2019 Papers

Low and uneven election turnout has contributed to widespread concern about bias in American democracy as well as wide-ranging efforts at reform.  Unfortunately, few reforms have proven to be both effective and politically viable.  In this paper, we investigate the effect of local election timing as one such possible reform.  Moving to on-cycle city elections that are held on the same day as statewide contests is viable because support for such a change is high public and the reform is relatively easy to implement. But is it effective? We combine data on the timing of all municipal elections in California between 2008 and 2016 and detailed micro-targeting data with demographic information appended to the voter file data to document the substantial impact of election timing on who votes in urban democracy.  Leveraging variation in election times within cities over time, we show that moving to on-cycle elections lead to an electorate that is much more representative in terms of race, class, age, and partisanship — especially when these local elections coincide with a presidential election race. 

In 2018, California implemented a series of voting reforms under the new Voters Choice Act. Counties were allowed to opt in to the program rather than be required by law. Five counties, Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento and San Mateo, implemented the changes for the 2018 primary and general elections. This paper examines the effects from the adoption of the Voter Choice Act in 2018 in terms of turnout and voting methods, with a focus on the shift toward vote by mail. The goal of this study is to better understand who is voting when and how in the revamped California election environment. Results show that when given multiple convenience options such as vote by mail and vote centers with early voting hours, voters overwhelmingly choose to vote by mail. Results also suggest than when voters change their behavior in a reform environment, the majority move from in person voting to vote by mail rather than vice versa. While the Voter’s Choice Act does not push California toward all mail voting, it does aid vote by mail to a greater extent than in person voting and the results suggest that adopting counties voted by mail at high enough rates in 2018 that all mail elections could be on the horizon.  

In the 20 years since the 2000 presidential election, there has been a push toward more active engagement by election administrators in educating and reaching out to eligible voters. To date, however, there is not a systematic understanding of what the voter education statutes and policies that guide local election administrators look like across American states. Examining state-submitted voter education plans mandated by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and state election statutes on voter education and outreach, this paper describes the variation in state guidance and mandates for voter education in the United States. This research is an important first step toward understanding how the laws that structure voter education and outreach ultimately shape voter engagement in American elections.  

In 2018, Maine became the first state in the nation to use ranked choice voting in statewide and congressional elections. In a decentralized system of election administration local election officials play an important role in implementing new voting rules. We examine the implementation of ranked choice voting based on a survey sent to municipal clerks in Maine. The survey asked local officials about their experience with ranked choice voting, including its impact on election costs, administrative burden, poll worker training, and voter education. We test hypotheses derived from policy implementation theory in assessing election officials’ evaluations of ranked choice voting. In preliminary results, we find that most municipal clerks in our sample are not enthusiastic about implementing ranked choice voting and do not want to continue its use in Maine. In addition, there are strong partisan divisions, with Democratic clerks offering much more positive assessments of ranked choice voting than Republican clerks.

Variation in electoral rules and institutions at the local level have an impact on voter turnout and representation. Ranked Choice Voting is a relatively new type of electoral system adopted in several cities throughout the U.S. Previous research focused, focused on only one or a small subset of cities, has found either no effect, or a small reduction in voter turnout under RCV. In this paper, I employ a differences-in-differences design to analyze turnout in elections in over 200 cities, ranging from the early 1990s to 2018. The results indicate a significant decrease in voter turnout of approximately 3–5 percentage points in RCV cities after the implementation of RCV. In addition, I find that the negative effect of RCV varies with election timing cycle, and that it diminishes as elections become more competitive. Finally, I find that the negative RCV effect is more pronounced in open-seat elections. 

Confusing ballots muddle the connection between voter intentions and votes, diminishing the ability of elections to facilitate representation in political institutions. This motivates our examination of the 2018 midterm election in Florida, where the ballot used in Broward County yielded an abnormally high number of undervotes in Florida’s United States Senate race. We offer cross-sectional and temporal analyses that eliminate explanations for Broward’s Senate undervote that do not turn on ballot design. Respectively, these analyses compare Broward County and its precincts to other counties and their precincts and compare elections in 2016 with those in 2018. Our purview also extends beyond Florida to states that had Senate and gubernatorial elections in 2018. We generate counterfactual estimates of Senate vote totals had Broward County used a conventional ballot in 2018, and our counterfactual results lie in statistical purgatory. They show neither that the Broward County ballot was pivotal to the Senate election outcome nor rule out this possibility.

Unequal participation and unequal internet access are both structural inequalities across the American states, factors that keep certain demographic groups in a continued marginalized status. According to the Current Population Survey (2015), nearly 20% of American households do not have access to the internet. Not having internet access hampers the ability to vote, as individuals without such are less motivated and less able to acquire information on how and for whom to vote. The demographic groups who are least likely to have internet access – African Americans and Hispanics, low income, low education, and rural – are also less likely to vote. A key question is whether government policies that make internet access more widespread also increase the likelihood that individuals from these groups will become voters. To answer this question, this paper assesses whether online voter registration, a law whose effect is strongly structured by broadband or high-speed internet access, has a more positive impact on voter registration and turnout in areas with on average more internet access. To evaluate this hypothesis, this study utilizes 2014 and 2016 Current Population Survey data on individuals from across the American states. This is combined with state-level broadband availability data aggregated from the census block level from the Federal Communications Commission Varying internet access by state and using online voter registration policies as a treatment variable, this study determines whether state internet availability structures the impact of this law on political participation. Ultimately, the results of this study reveal the degree to which the impact of online voter registration policies is contingent on the availability in the American states. 

Party loyalty in U.S. Congressional elections has reached heights unprecedented in the post-war era. Theories of partisanship as informational cues would predict that ticket splitting from national partisanship should be even more rare in low-information elections. Yet, here I show that ticket splitting in state and local offices is often higher than in Congress. I use cast vote records from voting machines that overcome ecological inference challenges, and develop a clustering algorithm to summarize such ballot data. For example, about a third of South Carolina Trump voters form a bloc whose probability of ticket splitting is 5 percent for Congress, but 32 percent for county council and 50 percent for sheriff. I show that a model with candidate quality differentials can explain these patterns: Even in a nationalized era, some voters cross party lines to vote for the more experienced and higher quality candidate in state and local elections.

In recent years, a number of states have passed some version of automated voter registration (AVR). Implementation varies, but the core idea is to more aggressively promote voter registration as an option at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Evaluation of the impact of AVR has been limited thus far, mostly because AVR implementation has itself been limited. But post-reform data are now available for a number of states, and others that are considering adopting the reform are wondering what the effects of the laws have been in these states. What would registration and turnout have looked like in AVR states had the reform not been implemented? In this paper we take advantage of the first election cycle with significant post-AVR data across a range of states to explore the registration effects of AVR. We employ both difference-in-differences and synthetic control approaches to identify causality. Registration effects so far appear to have been solid overall and larger for Latinos. Evidence for Asian Americans and young people is more ambiguous, as is evidence for effects in individual states. We conclude with thoughts on future directions to help develop better estimates in these areas.

In voting, maps are traditionally used to indicate voter turnout and/or election results with respect to political parties. This paper explores the use of geospatial choropleth maps to analyze voter arrival patterns through a case study of using logs from electronic poll books (EPB) across the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (RI). The EPB transaction logs record various metrics, such as the precinct number, location, and timestamp for every voter that checks in on Election Day. Geographically referenced jurisdiction datasets were plotted in ArcGIS and combined with the EPB transaction log data for the entire state’s 2018 Midterm elections to create the choropleth maps. The choropleth maps were shaded based on the percentage of total check-ins observed during selected time windows throughout the day.  

Analyses were undertaken to assess the visual representation of arrival densities for both the state and its major metropolitan area. Arrival observations statewide were highlighted and expanded in conjunction with known jurisdiction profiles. At the town/city level arrival patterns were identified based urban/suburban and rural areas. A precinct level analysis was performed in the metropolitan area and revealed differing arrival patterns within the City of Providence. General observations are provided based on visual inspection.  Identifying specific precinct groups with similar overarching trends of community voting behavior will require computationally based clustering methods. Future considerations of how data visualization of arrival patterns via EPBs are discussed.