[EL] more news 1/12/12 Weekend Voting Report

[Paul Gronke]

I'm very familiar with this study, since I talked with the GAO while they were preparing it.  William Jenkins and his staff wrote a very nice paper for ELJ 10:3 (http://www.liebertonline.com/toc/elj/10/3).  It's an excellent study, as you'd expect out of GAO, but I'd place different stresses on their results than Rick does.

The GAO is constrained by its mission, which is to respond to a specific request by a member (in this case, Chairs Durbin and Emerson and ranking members Moran and Serrano) to study the impact on costs, turnout, and other aspects of election administration of HR254, the "Weekend Voting Act."  

I mention this only because many of concerns raised by election officials refer to a two-day election.  This is what HR254 proposes, but the core motivation of the "Why Tuesday" movement is captured in its name--why TUESDAY rather than another day (and if you press Norm Ornstein, why November rather than other times of the year)?  I'm also a bit disappointed that some election officials, who I am sure are far more familiar with their local situations than I am, were still a bit reluctant to think outside the box.  

Two examples of what I mean.  

First, the cost differential may be less than estimated if jurisdictions were not required to have two full days of precinct place voting compared to just one that they hold now.    A nice illustration of this is a quote on pg 21, where only one election official expected that the costs of a two-day election would not, in the  long run, be double the cost of a one-day election, because voters would be more spread out, and a jurisdiction would probably need fewer poll workers (and I might add, could probably consolidate precincts).  

Second, many officials cited likely other administrative difficulties, such as obtaining poll workers or securing facilities.  For example, they note that many schools schedule "athletic events, dances, or fairs" on the weekend.  Yet officials who have actually held elections on Saturdays (pg. 24) say they have an easier time on the weekend.  Children are not in school, parking is readily available, and schools simply adjust.  On the staffing issue, I'm surprised that many officials thought it would be harder, not easier, to find poll workers willing to give up a Saturday or Sunday rather than a Tuesday.  I also wonder if they could offer "flex" options to their staff (help at the polls on the weekend, and get a free day off during the week).

The turnout results are necessarily constrained because we have no good basis of comparison.  I agree with the authors that the overall impact on turnout are likely to be small but statistically significant, in the 2-4% range.

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Paul Gronke	Ph:   503-517-7393
                        Fax: 503-661-0601

Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd
Portland OR 97202

EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net



On Jan 12, 2012, at 2:40 PM, Rick Hasen wrote:

> 
> Posted on January 12, 2012 2:16 pm by Rick Hasen
> New GAO Report: “Weekend elections have not been studied, but studies of other voting alternatives determined that voter turnout is not           strongly affected by them. Since nationwide federal elections have never been held on a weekend, it is difficult to draw valid conclusions about how moving federal elections to a weekend would affect voter turnout. GAO’s review of 24 studies found that, with the exception of vote by mail, each of the alternative voting methods was estimated to change turnout by no more than 4 percentage points. GAO’s analysis of early voter turnout data in Maryland found that 1.5 percent of voters we analyzed cast ballots on the weekend during the 2010 general election.”
> 
> The group Why Tuesday? has been pushing for weekend elections for quite some time.
>