[EL] in-person voter fraud Washington 2004 follow up

Sun Jul 31 16:15:29 PDT 2011

Rick,

I may not understand their study correctly. But if I do, then I think (1) that their concept of what it means for there to be confidence in the voting system is too narrow, and (2) that they assume a higher degree of rationality than is the case in voters' level of confidence in the system. The same person who thinks all the TSA procedures for boarding airplanes are ridiculous-and who would say so in an interview-might nonetheless be made uneasy by a lack of procedures. The same may be true for elections, even if voters do not think voter id is likely to reduce the level of in-person voter impersonation fraud. (Again, they may have discussed these points, and I may just have missed it.)

There is an important sense, I think, of regularity of a system. When the expected regularities are followed, people feel more confidence. That may not be a rational conclusion drawn from views of particular threats to the system, but I think it's real nonetheless. When people get accustomed to a process being used in situations in which their identity is important, they wonder why that process isn't followed in determining who will govern us. People have natural suspicions that aren't necessarily tied to particular threats to the system's reliability and honesty. Those suspicions are particularly likely, I think, when we deal with political matters like elections; politicians are not thought to be conspicuously honest.

I think that their study asked specific questions about how likely voters thought it was that certain discrete kinds of dishonesty might occur. To assume that we then can aggregate the answers to those questions and determine the real level of confidence in the election process seems to me to assume too high a level of rationality in voters' views. In perceptions, one plus one does not always equal two.

I could be wrong, but I do think, as I said, that Ansolabehere and Persily used too narrow a view of confidence and assumed a higher level of rationality than is warranted. Perhaps  others have more fully developed understandings of these potential limits of their study's usefulness.

An additional thought:

A lack of confidence in the voting system may have the opposite effect from that assumed by the study's authors. A person who does not trust the system may believe it is even more important to vote, because increased voting may prevent the system's failures from tipping an election one way or another. The authors actually note such a possibility, I think, at p. 1752. They seem to treat it as a reason to think that voters' confidence in the system doesn't matter very much, because it doesn't discourage voting and perhaps even encourages it. But a lack of confidence damages our civil society in ways beyond the turnout rate.

Back to working on my bankruptcy reorganization casebook.

Mark

Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
Malibu, CA 90263
(310) 506-4667

From: Rick Hasen [mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu]
Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2011 3:18 PM
To: Scarberry, Mark
Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] in-person voter fraud Washington 2004 follow up

Mark,
Have you seen the very strong study on this by Ansolabehere and Persily in the Harvard Law Review?
http://www.harvardlawreview.org/issues/121/may08/Essay_2417.php

Rick

On 7/31/2011 3:15 PM, Scarberry, Mark wrote:

I'm sure this point has been discussed to death. But it seems to me that one reasonable rationale for a voter id requirement is that it will increase the confidence voters feel in the voting system.

It's useful to educate people that, at least at this point, there does not seem to be much voter impersonation fraud, other than perhaps in absentee voting. But the education effort is not likely to succeed very well. (Of course, it would also be useful if everyone were careful with the facts, so that public fear of voter impersonation fraud is not increased beyond whatever level is justified.)

It is a real and substantial good for our society when confidence in the voting system is increased. Whether achieving that good is worth the trouble caused to some voters by voter id laws is a fair question.

Mark

Mark S. Scarberry

Professor of Law

Pepperdine Univ. School of Law

Malibu, CA 90263

(310) 506-4667

-----Original Message-----

From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of David A. Schultz

Sent: Sunday, July 31, 2011 12:56 PM

To: rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>

Cc: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>

Subject: Re: [EL] in-person voter fraud Washington 2004 follow up

Rick:

Good question and you make my point.  I think studies on photo Id claiming that deter voter fraud run the same problem as any other study about criminal laws and claims that deter xyz.  It is impossible to prove deterrence.

Conversely, I have yet to see a good study that really documents the impact of voter ID laws on suppressing voting.  I think there are research design issues, ecological fallacy problems, and perhaps a host of other issues that make it difficult to ascertain  the real impact.

Having said that, American history is littered with many policies, enacted with the belief they will achieve certain results, and they do not.

David,

Have you applied the same examination of evidence to the question whether voter identification laws actually deter much voting?  The best study I've seen on the question indicates that the issue may not be empirically resolvable, at least not yet.

Rick

David Schultz, Professor

Editor, Journal of Public Affairs Education (JPAE)

Hamline University

School of Business

570 Asbury Street

Suite 308

St. Paul, Minnesota 55104

651.523.2858 (voice)

651.523.3098 (fax)

http://davidschultz.efoliomn.com/

http://works.bepress.com/david_schultz/

http://schultzstake.blogspot.com/

Rick Hasen  07/31/11 2:44 PM >>>

_______________________________________________

Law-election mailing list

Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>

http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

_______________________________________________

Law-election mailing list

Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>

http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

--
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20110731/76d7b437/attachment.html>