that the rich have consistently voted more than the poor for the past four decades, and that voters are substantially more conservative in their economic views than non-voters. The book finds that women are now more likely to vote than men, that the gap in voting rates between blacks and whites has largely disappeared, and that older Americans continue to vote more than younger Americans. The book also shows how electoral reforms such as Election Day voter registration and absentee voting have boosted voter turnout, and how turnout would also rise if parties offered more distinct choices. Providing the most systematic analysis available of modern voter turnout, this book reveals that persistent class bias in turnout has enduring political consequences, and that it really does matter who votes and who doesn't.
This book explores the wide variation across states in convenience voting methods—absentee/mail voting, in-person early voting, same day registration—and provides new empirical analysis of the beneficial effects of these policies, not only in increasing voter turnout overall, but for disadvantaged groups. By measuring both convenience methods and implementation of the laws, the book improves on previous research. It draws generalizable conclusions about how these laws affect voter turnout by using population data from the fifty state voter files. Using individual vote histories, the design helps avoid bias in non-random assignment of states in adopting the laws. Many scholars and public officials have dismissed state election reform laws as failing to significantly increase turnout or address inequality in who votes. Accessible Elections underscores how state governments can modernize their election procedures to increase voter turnout and influence campaign and party mobilization strategies. Mail voting and in-person early voting are particularly important in the wake of Covid-19 to avoid election day crowds and ensure successful and equitable elections in states with large populations; the results of this study can help state governments more rapidly update voting for the 2020 general election and beyond.
The Elections Performance Index (EPI) has provided an objective assessment of the convenience and security of national elections starting with the 2008 election. This chapter begins by providing a historical, institutional, and intellectual introduction to the EPI’s creation and development over the past decade. The construction of an index such as this requires the trade-off of values, which are discussed at length. Average values of the EPI have increased over the past decade, which is a general tribute to the widespread improvement of election administration at the state level. At the same time, disaggregating sources of this improvement helps to highlight the EPI’s focus on online presence and data transparency. Finally, as the EPI enters a second decade, this chapter concludes with thoughts about how indicators might be added and adapted, and how the relative emphasis on ranking states might be adjusted to provide richer narratives about the development of election administration by the states.
Conventional political wisdom holds that policies that make voting easier will increase turnout and ultimately benefit Democratic candidates. We challenge this assumption, questioning the ability of party strategists to predict which changes to election law will advantage them. Drawing on previous research, we theorize that voting laws affect who votes in diverse ways depending on the specific ways that they reduce the costs of participating. We assemble datasets of county-level vote returns in the 2004, 2008, and 2012 presidential elections and model these outcomes as a function of early voting and registration laws, using both cross-sectional regression and difference-in-difference models. Unlike Election Day registration, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the results show that early voting generally helps Republicans. We conclude with implications for partisan manipulation of election laws.
The nature of turnout has changed in the United States: a shift in state policies has transformed a singular Election Day into a multi-week voting period. During the 2012 election, we assembled daily snapshots of early voting records across the U.S. We observe where and when individuals with key demographic characteristics voted. By measuring the timing of voting by demographic subgroups within small geographic areas, we assess how the early voting period may differentially affect various politically relevant subsets of the electorate. We find that partisans and older voters disproportionately take advantage of early voting, and that political independents and younger individuals who vote early do so much later in the early-voting window. We discuss policy implications, and we also conduct an exploratory analysis of the relationship between early vote timing and campaign events.
Americans are changing in terms of when and where they vote. We endeavor to find out whether these changes have affected the voting experience. Americans offer myriad reasons for not voting (Current Population Survey [CPS] 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010). Most of these excuses are beyond immediate remedy. There may be one exception: the way we conduct and administer our elections. Voting place practices have undergone considerable change in the last decade and may offer the most immediate if not direct means of enhancing the voters’ experience at their polling places and possibly voter participation. In this chapter, we ask whether contemporary polling place practices are related to the experiences voters have when voting and whether these practices directly or through voter experiences and other covariates have a nontrivial and appreciable effect on the likelihood of voting. Our thesis is that when and where voters cast their ballot significantly impact the voter’s experience and the likelihood an eligible voter will actually vote. We find that when voters have a choice of where and when to vote rather than being limited to voting on one day and at a location most proximate to their residence, they are more likely to report a positive voting experience and are more likely to vote. Specifically we find that voters who cast a ballot before Election Day report a more positive voting experience than Election Day voters. Further we find that voters report more favorable voting experiences when they vote in larger voting places – voting places that are more centrally located, where voters work, shop, recreate, and travel, and that have accessible parking, a large number of voting stations, and a large number of poll workers.
One of the most dramatic changes in voting in the United States over the last two decades has been the growth in the number of voters casting ballots by mail with every successive election cycle. In recent years, an increasing number of states have changed laws to allow voters to cast mail ballots without an excuse, to allow voters to “permanently” request mail ballots for all future elections, and even to switch to “all-mail” voting. Casting ballots by mail involves major changes in the mechanics of obtaining, completing, and submitting ballots compared with the in-person voting system used in the United States for more than a century (Ewald 2009; Keyssar 2009). Given the large and growing proportion of ballots cast by mail, it is vital to understand the effect of these policy changes on election administration and determine how well states administer this distinctive method of voting. In the 2012 general election, thirty states allowed voters to request mail ballots without providing a reason for using a mail ballot (National Conference of State Legislatures 2012). Eight states allowed voters to request mail ballots for every election (permanent mail voter status). In-person voting was not available in Oregon or Washington: ballots were mailed to all voters that could be returned by mail or in special ballot drop boxes. Twelve additional states allowed counties and cities to conduct similar mail ballot elections in specific types of primary, local, and off-year elections.
Policymaking in the realm of elections is too often grounded in anecdotes and opinions, rather than in good data and scientific research. To remedy this, The Measure of American Elections brings together a dozen leading scholars to examine the performance of elections across the United States, using a data-driven perspective. This book represents a transformation in debates about election reform, away from partisan and ideological posturing, toward using scientific analysis to evaluate the conduct of contemporary elections. The authors harness the power of newly available data to document all aspects of election administration, ranging from the registration of voters to the counting of ballots. They demonstrate what can be learned from giving serious attention to data, measurement, and objective analysis of American elections.
Policymaking in the realm of elections is too often grounded in anecdotes and opinions, rather than in good data and scientific research. To remedy this, The Measure of American Elections brings together a dozen leading scholars to examine the performance of elections across the United States, using a data-driven perspective. This book represents a transformation in debates about election reform, away from partisan and ideological posturing, toward using scientific analysis to evaluate the conduct of contemporary elections. The authors harness the power of newly available data to document all aspects of election administration, ranging from the registration of voters to the counting of ballots. They demonstrate what can be learned from giving serious attention to data, measurement, and objective analysis of American elections.
Over a decade has passed since Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002, largely in response to the problems experienced in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. Despite the appropriation of more than $3.5 billion, there are still persistent problems with the administration of elections in the United States. Some encompass technical problems involving computerized voting equipment, voter lists, and the software used to manage them, but many others are rooted in more traditional issues of candidates and political parties attempting to advantage themselves at the expense of their opponents. Indeed, contemporary elections provide many opportunities for those participating in election administration to manipulate the system intentionally for partisan advantage or to introduce inconsistencies across jurisdictions as a result of the discretion granted to state and local officials. This study focuses on a key area where partisan manipulation and local variation may be most prominent: provisional ballots. Provisional ballots are important because they offer voters who otherwise would be denied the right to vote an opportunity to cast a ballot – at least in many cases. The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project (2001) provided one of the first arguments in favor of provisional voting and estimated that provisional ballots might have saved 1.5 million votes from being lost in 2000.
Hacking the Electorate is the most comprehensive study to date about the consequences of campaigns using microtargeting databases to mobilize voters in elections. Eitan Hersh follows the trail from data to strategy to outcomes. Hersh argues that most of what campaigns know about voters comes from a core set of public records. States vary in the kinds of records they collect from voters – and these variations in data across the country mean that campaigns perceive voters differently in different areas. Consequently, the strategies of campaigns and the coalitions of voters who are mobilized fluctuate across the country because of the different ways campaigns perceive the electorate. Data policies influence campaigns, voters, and increasingly, public officials.
Despite howls for reform, the only thing separating us from another election disaster of the kind that hit Florida in 2000, and that almost struck again in Ohio in 2004, may simply be another close vote. In this lucid and lively book, Heather Gerken diagnoses what is wrong with our elections and proposes a radically new and simple solution: a Democracy Index that would rate the performance of state and local election systems. A rough equivalent to theU.S. News and World Reportranking of colleges and universities, the Index would focus on problems that matter to all voters: How long does it take to vote? How many ballots get discarded? How often do voting machines break down? And it should work for a simple reason: no one wants to be at the bottom of the list.For a process that is supposed to be all about counting, U.S. elections yield few reliable numbers about anything--least of all how well the voting system is managed.The Democracy Indexwould change this with a blueprint for quantifying election performance and reform results, replacing anecdotes and rhetoric with hard data and verifiable outcomes. A fresh vision of reform, this book shows how to drive improvements by creating incentives for politicians, parties, and election officials to join the cause of change and to come up with creative solutions--all without Congress issuing a single regulation.In clear and energetic terms,The Democracy Indexexplains how to realize the full potential of the Index while avoiding potential pitfalls. Election reform will never be the same again.
In the U.S., there is wide variation from state to state in the institutional arrangements– for example, registration laws– that structure the environment in which citizens decide whether to vote and parties decide whom to mobilize. This has important consequences for who gets elected and the policies they enact. Hanmer argues that to understand how these institutional arrangements affect outcomes, it is necessary to consider the interactions between social and political context and these laws. He tests this theory by examining how the factors that influence the adoption of a set of registration laws affect turnout, the composition of the electorate, and party strategies. His multi-method research design demonstrates that the effect of registration laws is not as profound as either reformers would hope or previous studies suggest, especially when reform is a response to federal legislation. He concludes by arguing for a shift in the approach to increasing turnout.
In competitive and contested democratic elections, ensuring integrity is critical. Evaluating Elections shows why systematic analysis and reporting of election performance are important and how data-driven performance management can be used by election officials to improve elections. The authors outline how performance management systems can function in elections and their benefits for voters, candidates, and political parties. Journalists, election administrators, and even candidates all often ask whether recent elections were run well, whether there were problems in the administration of a particular state’s elections, and how well elections were run across the country. The authors explain that such questions are difficult to answer because of the complexity of election administration and because there is currently no standard or accepted framework to assess the general quality of an election. © R. Michael Alvarez, Lonna Rae Atkeson, and Thad E. Hall 2013.
Forms of convenience voting - early in-person voting, voting by mail, absentee voting, electronic voting, and voting by fax - have become the mode of choice for >30% of Americans in recent elections. Despite this, and although nearly every state in the United States has adopted at least one form of convenience voting, the academic research on these practices is unequally distributed across important questions. A great deal of literature on turnout is counterbalanced by a dearth of research on campaign effects, election costs, ballot quality, and the risk of fraud. This article introduces the theory of convenience voting, reviews the current literature, and suggests areas for future research.
Recent elections have witnessed substantial debate regarding the degree to which state governments facilitate access to the polls. Despite this newfound interest, however, many of the major reforms aimed at increasing voting convenience (i.e., early voting and no-excuse absentee voting) were implemented over the past four decades. Although numerous studies examine their consequences (on turnout, the composition of the electorate, and/or electoral outcomes), we know significantly less about the factors leading to the initial adoption of these policies. We attempt to provide insights into such motivations using event history analysis to identify the impact of political and demographic considerations, as well as diffusion mechanisms, on which states opted for easier ballot access. We find that adoption responded to some factors signaling the necessity of greater voting convenience in the state, and that partisanship influenced the enactment of early voting but not no-excuse absentee voting procedures.
Public opinion researchers, campaigns, and political scientists often rely on self-predicted vote to forecast turnout, allocate resources, and measure political engagement. Despite its importance, little research has examined the accuracy of self-predicted vote responses. Seven pre-election surveys with postelection vote validation from three elections (N = 29,403) reveal several patterns. First, many self-predicted voters do not actually vote (flake-out). Second, many self-predicted nonvoters do actually vote (flake-in). This is the first robust observation of flake-in. Third, actual voting is more accurately predicted by past voting (from voter file or recalled) than by self-predicted voting. Finally, self-predicted voters differ from actual voters demographically. Actual voters are more likely to be White (and not Black), older, and partisan than actual nonvoters (i.e., there is participatory bias), but self-predicted voters and self-predicted nonvoters do not differ much. Vote self-prediction is “biased” in that it misleadingly suggests that there is no participatory bias.
In both 2008 and 2012, about one third of the American electorate cast their votes early. While early voting programs are established by states, counties have considerable discretion with regard to implementing them. While some counties offer only a single early voting site, others offer dozens. Previous research suggests that site density may affect the degree to which programs increase turnout. I use county-level data from the 2008 and 2012 elections to measure whether a county’s racial and ethnic composition predicts high (or low) levels of site density. Applying county-level data from the Election Assistance Commission and American Community Survey, I find that the percentage of a county identifying as Black has a significantly negative association with early voting site density. This relationship persists when numerous demographic covariates are included in ordinary least squares models. These site disparities suggest that early voting may not be achieving its full potential in heavily African American communities.
From Kosovo to Kabul, the last decade witnessed growing interest in ?electoral engineering?. Reformers have sought to achieve either greater government accountability through majoritarian arrangements or wider parliamentary diversity through proportional formula. Underlying the normative debates are important claims about the impact and consequences of electoral reform for political representation and voting behavior. The study compares and evaluates two broad schools of thought, each offering contracting expectations. One popular approach claims that formal rules define electoral incentives facing parties, politicians and citizens. By changing these rules, rational choice institutionalism claims that we have the capacity to shape political behavior. Alternative cultural modernization theories differ in their emphasis on the primary motors driving human behavior, their expectations about the pace of change, and also their assumptions about the ability of formal institutional rules to alter, rather than adapt to, deeply embedded and habitual social norms and patterns of human behavior.
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.
Modern campaigns develop databases of detailed information about citizens to inform electoral strategy and to guide tactical efforts. Despite sensational reports about the value of individual consumer data, the most valuable information campaigns acquire comes from the behaviors and direct responses provided by citizens themselves. Campaign data analysts develop models using this information to produce individual-level predictions about citizens' likelihoods of performing certain political behaviors, of supporting candidates and issues, and of changing their support conditional on being targeted with specific campaign interventions. The use of these predictive scores has increased dramatically since 2004, and their use could yield sizable gains to campaigns that harness them. At the same time, their widespread use effectively creates a coordination game with incomplete information between allied organizations. As such, organizations would benefit from partitioning the electorate to not duplicate efforts, but legal and political constraints preclude that possibility.
We explore the effects of state-level election reforms on voter turnout in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential elections. Using a cost-benefit model of political participation, we develop a framework for analyzing the burdens imposed by the following: universal mail voting, permanent no-excuse absentee voting, nonpermanent no-excuse absentee voting, early in-person voting, Election Day registration, and voter identification requirements. We analyze turnout data from the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Current Population Surveys and show that implementation by states of both forms of no-excuse absentee voting and Election Day registration has a positive and significant affect on turnout in each election. We find positive but less consistent effects on turnout for universal mail voting and voter identification requirements. Our results also show that early in-person voting has a negative and statistically significant correlation with turnout in all three elections.
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.
A number of electoral reforms have been enacted in the United States in the past three decades that are designed to increase turnout by easing restrictions on the casting of ballots. Both proponents and opponents of electoral reforms agree that these reforms should increase the demographic representativeness of the electorate by reducing the direct costs of voting, thereby increasing turnout among less-privileged groups who, presumably, are most sensitive to the costs of coming to the polls. In fact, these reforms have been greatly contested because both major political parties believe that increasing turnout among less-privileged groups will benefit Democratic politicians. I review evidence from numerous studies of electoral reform to demonstrate that reforms designed to make it easier for registered voters to cast their ballots actually increase, rather than reduce, socioeconomicbiases in the composition of the voting public. I conclude with a recommendation that we shift the focus of electoral reform from an emphasis on institutional changes to a concentration on political engagement.
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.
Theory: The effects of party activity and permissive absentee eligibility on levels of absentee voting and overall turnout are explored. Hypotheses: Liberalizing absentee eligibility reduces the "costs" of voting while giving political interests a new way of mobilizing supporters and stimulating overall turnout. Methods: Data from the 1992 Current Population Survey and from the author's survey of state party organizations are analyzed using a logistic regression. Results: A state-by-state comparison demonstrates that levels of absentee voting are not solely a function of restrictive state laws but reflect other influences, including the efforts of state parties to send out absentee ballot applications. Controlling for the influences of state registration laws, the data indicate that overall turnout is increased only when liberalization of absentee voter eligibility is combined with party mobilization efforts. The implications of this change for American electoral politics are discussed.
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.
We examine the relative performance of voting technologies by studying presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial election returns across hundreds of counties in the United States from 1988 to 2000. Relying on a fixed-effects regression applied to an unbalanced panel of counties, we find that in presidential elections, traditional paper ballots produce the lowest rates of uncounted votes (i.e., “residual votes”), followed by optically scanned ballots, mechanical lever machines, direct register electronic machines (DREs), and punch cards. In gubernatorial and senatorial races, paper, optical scan ballots, and DREs are significantly better in minimizing the residual vote rate than mechanical lever machines and punch cards. If all jurisdictions in the United States that used punch cards in 2000 had used optically scanned ballots instead, we estimate that approximately 500,000 more votes would have been attributed to presidential candidates nationwide.
Objective. Early voting has been suggested as one method of increasing voter turnout. Allowing voters to cast their ballots during a longer time period may ameliorate some barriers to participation that exist. However, the question of whether early voting mobilizes previous nonvoting registrants or simply makes voting easier for those who would have participated anyway remains largely unanswered. Methods. We test these questions through the use of an individual level survey of voters in one Tennessee county. Using logistic regression, we consider the impact of demographic and attitudinal factors on the propensity to vote on election day or to use early voting. Results. We find marked differences between nonvoters and voters of either type, but we find few significant differences between early voters and traditional voters. We find little support for a mobilization effect and some evidence suggests that early voting merely conveniences those who would have voted anyway.
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.
Election Administration and Voter Confidence.'' In Democracy in the States: Experimentation in Election Reform. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution
- Lonna Atkeson
- Kyle L Rae
- Saunders
Atkeson, Lonna Rae, and Kyle L. Saunders. 2008. ''Election
Administration and Voter Confidence.'' In Democracy in
the States: Experimentation in Election Reform. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 21-34
Mobilizing Political Engagement and Participation in Diverse Societies: The Impact of Institutional Arrangements.'' In Designing Democratic Government: Making Institutions Work
- Shaun Bowler
- Todd Donovan
Bowler, Shaun, and Todd Donovan. 2008. ''Mobilizing Political
Engagement and Participation in Diverse Societies: The
Impact of Institutional Arrangements.'' In Designing Democratic Government: Making Institutions Work, eds. Margaret Levi, James Johnson, Jack Knight, and Susan
Stokes. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
How Quickly Will Your Absentee Vote Be Counted? A State-by-State Timeline
- Nick Corasaniti
- Denise Lu
Corasaniti, Nick, and Denise Lu. 2020. ''How Quickly Will
Your Absentee Vote Be Counted? A State-by-State Timeline.'' New York Times. October 21. <https://www.nytimes
.com/interactive/2020/us/politics/when-votes-counted-to
night-election.html> (accessed October 25, 2020).
Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project. <pacscenter.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-Virus-And-The-Vote.pdf>
- Chelsey Davidson
- Zahavah Levine
Davidson, Chelsey, and Zahavah Levine. 2021. ''The Virus and
the Pandemic: Administering the 2020 U.S. Election in a
Pandemic.'' Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
<pacscenter.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-Virus-And-The-Vote.pdf> (accessed May 8, 2023).
A Goal for Reform.'' In Democracy in the State
- Todd Donovan
Donovan, Todd. 2008. ''A Goal for Reform.'' In Democracy in
the State, eds. Bruce E. Cain, Todd Donovan, and Caroline
J. Tolbert. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.
Election and Voting Information
Federal Election Commission. 2022. ''Election and Voting
Information.'' <https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaignfinance/election-and-voting-information/> (accessed January
12, 2023).
- Paul Gronke
- Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum
- Peter A Miller
- David Toffey
Gronke, Paul, Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum, Peter A. Miller, and
David Toffey. 2008. ''Convenience Voting.'' Annual Review
of Political Science 11 (February): 437-455.
Postal Service and the 2020 Elections.'' In The Virus and the Vote: Administering the 2020 Election in a Pandemic
- Axel Hufford
Hufford, Axel. 2021. ''The U.S. Postal Service and the 2020
Elections.'' In The Virus and the Vote: Administering the
2020 Election in a Pandemic, eds. Chelsey Davidson, and
Zahavah Levine. Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project.
<pacscenter.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/The-Virus-And-The-Vote.pdf> (accessed May 8, 2023).