[EL] early voting drop off
Justin Levitt
levittj at lls.edu
Sun Feb 16 11:21:14 PST 2014
In addition to examining residual vote rates and potential explanations
for those rates involving the layout and/or delivery method of the
ballot generally (and, as Paul suggests, different correction options
for mistakes), you'd also want to look at the way that straight-ticket
options are offered.
I have absolutely no idea if most jurisdictions that offer a
straight-ticket experience at the polls on election day offer a
straight-ticket experience in the same way to early in-person voters or
by-mail voters. It may be that the experiences are widely comparable.
But if they are not, and if straight-ticket options are more prominent
at the polls on election day, that fact alone could go a long way to
explaining a lower residual vote rate for down-ballot races.
--
Justin Levitt
Associate Professor of Law
Loyola Law School | Los Angeles
919 Albany St.
Los Angeles, CA 90015
213-736-7417
justin.levitt at lls.edu
ssrn.com/author=698321
On 2/16/2014 11:11 AM, Smith, Brad wrote:
> Paul,
>
> Yup, that's what I mean, and I understand those problems, which is why
> I wondered if they is much data on it. I've not been aware of much.
> I'm also interested in all early voting, not simply voting by mail.
>
> Thanks, this was helpful, if only to confirm what I suspected, and I
> was not aware of the Hanmer paper.
>
> I am curious because my own anecdotal perception is that early voting
> is bad for voter knowledge on down ballot races. I think there is a
> logical reason to suppose this could be generally true, but I have no
> idea if in fact it actually is true. I don't know of anything that
> attempts to compare voter knowledge on down ballot races between early
> voters and election day voters, but looking at residual vote rates
> could be a place to start - lack of knowledge about down ballot races
> might start to show up in drop off there.
>
> /Bradley A. Smith/
>
> /Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault/
>
> / Professor of Law/
>
> /Capital University Law School/
>
> /303 E. Broad St./
>
> /Columbus, OH 43215/
>
> /614.236.6317/
>
> /http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Paul Gronke [paul.gronke at gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 16, 2014 1:10 PM
> *To:* Smith, Brad
> *Cc:* Election Law
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] early voting drop off
>
> Brad
>
> Can you clarify if by "drop off" you mean the same thing as "roll
> off", or a voter not completing the full ballot?
>
> Keep in mind that except for a very few studies (all, I think,
> involving Michael Hanmer and Michael Traugott through a relationship
> with Oregon election officials early in the 00's), we almost never
> have access to the actual ballot images, but have to infer indirectly
> by the residual voting rate.
>
> And even if we did have ballot images, unless we can attach this to
> characteristics of the voter, we can't infer that roll-off is due to
> technology or to some characteristic of the voter that is correlated
> with technology. For example, in the study that Stewart and I
> conducted in Florida (available at supportthevoter.gov
> <http://supportthevoter.gov>), we show that the highest residual
> voting rate in Florida in 2008 was in two precincts that were wholly
> contained within senior citizen care facilities.
>
> Senior citizens use no-excuse absentee voting in Florida at higher
> rates than other groups in the population. But there may be other
> reasons that older voters roll off more frequently in Florida than
> younger voters. Is it vote by mail? Is it the age of the voter? Or,
> as Charles and I suspect, is it both--age + the makeup and format of
> the absentee ballot were interacting in such a way to make it harder
> for elderly voters to complete.
>
> Ideally, we'd want to experimentally treat voters to different voting
> technologies but within the same or same set of contests because
> roll-off is affected by so many other things besides technology.
> Obviously, we can't do that. Some have tried to estimate by looking
> at very similar precincts where one precinct uses VBM and the other
> does not (these are all California studies). Or we could examine the
> residual vote rate across different modes of balloting.
>
> Finally, the most important reason that election day voting has much
> lower roll off in general is that voters, when they feed a ballot into
> an OCR or complete a ballot on a DRE, may be prompted if they cast an
> undervote. Obviously, this does not happen with a by-mail ballot.
>
> What I can dredge up from memory and my bibliography:
>
> Hanmer, Michael J, and Michael W Traugott. 2004. "The Impact of Voting
> By Mail on Voter Behavior." /American Politics Research/ 32: 375--405.
> http://apr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/32/4/375.
>
> Look at residual vote rates (and straight ticket balloting) on down
> ballot races during Oregon's VBM transition. There was no noticeable
> increase or decrease in either.
>
> Alvarez, R. M., D. Beckett, and C. Stewart. 2012. "Voting Technology,
> Vote-by-Mail, and Residual Votes in California, 1990-2010." /Political
> Research Quarterly/ 66(3): 658--70.
> http://prq.sagepub.com/cgi/doi/10.1177/1065912912467085 (February 16,
> 2014).
>
> Compare residual vote rates in Presidential, gubernatorial,
> senatorial, and proposition contests across voting technology and
> across twenty years in California. Residual vote rates overall are
> higher with VBM, are smallest in presidential contests, and then in
> order: propositions, governor, then senate.
>
> ---
> Paul GronkePh: 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 Feb 16, 2014, at 8:49 AM, Smith, Brad <BSmith at law.capital.edu
> <mailto:BSmith at law.capital.edu>> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone have (or can you point me to studies) with info on drop
>> off for early balloting vs. election day balloting. I'm curious if
>> one or the other has more drop off in voting for down ballot offices.
>>
>> /Bradley A. Smith/
>>
>> /Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault/
>>
>> / Professor of Law/
>>
>> /Capital University Law School/
>>
>> /303 E. Broad St./
>>
>> /Columbus, OH 43215/
>>
>> /614.236.6317/
>>
>> /http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20140216/83ed4e7f/attachment.html>
View list directory