[EL] Voter turnout
Larry Levine
larrylevine at earthlink.net
Thu Apr 10 08:44:25 PDT 2014
Excellent question. If we move a low turnout municipal election to the same
ballot as a Presidential election might we increase participation
(questionable) but might we also be drawing in less informed voters (does
that matter)? At the first meeting of our L.A. City Commission the interim
city clerk said, "People vote when they are interested."
Thanks,
Larry
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Ilya
Shapiro
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2014 8:19 AM
To: Gregory Huber
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Voter turnout
Why would we necessarily care what the turnout rate is. Both high and low
turnout could be good or bad, depending on circumstance. It's like economic
inequality. Doesn't seem to me to be the right question to ask or policy
concern to address.
Ilya Shapiro
Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies
Cato Institute
1000 Mass. Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001
Tel. 202-218-4600
Cel. 202-577-1134
www.cato.org/people/shapiro.html
twitter.com/ishapiro
On Apr 10, 2014, at 10:15 AM, "Gregory Huber" <gregory.huber at yale.edu>
wrote:
We (me, Alan Gerber, and Seth Hill) have a recent paper out that exploits
the roll out of all mail elections in Washington counties. We estimate
effects of about 2 to 4 points, with some evidence that it attracts less
regular voters.
Abstract:
What effect does moving to all-mail elections have on participation? On one
hand, all registered voters automatically receive a ballot to return by mail
at their convenience. On the other hand, the social aspect of the polling
place, and the focal point of election day, is lost. Current estimates of
the effect of all-mail elections on turnout are ambiguous. This article
offers an improved design and new estimates of the effect of moving to
all-mail elections. Exploiting cross-sectional and temporal variation in
county-level implementation of all-mail elections in Washington State, we
find that the reform increased aggregate participation by two to four
percentage points. Using individual observations from the state voter file,
we also find that the reform increased turnout more for lower-participating
registrants than for frequent voters, suggesting that all-mail voting
reduces turnout disparities between these groups.
Political Science Research and Methods / Volume 1 / Issue 01 / June 2013, pp
91 - 116
Link (gated): http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2013.5
Link (ungated): http://huber.research.yale.edu/materials/28_paper.pdf
On 4/10/2014 10:41 AM, Charles Stewart III wrote:
Paul, as always, has provided an exemplary intervention on behalf of what
the literature of political science tells us about administrative changes
and turnout.
I would make one correction (that will REALLY surprise Paul): I am aware of
research done in Florida around 2000 that examined the effects of Florida's
election law changes that allowed certain local elections to be conducted by
mail. These were, for sure, annexation and millage rate elections, and they
may have been (I forget the details) regular municipal elections, too.
Huge turnout increases.
I would also add the research of Sarah Sled, whose PhD dissertation at MIT
in 2008 was about all-mail elections and turnout. Here is the link:
http://18.7.29.232/handle/1721.1/46634. Here is an excerpt from the
abstract:
The implementation of Vote By Mail produces turnout effects that increase in
magnitude as the salience of the election decreases, with a range from 3.4
percentage points increase in the high salience category of presidential
general elections to an increase in turnout of 15 percentage points in the
low salience category of local special elections.
By the way, Sarah also finds the typical political science result, in so far
as her investigation of whether VBM changes _outcomes_ turns up a big goose
egg.
-cs
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------
Charles Stewart III
Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science
Housemaster of McCormick Hall
Department of Political Science
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E53-449
30 Wadsworth Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
Office: 617-253-3127
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, April 10, 2014 9:50 AM
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Voter turnout
Larry
I assume you're asking mainly about administrative changes, right, because
the political scientists will (predictably) chime in: make elections more
relevant to citizens' everyday lives, make elections more competitive,
increase media coverage of elections, improve the educational system. And
age the population so that everyone's over 60. ;-)
I think it would be fair to say that the easiest reform that has predictably
resulted in significant increases in turnout is same-day / election-day
registration. It requires technological improvements to the registration
system, and I know our friend Dean Logan is ready for the budgetary infusion
that may be needed! (LA may be already moving in this direction.)
Coordinating municipal elections with presidential elections should result
in substantial increases in turnout, but the tradeoff is topic that has been
part of the political science literature for 50 years or longer (going back
to Wilson's Amateur Democrats at least): the electorate includes a large
number of irregular voters who are drawn in by the excitement and interest
of the presidential contest. The reason some states and localities moved
their elections off cycle is precisely to *avoid* this. Turnout is lower,
but you get an electorate more predictably knowledgable about local issues.
My comments about the last reform may surprise you, given my affiliation and
reputation, but the reform that I think could result in a substantial
increase in turnout but for which we do not have systematic research is a
fully vote by mail system. I say this primarily because I have long
suspected, and have lots of anecdotes indicating, that full vote by mail has
it's largest turnout impact in low profile state and local contests. But no
one has looked at this in a systematic fashion to date.
---
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
My public key: http://people.reed.edu/~gronkep/36E051EA.asc
<http://people.reed.edu/%7Egronkep/36E051EA.asc>
<http://people.reed.edu/%7Egronkep/36E051EA.asc>
<http://people.reed.edu/%7Egronkep/36E051EA.asc>
<http://people.reed.edu/%7Egronkep/36E051EA.asc>
<http://people.reed.edu/%7Egronkep/36E051EA.asc>
<http://people.reed.edu/%7Egronkep/36E051EA.asc>
On Apr 9, 2014, at 9:30 PM, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:
I have been appointed as a member of the Los Angeles City Advisory
Commission on Political Reform. I am a member of the sub-committee on
research. The main charge of the commission is to look into actions that
might increase turnout in municipal elections. Can anyone on the list
provide some recent research on this subject? Nothing is off limits ? change
of election dates, consolidation with other elections, early voting,
expanded number of voting dates, etc.
Thanks,
Larry
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Gregory A. Huber
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http://huber.research.yale.edu
Yale University
Professor, Department of Political Science
Resident Fellow, Institution for Social and Policy Studies
Faculty Affiliate, Center for the Study of American Politics
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