[EL] Fwd: Is an Early Vote a Wasted Vote in Primary Elections?

[Michael McDonald]

We may never know with scientific certainty because the state of the world
has changed. Perhaps someone will compare state campaigns in low early vote
states with high early vote states to see when the negative tone of the
campaigns increases (I will throw that paper idea onto my enormous to-do
pile). When you talk to campaign operatives they will tell you that they do
not hold on to their negative attacks until the weekend before the election
in the presence of high levels of early voting. Just like the quote we used
in our early voting paper from the Edwards supporter who was disappointed
that his mail ballot vote was wasted when he dropped out, I did not need to
see a statistical analysis to know votes are being wasted when cast early in
primaries. Common sense sometimes applies.

In addition to my comments about the October surprise, it is also possible
that some of these early voters would never have cast a ballot because they
could not vote on Election Day. How do you balance wasted votes against more
votes, some of which will be cast for candidates still running? We don't
know because the paper only examines wasted votes. We are in agreement that
if there is a problem here, Rob's solution is the best. Inevitably some
voters will only rank one candidate, but at least you gave them a chance to
consider contingencies. And how many of these one-candidate preferred voters
have cast a ballot at all if their favored candidate dropped out? If Ron
Paul dropped out, I would be willing to bet ($10K?) many of his supporters
would abstain from future nomination contests. To turn this light back on
your position, there is a lot we do not know about the true magnitude of
wasted primary votes.

Note that this problem pales in comparison to the thousands of votes lost in
New Hampshire due to their semi-closed primary system. Those votes have
affected the narrative of the campaign to date. Santorum would have beaten
Gingrich in New Hampshire -- a state that Gingrich aggressively contested --
if some voters with preferences over Republican candidates had not been
forced to vote in the Democratic primary and have their votes wasted. We
very well may have seen Santorum surge instead of Gingrich, or Gingrich
written off entirely and Santorum continue to falter. I don't see anyone up
in arms with radical solutions to change that primary system.

============
Dr. Michael P. McDonald
Associate Professor, George Mason University
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

                             Mailing address:
(o) 703-993-4191             George Mason University
(f) 703-993-1399             Dept. of Public and International Affairs
mmcdon at gmu.edu               4400 University Drive - 3F4
http://elections.gmu.edu     Fairfax, VA 22030-4444


-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Paul
Gronke
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 7:56 PM
Cc: 'law-election at uci.edu'
Subject: Re: [EL] Fwd: Is an Early Vote a Wasted Vote in Primary Elections?

Michael

I don't think we know yet whether the October surprise has been "effectively
neutered."  It depends on a number of variables, including how many early
ballots have been cast by a particular point (for example, my estimate
posted today is that somewhere between 8-17% of the GOP ballots have been
cast); WHO has cast the early ballots (not everyone will be equally
susceptible to the "surprise"). No one has any systematic evidence on this
point, although I can point to my own work as first suggesting this
possibility (MPSA 2004 paper).  

I agree with you about Rob's suggestion, and we just might be working on a
joint statement about that ...

---
Paul Gronke                Ph:  503-517-7393
			               Fax: 734-661-0801

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

EVIC: http://earlyvoting.net