Two Sides of the Same Coin?

The MIT Election Data and Science Lab helps highlight new research and interesting ideas in election science, and is a proud co-sponsor of the Election Sciences, Reform, & Administration Conference (ESRA).

Our post today was written by Joseph Coll,, Caroline Tolbert, and Michael Ritter, based on their paper presented at the 2021 ESRA Conference. The information and opinions expressed in this column represent their own research, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the MIT Election Lab or MIT.

This study examines the joint impact of state election laws and administration on voter turnout. The former refers to state voting laws, such as early voting, absentee or mail voting, and same day or Election Day registration. The latter refers to how these laws are administered and how elections are conducted, such as poll worker training and maintaining registration lists.

Although many studies have examined how these factors independently shape various outcomes related to elections, this study seeks to determine how the cumulation of both state election laws and administration practices shape voter turnout, and to do so in a manner that takes account of the staggering variations of these factors both across and within American states.

            A starting point for this work is recognizing this variation. As of 2020, 38 states have in-person early voting, 34 have either no-excuse absentee or mail voting, 21 have same day registration, and 35 have some form of voter ID law. However, according to a recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice, from January 1 to May 14 of 2021 more than a 1,000 election administration and voting bills were introduced in essentially every state legislature, with some of these bills reflecting more restrictive measures (e.g., shortening the mail ballot application or delivery periods, requiring a voter photo-ID), while others were more expansive in nature (e.g., increasing the number of mail ballot drop-off locations, allowing for same-day registration). Each of these election laws, and how they are administered, can differentially shape voter turnout depending on where a voter lives in the United States.

To provide a more specific illustration of the implications of these across-state variations in election administration and election laws, take two moderately sized Pacific Northwest communities – Pullman in Washington State, and Moscow in Idaho, both university cities as well – that are on the state boundary line and for many seem to be essentially one community. Yet, if a Washingtonian in Pullman wants to cast a ballot, they generally do so by mail because every registered voter is automatically sent a mail ballot, while if an Idahoan in Moscow wants to cast a ballot, they either have to request a mail ballot or vote in-person. In another layer of variation, although both states have voter ID laws, Washington is a non-photo ID state, while Idaho is a photo ID state. If an individual in the Moscow-Pullman area were to decide to move a few miles and become a citizen of the other state, but they were unaware of these voting law differences, they might inadvertently lower their likelihood of successfully voting in the next election because of differences in ballot casting regulations between the states.

Both the performance of election administration and accessibility or restrictiveness of election laws can shape participation in the democratic process. And, in recent years, scholars, legislators, election administrators, and even policy advocates have put increased focus on the way elections are conducted and how citizens access them. However, when it comes to evaluating these two facets of elections, the lack of a side-by-side, comprehensive analysis of their impacts makes discussing their relative influences and importances difficult, as people are essentially comparing apples to oranges. The goal of this study is to take into consideration the myriad of administrative practices and election reforms to estimate the independent and joint impacts of election administration and access on voter turnout.

To help accomplish this task and provide those who enact, implement, and study election administration and access with a common basis for evaluating the two, this study investigates how state-level election administration performance and voter access affect voter turnout in each presidential and midterm election from 2008-2018 using two comprehensive indices to capture the cumulative impact of the wide range of election administration decisions and election access reforms used in the American states. We measure election administration with the Election Performance Index (EPI) and election access using the Cost of Voting Index (COVI). The EPI uses 17 indicators to create an index that measures how well states conduct their elections, with larger values representing higher administrative performance. The COVI combines over 30 electoral reforms into an index to measure how difficult it is to vote in a state, with larger values denoting less voter access. For comparability, both indices have been standardized to have a mean of 0 and standard deviation of 1. Using these (standardized) indices allow us to measure the cumulative impact of how a series of different state administration and access laws shape voter turnout on common metrics, providing a more comprehensive and comparable account of how administration and access affect voting behavior than is possible using only one or a handful of indicators.

How do these two facets of election administration stack up against one another? Table 1 shows the effects of decreased voter access and increased election performance on individual level voter turnout (Current Population Survey, 2008-2018). Moving from a state with more accessible elections (e.g., Maine or North Dakota) to one that is less accessible (e.g., Texas or Tennessee) decreases voter turnout by nearly 7.5 percentage points. However, this decrease in turnout can be partially overcome by increased election administration performance. Specifically, changing from a state with poor election administration (e.g., Idaho or Oklahoma) to one with better performance (e.g., Vermont or Minnesota) increases voter turnout by just under 6.5 percentage points. Considering their cumulative negative effect, or the effect of being in a state with low access and poor administration (e.g., Mississippi), voter turnout can be nearly 14 percentage points lower than would be found in a state with high access and administration (e.g., Massachusetts). These results are significant given that some state and local elections are decided by margins equal to or smaller than the effects uncovered here, and that there is large variation in the ability of states to administer elections and of citizens to access them.

Table 1: The Effects of the Cost of Voting Index (COVI) and Elections Performance Index (EPI) on Individual Level Voter Turnout, Predicted Probabilities (2008-2018)

Note: Estimates from logistic regression models using the Current Population Survey (2008-2018) calculated varying the Cost of Voting Index (COVI) and Elections Performance Index (EPI) from minimum to maximum with all variables held at their mean or respective values. 95% confidence intervals shown in parentheses. Low COVI=Low restrictiveness; High COVI=High restrictiveness. Low EPI=Poor election administration; High EPI=Good election administration. Cumulative negative impact refers to the combined negative effect of both variables, i.e., the effect of high restrictiveness and poor election administration

This study attempted to comprehensively measure the impact of election administration and access on voter turnout side-by-side, particularly given the increased scrutiny administration and access have received over the past several years. Using the Elections Performance Index as a measure of election administration performance and the Cost of Voting Index as a measure of election access, we find that both factors can have a large influence on voter turnout. When we consider both factors simultaneously, our results show that administration and voting access can have pronounced effects on voter turnout, even to point of potentially changing close election outcomes.

Bearing in mind these results, this study directly contributes to the ongoing discussions regarding the importance of election administration and access for voter turnout. Specifically, our results highlight the need to account for both election administration and election laws when studying U.S. election and voting outcomes. Additionally, using two comprehensive indices of election administration performance and voting access enables this study to produce findings on these factors that are generalizable to every American state, despite how much administrative provisions, procedures, and election laws vary across the states. Lastly, our study acts as a fencepost that policymakers and implementers can use to orient themselves regarding the impacts of election administration performance and voter access.