Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform

Burden, Barry C.; Canon, David T.; Mayer, Kenneth R.; Moynihan, Donald P.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1690723

Cited by 52 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Manatee County SOE Bennett is correct that over the past two decades, casting a ballot has become considerably easier for millions of Americans, including many Floridians. Yet, extant scholarship on the effects of convenience voting on voter turnout is decidedly mixed (see Berinsky 2005;Neeley and Richardson 2001;Hanmer and Traugott 2004;Southwell and Burchett 2000;Fitzgerald 2005;Herron and Smith 2014;Stein 1998;Gronke 2008;Stein and Vonnahme 2010;Burden et al 2014;Biggers and Hanmer 2015). 3…”

Section: Theorizing About Reprecinctingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Are reforms enforced uniformly across all local jurisdictions? When operationalizing these election reforms, scholars often rely on dichotomous indicators (see, for example, Burden et al 2014), which may over-simplify the true variation in contexts.…”

Section: Theorizing About Reprecinctingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For now, we lay to the side the debate over the merits and turnout effects of ''convenience voting'' (Gronke and Miller 2012;Burden et al 2014). Instead, we focus on a rather inconspicuous and routine election administration task that is regularly carried out by nearly all local election officials-the drawing of precinct boundaries and the selection of Election Day polling places.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reprecincting and Voting Behavior

2016

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Despite the expansion of convenience voting across the American states, millions of voters continue to cast ballots at their local precincts on Election Day. We argue that those registered voters who are reassigned to a different Election Day polling place prior to an election are less likely to turn out to vote than those assigned to vote at the same precinct location, as a new precinct location incurs both search and transportation costs on reassigned voters. Utilizing voter file data and precinct shape files from Manatee County, Florida, from before and after the 2014 General Election, we demonstrate that the redrawing of precinct boundaries and the designation of Election Day polling places is not a purely technical matter for local election administrators, but may affect voter turnout of some registered voters more than others. Controlling for a host of demographic, partisan, vote history, and geospatial factors, we find significantly lower turnout among registered voters who were reassigned to a new Election Day precinct compared to those who were not, an effect not equally offset by those voters turning to other available modes of voting (either early in-person or absentee). All else equal, we find that registered Hispanic voters were significantly more likely to abstain from voting as a result of being reassigned than any other racial group.

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Section: Theorizing About Reprecinctingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Theorizing About Reprecinctingmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reprecincting and Voting Behavior

2016

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“…6 For example, preregistration requirements (among other things) are attributed to lower turnout in the United States as compared to other industrialized democracies that employ automatic registration ( Jackman, 1987;Powell, 1986). Consistent with cross-national research, studies on the U.S. find that shorter closing dates (i.e., allowing voters to register closer to the election) increase turnout (Burden et al, Forthcoming;Fournier et al, 2004;Gimpel et al, 2007). Moreover, Rosenstone and Wolfinger (1978) find that registration provisions, including absentee registration and longer office hours for registrars (e.g., evenings and weekends), are associated with greater turnout.…”

Section: Registration Reformmentioning

confidence: 61%

Election Law Reform in Chile: The Implementation of Automatic Registration and Voluntary Voting

BarnesTiffany¹,

RangelGabriela²

2014

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy

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In 2012, Chile passed a major election law reform to adopt automatic registration and voluntary voting. Prior to this, Chile, like most Latin American countries, had a compulsory voting law. With this reform, Chile became one of only a few countries to ever move from compulsory to voluntary voting. Since the new law came into effect, two elections have taken place. The purpose of this research note is to review registration and turnout patterns in comparative historical terms, discuss the pros and cons of the election law reform, and to evaluate the 2012 and 2013 election outcomes with respect to voter turnout and election results. We describe the background of voter registration and turnout under the old system; discuss the debate surrounding the election law reform; and review the impact of the reform on turnout patterns.''[The government of Chile] expects wide-spread electoral participation from our citizens, and we are convinced that the next municipal election will be the election with the largest number of votes in the history of our country.'' -Sebastián Piñera, president of Chile (Estrategia, 2012).

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“…More recent studies, however, have reported either a limited effect on turnout (Gronke et al 2007) or no effect at all (Fitzgerald 2005;Highton and Mullin 2005;Primo, Jacobsmeier, and Milyo 2007;Scheele et al 2008). Several studies have even reported that early voting is negatively associated with participation (Larocca and Klemanski 2011; Burden et al 2014).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Early Voting: Do More Sites Lead to Higher Turnout?

FullmerElliott¹

2015

Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy

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In both 2008 and 2012, about one-third of U.S. voters cast their ballots before Election Day. Reformers have argued that early voting lowers participation costs and should therefore increase turnout. Recent research, however, has reported that no positive relationship exists. The literature widely omits consideration of important differences in early voting implementation within states. I break from past research and measure early voting availability at the county level, where it often varies considerably. I rely on Election Assistance Commission data on the number of early voting sites available in 2008 and 2012. Specifically, I measure the effect of a county's early voting site density on turnout. My model controls for other known participation predictors, including lagged turnout, demographics, political variables, and voter identification requirements. Ultimately, I find that early voting site density has a significant and positive effect on voter turnout.

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Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform

Cited by 52 publications

References 63 publications

Reprecincting and Voting Behavior

Reprecincting and Voting Behavior

Election Law Reform in Chile: The Implementation of Automatic Registration and Voluntary Voting

Early Voting: Do More Sites Lead to Higher Turnout?

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