Early Voting and Election Day Registration in the Trenches: Local Officials' Perceptions of Election Reform

2011 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Burden ◽  
David T. Canon ◽  
Kenneth R. Mayer ◽  
Donald P. Moynihan
Keyword(s):  
Early Voting ◽  
Election Reform ◽  
Local Officials

Accessible Elections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Ritter ◽  
Caroline J. Tolbert
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Population Data ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Early Voting ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Election Reform ◽  
Individual Vote ◽  
Large Populations ◽  
Voting Methods

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.

Local Officials as Partisan Operatives: The Effect of County Officials on Early Voting Administration

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 1475-1488
Author(s):  
Markie McBrayer ◽  
R. Lucas Williams ◽  
Andrea Eckelman
Keyword(s):  
Early Voting ◽  
Local Officials

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
Michael Ritter
Keyword(s):  
Solid State ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Early Voting ◽  
Election Administration ◽  
Election Reform ◽  
Low Educated ◽  
Racial Ethnic ◽  
Voting Laws

Chapter 8 reviews the main findings of the book and identifies areas for future research. The general findings indicate that each of the state convenience voting laws (in-person early voting, no-excuse absentee/mail voting, and same day registration) as well solid state election administration can improve voter turnout and promote greater voting equality between the socio-economic classes and among non-Hispanic whites and racial/ethnic minorities. The study demonstrates the value of an advanced causal inference design applied to a rich dataset on American adults (national voter files). It highlights the importance of measuring the effects of multiple convenience voting laws and election administration simultaneously. Future applications of the accessible voting framework can be used to understand the impacts of new election reform laws such as automatic voter registration, and to evaluate whether these factors also promote higher turnout among other historically marginalized voting groups such as the young and low-educated.

Forensic Pluralism and the Dead Body in Early 20th-Century China

2021 ◽  
pp. 192536212110025
Author(s):  
Daniel Asen
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Forensic Medicine ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
The Qing Dynasty ◽  
Forensic Practice ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
Examination Methods ◽  
Death Investigation

Modern forensic medicine was introduced into China during the first decades of the 20th century. The members of China’s first generation of medicolegal experts were soon advocating that medical expertise play a greater role in police and judicial officials’ investigations of suspicious death and homicide cases. While forensic reform in China had parallels with developments in other contemporary societies in which physicians were pushing for a greater role in the law, this process unfolded in China in unique ways, against the backdrop of an older tradition of forensic science that had developed under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Central to this tradition was the Records on the Washing Away of Wrongs, a handbook of forensic practice that was written in the 13th century and saw numerous editions and expansions over subsequent centuries. Death investigation in early 20th-century China was defined by “forensic pluralism,” a situation in which the different body examination methods and standards of forensic proof associated with the Washing Away of Wrongs and modern forensic medicine were both accepted by officialdom and society. This article untangles the complexities of forensic practice during this period through the rather unexceptional exchange over a case of suspected drowning that occurred between local officials in Hebei province and Lin Ji (1897-1951), director of the Beiping University Medical School Institute of Legal Medicine. This case reveals the different regimes of forensic knowledge and practice that were used in China during this period as well as the sites at which they interacted.

Suppressing Black Votes: A Historical Case Study of Voting Restrictions in Louisiana

2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (2) ◽  
pp. 694-700
Author(s):  
LUKE KEELE ◽  
WILLIAM CUBBISON ◽  
ISMAIL WHITE
Keyword(s):  
Time Series Data ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Historical Case Study ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Southern States ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
Data Source ◽  
Eligibility Requirements ◽  
State Restrictions

Southern states have used a variety of methods to disenfranchise African American voters. Empirical data on the effectiveness of these measures is rare. We present a unique data source from Louisiana that allows us to empirically document voter registration rates from the end of Reconstruction to the present. Using basic time series data, we document how voter registration rates changed over time in response to state restrictions. We then conduct a second analysis, which focuses on Louisiana’s use of the Understanding Clause to reduce voter registration among Blacks. We show that in parishes that used the Understanding Clause, Black registration rates dropped by nearly 30 percentage points, with little effect on white registration. The findings of this paper have important implications for understanding the potential for discrimination in the enforcement of modern, ostensibly nonracial, voter eligibility requirements, such as voter ID laws, which grant substantial discretion to local officials in determining voter eligibility.

scholarly journals How Promotion Incentives and Environmental Regulations Affect China’s Environmental Pollution?

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2907
Author(s):  
Shiwen Liu ◽  
Zhong Zhang ◽  
Guangyao Xu ◽  
Zhen Zhang ◽  
Hongyuan Li
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Pollution ◽  
Performance Appraisal ◽  
Environmental Regulation ◽  
Environmental Regulations ◽  
Synergistic Effects ◽  
Appraisal System ◽  
Interaction Terms ◽  
Cooperation Mechanism ◽  
Local Officials ◽  
The Government

As for the academics and policymakers, more attention has been given to the issue on how to reduce environmental pollution through the cooperation of environmental regulation and local officials’ promotion incentives. With the use of a city-level panel data of 266 Chinese cities from 2005 to 2016, this study preliminary explores the impacts of environmental regulations, local officials’ promotion incentives, and their interaction terms on urban environmental pollution at national and regional levels by using the spatial Durbin model. The results indicate that the impacts of environmental regulations and local officials’ promotion incentives on urban environmental pollution have achieved the desired goal with the other’s cooperation, and their interaction term’s coefficients on urban environmental pollution are significantly negative. Moreover, spatial heterogeneity is established, and the uneven development of urban environmental pollution among different regions deserves more attention. In order to effectively reduce the level of urban environmental pollution in China, the government should focus on such solutions as enhancing the implementation and supervision efficiency of environmental regulation, optimizing the performance appraisal system of local officials, improving the synergistic effects of environmental regulations and local officials’ promotion incentives, and establishing a multi-scale spatial cooperation mechanism based on both geographical and economic correlations.

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