Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T05:09:14.364Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

U.S. State Election Reform and Turnout in Presidential Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2021

Roger Larocca  and
John S. Klemanski
Roger Larocca*
Affiliation:
Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA
John S. Klemanski
Affiliation:
Oakland University, Rochester, MI, USA
*
Roger Larocca, Oakland University, Department of Political Science, 422 Varner Hall, Rochester, MI 48309, USA Email: larocca@oakland.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We explore the effects of state-level election reforms on voter turnout in the 2000, 2004, and 2008 presidential elections. Using a cost-benefit model of political participation, we develop a framework for analyzing the burdens imposed by the following: universal mail voting, permanent no-excuse absentee voting, nonpermanent no-excuse absentee voting, early in-person voting, Election Day registration, and voter identification requirements. We analyze turnout data from the 2000, 2004, and 2008 Current Population Surveys and show that implementation by states of both forms of no-excuse absentee voting and Election Day registration has a positive and significant affect on turnout in each election. We find positive but less consistent effects on turnout for universal mail voting and voter identification requirements. Our results also show that early in-person voting has a negative and statistically significant correlation with turnout in all three elections.

Keywords

voter turnoutmail votingabsentee votingearly votingElection Day registration
Type
Research Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , March 2011 , pp. 76 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher H. and Phillips Shively, W.. 1995. Cross-Level Inference. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ai, Chunrong and Norton, Edward C.. 2003. “Interaction Terms in Logit and Probit Models.” Economics Letters 80:123–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aldrich, John. 1993. “Rational Choice and Turnout.” American Journal of Political Science 37:246–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvarez, R. Michael, Bailey, Delia, and Katz, Jonathan N.. 2007. “The Effect of Voter Identification Laws on Turnout.” Social Science Working Paper 1267, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J. 2005. “The Perverse Consequences of Electoral Reform in the United States.” American Politics Research 33:471–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Burns, Nancy, and Traugott, Michael W.. 2001. “Who Votes by Mail? A Dynamic Model of the Individual-Level Consequences of Vote-by-Mail Systems.” Public Opinion Quarterly 65:178–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, William D., DeMeritt, Jacqueline, and Esarey, Justin. 2010. “Testing for Interaction in Binary Logit and Probit Models: Is a Product Term Essential?” American Journal of Political Science 54:248–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brambor, Thomas, Clark, William R., and Golder, Matt. 2006. “Understanding Interaction Models: Improving Empirical Analyses.” Political Analysis 14:63–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brians, Craig Leonard and Grofman, Bernard. 1999. “When Registration Barriers Fall, Who Votes? An Empirical Test of a Rational Choice Model.” Public Choice 99:161–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brians, Craig Leonard and Grofman, Bernard. 2001. “Election Day Registration's Effect on U.S. Voter Turnout.” Social Science Quarterly 82:170–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Dyck, Joshua J. and Gimpel, James G.. 2005. “Distance, Turnout, and the Convenience of Voting.” Social Science Quarterly 86:531–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenster, Mark J. 1994. “The Impact of Allowing Day of Registration Voting on Turnout in U.S. Elections from 1960 to 1992.” American Politics Quarterly 22:74–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitzgerald, Mary. 2005. “Greater Convenience but Not Greater Turnout: The Impact of Alternative Voting Methods on Electoral Participation in the United States.” American Politics Research 33:842–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gans, Curtis. 2004. “Making It Easier Doesn't Work: No Excuse Absentee and Early Voting Hurt Voter Turnout; Create Other Problems.” Committee for the Study of the American Electorate: Press Release. Washington, DC: CSAE.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P. and Gerber, Alan S.. 2008. Get Out the Vote: How to Increase Voter Turnout. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Gronke, Paul. 2004. “Early Voting Reforms and American Elections.” Presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Gronke, Paul, Galanes-Rosenbaum, Eva, and Miller, Peter A.. 2007. “Early Voting and Turnout.” PS: Political Science & Politics 40:639–45.Google Scholar
Hanmer, Michael J. 2009. Discount Voting: Voter Registration Reforms and Their Effects. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, J. Mark. 2001. “Early Voting, Unrestricted Absentee Voting, and Voting by Mail.” Pp. 57–72 in Task Force Report to Accompany the Report of the National Commission on Election Reform, edited by Hansen, Mark J.. New York: Task Force on the Federal Election System.Google Scholar
Highton, Benjamin. 2004. “Voter Registration and Turnout in the United States.” Perspectives on Politics 2:507–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Highton, Benjamin. 2005. “Self-Reported versus Proxy-Reported Voter Turnout in the Current Population Survey.” Public Opinion Quarterly 69:113–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Highton, Benjamin and Wolfinger, Raymond E.. 2001. “The Political Implications of Higher Turnout.” British Journal of Political Science 31:179–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, Taofang and Shaw, Daron. 2009. “Beyond the Battlegrounds? Electoral College Strategies in the 2008 Presidential Election.” Journal of Political Marketing 8:272–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karp, J. A. and Banducci, S. A.. 2000. “Going Postal: How All-Mail Elections Influence Turnout.” Political Behavior 22:223–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karp, J. A. and Banducci, S. A.. 2001. “Absentee Voting, Mobilization, and Participation.” American Politics Research 29:183–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knack, Stephen. 2001. “Election-Day Registration: The Second Wave.” American Politics Quarterly 29:65–78.Google Scholar
Leighley, Jan E. and Nagler, Jonathan. 2007. “Who Votes Now? And Does It Matter?” Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, March 7, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Leighley, Jan E. and Nagler, Jonathan. 2009. “Electoral Laws and Turnout, 1972–2008.” Presented at the Fourth Annual Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, November 20, Los Angeles, CA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis-Beck, Michael S., Jacoby, William G., Norpoth, Helmut, and Weisberg, Herbert F.. 2008. The American Voter Revisited. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, Christopher. 2006. “Cost Effective Voter Mobilization: An Experiment on Recruiting Absentee Voters.” Working paper, Institute for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Miller, Warren E. and Shanks, Merrill. 1996. The New American Voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mycoff, Jason D., Wagner, Michael W., and Wilson, David C.. 2007. “The Effect of Voter Identification Laws on Aggregate and Individual Level Turnout.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 30, Chicago, IL.Google Scholar
Oliver, J. Eric. 1996. “The Effects of Eligibility Restrictions and Party Activity on Absentee Voting and Overall Turnout.” American Journal of Political Science 40:498–513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Primo, David M., Jacobsmeier, Matthew L., and Milyo, Jeffrey. 2007. “Estimating the Impact of State Policies and Institutions with Mixed-Level Data.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 7:446–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riker, William H. and Ordeshook, Peter C.. 1968. “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting.” American Political Science Review 62:25–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J. and Mark Hansen, J.. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Shaw, Daron R. 2006. The Race to 270: The Electoral College and the Campaign Strategies of 2000 and 2004. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Southwell, Priscilla L. and Burchett, Justin. 1997. “Survey of Vote-by-Mail Senate Election in the State of Oregon.” PS: Political Science & Politics 30:53–57.Google Scholar
Stein, Robert M. 1998. “Early Voting.” Public Opinion Quarterly 62:57–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Robert M. and Garcia-Monet, Patricia. 1997. “Voting Early, but Not Often.” Social Science Quarterly 78:657–77.Google Scholar
Stein, Robert M., Owens, Chris T., and Leighley, Jan. 2005. “Early Voting in Texas: Electoral Reform, Party Mobilization, and Voter Turnout.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 1–4, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Tomz, Michael, Wittenberg, Jason, and King, Gary. 2001. CLARIFY: Software for Interpreting and Presenting Statistical Results. Version 2.1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University.Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, and Brady, Henry E.. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vercellotti, Timothy and Anderson, David. 2006. “Protecting the Franchise, or Restricting It? The Effects of Voter Identification Requirements on Turnout.” Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, August 31, Philadelphia, PA.Google Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E., Highton, Benjamin, and Mullin, Megan. 2005. “How Postregistration Laws Affect the Turnout of Citizens Registered to Vote.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5:1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E. and Hoffman, Jonathan. 2001. “Registering and Voting with Motor Voter.” PS: Political Science & Politics 34:85–92.Google Scholar
Wolfinger, Raymond E. and Rosenstone, Steven J.. 1980. Who Votes? New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar