Hostname: page-component-cb9f654ff-kl2l2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-31T20:04:26.953Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Identifying the Effect of All-Mail Elections on Turnout: Staggered Reform in the Evergreen State*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2013

Alan S. Gerber ,
Gregory A. Huber  and
Seth J. Hill
Alan S. Gerber
Affiliation:
Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, USA
Gregory A. Huber
Affiliation:
Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, USA
Seth J. Hill
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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.

Information

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , June 2013 , pp. 91 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2013 

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.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Gerber and Huber: Center for the Study of American Politics, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, P.O. Box 208209, New Haven, CT 06520-8209, United States (alan.gerber@yale.edu, gregory.huber@yale.edu). Hill: Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0521 United States, sjhill@ucsd.edu. Earlier versions of this paper were circulated with the title “Identifying the Effects of Elections Held All-Mail on Turnout.” We thank Kevin Arceneaux and Marc Meredith for their comments. Replication material is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2013.5 or http://huber.research.yale.edu.

References

Arceneaux, Kevin, Kousser, ThadMullin, Megan. 2012. ‘Get Out the Vote-by-Mail? A Randomized Field Experiment Testing the Effect of Mobilization in Traditional and Vote-by-Mail Precincts’. Political Research Quarterly 65:882–894.Google Scholar
Bergman, ElizabethYates, Philip. 2011. ‘Changing Election Methods: How Does Mandated Vote-By-Mail Affect Individual Registrants?’ Election Law Journal 10(2):115–127.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J. 2005. ‘The Perverse Consequences of Electoral Reform in the United States’. American Politics Research 33(4):471–491.Google Scholar
Berinsky, Adam J., Burns, NancyTraugott, Michael W.. 2001. ‘Who Votes by Mail?: A Dynamic Model of the Individual-Level Consequences of Voting-by-Mail Systems’. Public Opinion Quarterly 65(2):178–197.Google Scholar
Bertrand, Marianne, Duflo, EstherMullainathan, Sendhil. 2004. ‘How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?’ The Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(1):249–275.Google Scholar
Brady, Henry E.McNulty, John E.. 2011. ‘Turning Out to Vote: The Costs of Finding and Getting to the Polling Place’. American Political Science Review 105(1):115–134.Google Scholar
Funk, Patricia. 2010. ‘Social Incentives and Voter Turnout: Evidence from the Swiss Mail Ballot System’. Journal of the European Economic Association 8(5):1077–1103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., Green, Donald P.Larimer, Christopher W.. 2008. ‘Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment’. American Political Science Review 102(1):33–48.Google Scholar
Gerber, Alan S., Huber, Gregory A., Doherty, David, Dowling, Conor M.Hill, Seth J.. 2013. ‘Do Perceptions of Ballot Secrecy Influence Turnout? Results from a Field Experiment’. American Journal of Political Science forthcoming.Google Scholar
Gronke, Paul, Galanes-Rosenbaum, EvaMiller, Peter A.. 2007. ‘Early Voting and Turnout’. PS: Political Science & Politics 40(4):639–645.Google Scholar
Gronke, Paul, Galanes-Rosenbaum, Eva, Miller, Peter A.Toffey, Daniel. 2008. ‘Convenience Voting’. Annual Review of Political Science 11(1):437–455.Google Scholar
Karp, Jeffrey A.Banducci, Susan A.. 2000. ‘Going Postal: How All-Mail Elections Influence Turnout’. Political Behavior 22:223–239.Google Scholar
Kousser, ThadMullin, Megan. 2007. ‘Does Voting by Mail Increase Participation? Using Matching to Analyze a Natural Experiment’. Political Analysis 15(4):428–445.Google Scholar
Larocca, RogerKlemanski, John S.. 2011. ‘U.S. State Election Reform and Turnout in Presidential Elections’. State Politics and Policy Quarterly 11(1):76–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luechinger, Simon, Rosinger, MyraStutzer, Alois. 2007. ‘The Impact of Postal Voting on Participation: Evidence for Switzerland’. Swiss Political Science Review 13:167–202.Google Scholar
Magleby, David B. 1987. ‘Participation in Mail Ballot Elections’. Western Political Quarterly 40(1):79–91.Google Scholar
Malhotra, NeilMeredith, Marc. 2011. ‘Convenience Voting Can Change Election Outcomes’. Election Law Journal 10(3):227–253.Google Scholar
Monroe, Nathan W.Sylvester, Dari E.. 2011. ‘Who Converts to Vote-By-Mail? Evidence From a Field Experiment’. Election Law Journal 10(1):15–35.Google Scholar
Richey, Sean. 2008. ‘Voting by Mail: Turnout and Institutional Reform in Oregon’. Social Science Quarterly 89(4):902–915.Google Scholar
Shaw, Daron R. 2006. The Race to 270: The Electoral College and the Campaign Strategies of 2000 and 2004. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Southwell, Priscilla L. 2009. ‘Analysis of The Turnout Effects of Vote By Mail Elections, 1980–2007’. The Social Science Journal 46:211–217.Google Scholar
Southwell, Priscilla L.Burchett, Justin I.. 1997. ‘Survey of Vote-by-Mail Senate Election in the State of Oregon’. PS: Political Science & Politics 30(1):53–57.Google Scholar
Southwell, Priscilla L.Burchett, Justin I.. 2000a. ‘Does Changing the Rules Change the Players? The Effect of All-Mail Elections on the Composition of the Electorate’. Social Science Quarterly 81(3):837–845.Google Scholar
Southwell, Priscilla L.Burchett, Justin I.. 2000b. ‘The Effect of All-mail Elections on Voter Turnout’. American Politics Research 28(1):72–79.Google Scholar
Wand, Jonathan N., Shotts, Kenneth W., Sekhon, Jasjeet S., Mebane, Walter R., Herron, Michael C.Brady, Henry E.. 2001. ‘The Butterfly Did It: The Aberrant Vote for Buchanan in Palm Beach County, Florida’. American Political Science Review 95:793–810.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Gerber et al. Datasets

Datasets

http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/22361
Link