Election Administration and the Pure Effect of Voter Registration on Turnout

2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Burden ◽  
Jacob R. Neiheisel
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Closing Date ◽  
Election Administration ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
Local Election ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Negative Effect

Voter registration is thought to have a substantial negative effect on American voter turnout. The authors clarify this understanding in two ways. First, using a natural experiment in Wisconsin, they estimate the pure effect of registration, stripped of aspects such as the closing date. Registration lowers turnout by about 2 percentage points. Second, the authors argue that administrative capacities of local election officials are important moderators of how much registration affects turnout. Municipalities with less capacity are associated with bigger decreases in turnout. Researchers and policy makers should consider administrative capacity as a component in the equal application of voting laws.

Social Capital and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Saint's Day Fiestas in Mexico

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Atkinson ◽  
Anthony Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Omitted Variables ◽  
Reverse Causation ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Community Activity ◽  
Community Activities ◽  
Percentage Points

Social capital and community activity are thought to increase voter turnout, but reverse causation and omitted variables may bias the results of previous studies. This article exploits saint's day fiestas in Mexico as a natural experiment to test this causal relationship. Saint's day fiestas provide temporary but large shocks to the connectedness and trust within a community, and the timing of these fiestas is quasi-random. For both cross-municipality and within-municipality estimates, saint's day fiestas occurring near an election decrease turnout by 2.5 to 3.5 percentage points. So community activities that generate social capital can inhibit political participation. These findings may give pause to scholars and policy makers who assume that such community activity and social capital will improve the performance of democracy.

scholarly journals The Introduction of Voter Registration and Its Effect on Turnout

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Ansolabehere ◽  
David M. Konisky
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Voter Participation ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Registration Laws ◽  
Panel Estimates

Studies of voter turnout across states find that those with more facilitative registration laws have higher turnout rates. Eliminating registration barriers altogether is estimated to raise voter participation rates by up to 10%. This article presents panel estimates of the effects of introducing registration that exploits changes in registration laws and turnout within states. New York and Ohio imposed registration requirements on all of their counties in 1965 and 1977, respectively. We find that the introduction of registration to counties that did not previously require registration decreased participation over the long term by three to five percentage points. Though significant, this is lower than estimates of the effects of registration from cross-sectional studies and suggests that expectations about the effects of registration reforms on turnout may be overstated.

The Effect of Registration Laws on Voter Turnout

1978 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Rosenstone ◽  
Raymond E. Wolfinger
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Population Survey ◽  
Census Bureau ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
State Laws ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Registration Laws ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
State Registration ◽  
The Impact

After the drastic relaxation of voter registration requirements in the 1960s, do present state laws keep people away from the polls? More specifically, which provisions have how much effect on what kinds of people? We have answered these questions with data from the Current Population Survey conducted by the Census Bureau in November 1972.State registration laws reduced turnout in the 1972 presidential election by about nine percentage points. The impact of the laws was heaviest in the South and on less educated people of both races. Early deadlines for registration and limited registration office hours were the biggest impediments to turnout.Contrary to expectations, changing these requirements would not substantially alter the character of the electorate. The voting population would be faintly less affluent and educated; the biggest difference would be a matter of one or two percentage points. In strictly political terms, the change would be even fainter–a gain for the Democrats of less than half a percent.

A Method to Audit the Assignment of Registered Voters to Districts and Precincts

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-371
Author(s):  
Brian Amos ◽  
Michael P. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Election Administration ◽  
Local Election ◽  
Large Scale Data ◽  
Registered Voters ◽  
Scale Data ◽  
Legislative Election

Electoral boundaries are an integral part of election administration. District boundaries delineate which legislative election voters are eligible to participate in, and precinct boundaries identify, in many localities, where voters cast in-person ballots on Election Day. Election officials are tasked with resolving a tremendously large number of intersections of registered voters with overlapping electoral boundaries. Any large-scale data project is susceptible to errors, and this task is no exception. In two recent close elections, these errors were consequential to the outcome. To address this problem, we describe a method to audit the assignment of registered voters to districts. We apply the methodology to Florida’s voter registration file to identify thousands of registered voters assigned to the wrong state House district, many of which local election officials have verified and rectified. We discuss how election officials can best use this technique to detect registered voters assigned to the wrong electoral boundary.

scholarly journals The Loma Prieta earthquake and the cost of voting in the 1989 San Francisco municipal election: Evidence from a natural experiment

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316802110042
Author(s):  
Garrett Glasgow ◽  
Pavel Oleinikov ◽  
Rhoanne Esteban
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Earthquake Damage ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Loma Prieta Earthquake ◽  
Election Administration ◽  
Loma Prieta ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Municipal Election

On October 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the central coast of California. Three weeks later, on November 7, 1989, San Francisco held a municipal election. A dozen polling places had been destroyed or were otherwise inaccessible to the public due to the earthquake, so new polling places were selected for the affected precincts in the days leading up to the election. This case represents a credible natural experiment examining how changes in the costs of voting affect political participation, with the “as-if” random assignment of voters to the treatment group determined by earthquake damage to individual buildings rather than election administration decisions which could conceivably be related to turnout, such as precinct consolidation or the location of precinct boundaries. We use a difference-in-differences design, with the difference in turnout between the 1987 and 1989 municipal elections as the outcome variable. We find that voter turnout was 2.9 [5.1, 0.6] percentage points lower in precincts in which the polling place was relocated due to earthquake damage as compared to precincts that kept their original polling place.

Driving Saints to Sin: How Increasing the Difficulty of Voting Dissuades Even the Most Motivated Voters

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. McNulty ◽  
Conor M. Dowling ◽  
Margaret H. Ariotti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
New York State ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Political Methodology ◽  
York State ◽  
Cost Cutting ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Naturalistic Setting

The consolidation of polling places in the Vestal Central School District in New York State during the district's 2006 budget referendum provides a naturalistic setting to study the effects of polling consolidation on voter turnout on an electorate quite distinct from previous work by Brady and McNulty (2004, The costs of voting: Evidence from a natural experiment. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology, Palo Alto, CA). In particular, voters in local elections are highly motivated and therefore might be thought to be less affected by poll consolidation. Nevertheless, through a matching analysis we find that polling consolidation decreases voter turnout substantially, by about seven percentage points, even among this electorate, suggesting that even habitual voters can be dissuaded from going to the polls. This finding has implications for how election administrators ought to handle cost-cutting measures like consolidation.

scholarly journals How Effective Are Monetary Incentives to Vote? Evidence from a Nationwide Policy

2022 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 293-326
Author(s):  
Mariella Gonzales ◽  
Gianmarco León-Ciliotta ◽  
Luis R. Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Monetary Incentives ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Nonmonetary Incentives

We study voters’ response to marginal changes to the fine for electoral abstention in Peru, leveraging variation from a nationwide reform. A smaller fine has a robust, negative effect on voter turnout, partly through irregular changes in voter registration. However, representation is largely unaffected, as most of the lost votes are blank or invalid. We also show that the effect of an exemption from compulsory voting is substantially larger than that of a full fine reduction, suggesting that nonmonetary incentives are the main drivers behind the effectiveness of compulsory voting. (JEL D72, K16, O17)

scholarly journals Early Voting Laws, Voter Turnout, and Partisan Vote Composition: Evidence from Ohio

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Kaplan ◽  
Haishan Yuan
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Early Voting ◽  
Registration Data ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Child Bearing ◽  
Working Age ◽  
Positive Impacts ◽  
Voting Laws

We estimate effects of early voting on voter turnout using a 2010 homogenization law from Ohio that forced some counties to expand and others to contract early voting. Using voter registration data, we compare individuals who live within the same 2 × 2 mile square block but in different counties. We find substantial positive impacts of early voting on turnout equal to 0.22 percentage points of additional turnout per additional early voting day. We also find greater impacts on women, Democrats, independents, and those of child-bearing and working age. We simulate impacts of national early day laws on recent election outcomes. (JEL D72, K16)

Turning Out to Vote: The Costs of Finding and Getting to the Polling Place

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
HENRY E. BRADY ◽  
JOHN E. MCNULTY
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Search Costs ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Absentee Voting

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.

scholarly journals The Effect of Electoral Systems on Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 689-710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Sanz
Keyword(s):  
Population Size ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
Proportional Representation ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Regression Discontinuity Design ◽  
Percentage Points

I exploit the unique institutional framework of Spanish local elections, where municipalities follow different electoral systems depending on their population size, as mandated by a national law. Using a regression discontinuity design, I compare turnout under closed list proportional representation and under an open list, plurality-at-large system where voters can vote for individual candidates from the same or different party-lists. I find that the open list system increases turnout by between 1 and 2 percentage points. The results suggest that open list systems, which introduce competition both across and within parties, are conducive to more voter turnout.

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