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

[Paul Gronke]

I don't want to subject the readership to a long back and forth, but do want to highlight a few points of agreement and disagreement between myself and Michael.

The Meredith and Malhotra article used a well-established matching methodology to compare precincts where vote by mail was REQUIRED and those with a mix of precinct place and no-excuse absentee voting.  These precincts were as closely matched as possible on other characteristics.  
 Thus, the observed differences in the level of support for the various candidates, to the degree the matching worked, can only be attributed to the legal requirement and the resulting higher levels of voting by mail.  Votes that switched from (in the 2008 California case examined by the authors from Edwards to Clinton or Obama are precisely what the analysis considers. 

I don't agree with Michael that "common sense" makes empirical demonstrations irrelevant or uninformative.  I'm encouraged that the Meredith and Malhotra article confirmed our common sense, but also appreciated the careful estimation and specific quantities provided by the authors.

I also don't agree with Michael's strategic argument about the logic of campaigning under early voting.  More than half the early votes are typically not cast until a week before the election.  Often, a quarter or more of the votes are cast in the last few days.  And, of course, there remains Election Day.   Early voters are partisan and ideological, less likely to be swayed by new information.   Combine all this with a close election, and it seems to me not at all unreasonable to predict that a campaign will hold a last minute attack in order to sway the votes of the remaining early voters and Election Day voters.  

Michael is right--this is all contingent on the campaign, on the changing legal and administrative environment, and changes among the voters themselves.  This is precisely why I don't make these kinds of claims about campaigns and early voting, because they are too uncertain.

I agree with Michael that there is= a lot we don't know about wasted votes, but let's not let that distract us from what we DO know.   I would not take the 10k bet about Ron Paul, but I'm happy to lay 10k down for anyone who can show me that the ideological position of John Edwards relative to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is at all comparable to Ron Paul vs. Romney, Gingrich, and Santorum.  Michael may be right that Paul supporters will drop out if Ron Paul withdraws.  I suspect, and Meredith and Malhotra show, that Edwards supporters went heavily to Obama.

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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


On Jan 19, 2012, at 6:24 PM, Michael McDonald wrote:

> 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
>