Voter Registration Made Easy: Who Takes Advantage of Election Day Registration and Same Day Registration and Do They Vote?

Dissertation

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

Jeffrey Bryan Cole, B.A., M.A., M.A.

Graduate Program in Political Science

The Ohio State University

2012

Dissertation Committee:

Paul Allen Beck, Advisor

Jan Box-Steffensmeier

Ismail White

Jeffrey Bryan Cole

2012

ABSTRACT

My dissertation investigates the extent to which new voter registration laws

(election day registration and same day registration) achieve their goal of improving low voter turnout rates in the United States. Do more Americans vote as a result of easier registration requirements? I test two related sets of hypotheses to learn whether voter turnout increases, as many concerned lawmakers and researchers have long anticipated.

The first set of hypotheses focuses largely on how citizens react when their states reduce the requirements. Specifically, are they more likely to believe that voter registration is easier? Are nonvoters less likely to cite voter registration requirements as the reason they never registered (and never voted)? Do minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged people vote at higher rates once they are allowed to use the easier procedures? The second set of hypotheses explores whether people using one of these new registration procedures are as likely to vote in subsequent elections as their counterparts who registered according to the old procedures.

To test the first set of hypotheses, I use data from the Current Population Survey’s

Voting and Registration Supplement. This questionnaire asks respondents whether they voted and, if not, whether they were registered. If they were not registered, researchers asked them why not. To test the second set of hypotheses, I utilize voter registration and history files from four carefully selected states.

Whereas some researchers had predicted previously that these new laws would substantially raise turnout, both studies reveal only modest effects. Many unregistered citizens were no less likely to ascribe their status to the registration requirements than before their states enacted new laws. Likewise, citizens who registered with the aid of the new procedures were somewhat less likely to continue voting.

Interestingly, contextual factors played a strong role in determining these outcomes. For example while North Carolina appears to have had more success with

SDR than Iowa with EDR, one likely explanation is that North Carolina’s status as a battleground in the 2008 presidential election engendered much additional publicity regarding the election, particularly due to Obama’s aggressive turnout efforts in that state.

Likewise, persons using EDR or SDR to vote in local elections are much more likely to continue voting than people using one of the procedures to vote in the 2008 presidential election. This general finding strongly suggests that motivation plays a key role in determining whether people vote.

Overall, this dissertation provides a cautionary tale for the use of popular voter registration reforms as a means of improving voter turnout. Certainly, the new laws can exhibit modest effects. However, researchers and interested policy makers must also turn their attention to other means of boosting turnout.

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DEDICATION

This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, Jeffrey and Polly Cole.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the many, many people over the years who have shaped and guided me, both in the classroom and out. Throughout my life God has blessed with me with an excellent family, mentors, colleagues and friends. Although I am unable to acknowledge everyone here, please know that I am grateful in my heart to everyone who has impacted my life in ways both great and small. None of this would have been possible without you.

I begin with my family. By far my parents, Jeff and Polly Cole, have had the greatest impact on my life. I know that you have worked tirelessly and selflessly on my siblings’ and my behalves for decades. You have encouraged me far more than you realize. All you ever really asked of me was to help others and to “Show the world.” And you supported me in any way that you could in helping me achieve what I set out to do.

That has taken me far. Yet there is nothing better than returning home to Louisiana and being able to hug you once I get off the plane. You mean more to me than you could ever know. I am dedicating this dissertation to you. I love you.

I would also like to acknowledge my grandparents, Luther and Juanita Cole and

Nina Nichols Pugh. You too are beautiful examples of selflessness and love. You have imparted to me much wisdom, especially in terms of hard work. You also sacrificed much for my education and encouraged me to pursue my dreams. I love you. v

I also deeply appreciate my siblings, Patrick, Caroline, and Anna. You are among the most fun and loving people I know. It has been very exciting to see over the years how we have grown together, and I know also that the future looks bright for us all. In addition I am indebted to my godparents (and aunt and uncles) Frances and Robert

Harbour and Stephen Pugh. You too have always supported me and shown concern about my well-being.

I would also like, of course, to acknowledge the contributions of my dissertation committee: Paul Beck, Jan Box-Steffensmeier, Herbert Weisberg and Ismail White. You have been tremendously helpful reading over each draft, offering helpful advice, criticism and suggestions at each stage. You have also helped introduce me to the profession. In particular I wish to recognize the enormous guidance I have received from Professor

Beck. He has always been available to me to discuss my dissertation, my classes and any other matters about which I have asked. He has also offered extensive, detailed commentary on each chapter as I have completed it. Through that process I have been able to see tremendous improvement in my dissertation. He has enabled the dissertation to make greater contributions both to scholarship and to a very current, real world problem. At all stages he has offered encouragement, support and a friendly smile. I have truly been privileged to have such an amazing mentor and advisor; I know that I have big shoes to fill. Thank you, Professor Beck.

The Ohio State University has been an excellent place to purse a PhD in political science and to gain valuable classroom experience. I am thankful for the Alumni Grants for Graduate Research and Scholarship (AGGRS) and for the committee that agreed to fund my dissertation research. This money was tremendously useful for purchasing the vi

Iowa Voter File. That case study has been a source of excellent insights. In addition to my committee members, I would like to thank Larry Baum and Richard Herrmann for their backing, particularly with respect to providing me with the opportunities to teach and to receive feedback. I also appreciate the many excellent people who have been my colleagues, offering advice and assistance with various parts of my dissertation. They include Jeff Budziak, Dustin Carnahan, Nyron Crawford, Chris Devine, Megan

Eisenman, Nick Felts, Matt Hitt, Phil Jackson, Ben Jones, Kyle Kopko, Chryl Laird,

Emily Lynch, Steve Nawara, Lauren Ratliff, Josh Wu and Team F.Y.C. You have made my time in Columbus more productive, more meaningful and more fun.

Before arriving at Ohio State, I was blessed to have numerous professors at

Millsaps who encouraged me to go to graduate school. Among them I am most grateful to

Priscilla Fermon, Carloee Larson, Julian Murchison and Ming Tsui. Likewise, from my time at the University of Georgia, I wish to acknowledge my thesis advisor Paul-Henri

Gurian and committee members Damon Cann and Jamie Carson. My colleagues Wendy

Gross and Ellen Key have also been helpful, and it has been wonderful to see you at conferences. Thank you all.

Finally, I wish to thank personal friends. Specifically, I acknowledge Drew

Harmon, Matthew “Bobby” Kilgore, Matthew Luter and Lindsay Rosenblatt. Thank you for your unwavering support and encouragement. To all whose names do not appear in these acknowledgements, I sincerely thank you.

vii

VITA

1982………………………………………...Born in Lake Charles, Louisiana

2000………………………………………...Diploma, Saint Louis Catholic High School

(Lake Charles, Louisiana)

2004………………………………………...B.A., Sociology, Magna Cum Laude,

Millsaps College (Jackson,

Mississippi)

2007…………………………………………M.A., Political Science, University of

Georgia (Athens, Georgia)

2007 to present ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department

of Political Science, The Ohio State

University (Columbus, Ohio)

2009………………………………………...M.A., Political Science, The Ohio State

University (Columbus, Ohio)

2012…………………………………………Instructional Assistant Professor, University

of Houston (Houston, Texas)

viii

Publications

1. Damon M. Cann and Jeffrey Bryan Cole. 2011. “Strategic Campaigning, Closeness, and Voter Mobilization in U.S. Presidential Elections." Electoral Studies 30(2): 344-352.

Fields of Study

Major Field: Political Science

Primary Areas of Interest: American Politics, Political Psychology

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

DEDICATION ...... iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... v

VITA ...... viii

LIST OF TABLES ...... xiv

LIST OF FIGURES ...... xviii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Overview ...... 13

Outline ...... 9

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORY ...... 13

Introduction ...... 13

Costs and Benefits of Voting ...... 14

Voter Registration as a Cost of Voting ...... 16

Efforts to Lower Registration Costs ...... 19

Individual Level Factors Known to Affect Turnout ...... 26

Contextual Factors Known to Affect Voter Turnout ...... 31

Raising Turnout Costs ...... 36

Remaining Questions about Voter Turnout ...... 38

CHAPTER 3: DOES EASIER REGISTRATION IMPROVE VOTER TURNOUT? A

TWO STUDY RESEARCH DESIGN...... 42

Introduction ...... 42

Study 1: Voter Registration and Voter Turnout in 2008 ...... 44

Study 2: State Case Studies ...... 54

Contributions to Scholarship ...... 74

CHAPTER 4: CHANGES IN PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE EASE OR

DIFFICULTY OF COMPLETING VOTER REGISTRATION AS A FUNCTION OF

CHANGES TO STATE ELECTION LAWS: A MULTILEVEL APPROACH ...... 76

Introduction ...... 76

Part 1: State Level Analyses...... 77

Part 2: Multilevel Analyses ...... 85

Conclusion ...... 96

CHAPTER 5: CHANGES IN PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE EASE OR

DIFFICULTY OF COMPLETING VOTER REGISTRATION IN NORTH CAROLINA

AND IOWA: TWO STATE CASE STUDIES ...... 98

Introduction ...... 98

Effects of Same Day Registration in North Carolina ...... 100

Effects of Election Day Registration in Iowa...... 122

Conclusion ...... 129

CHAPTER 6: MECKLENBURG COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, AND SAME DAY

REGISTRATION ...... 135

Introduction ...... 135

Results ...... 137

Discussion ...... 162

CHAPTER 7: IOWA AND ELECTION DAY REGISTRATION COMBINED WITH

SAME DAY REGISTRATION AND EARLY VOTING ...... 166

Introduction ...... 166

Results ...... 169

Discussion ...... 181

CHAPTER 8: MINNESOTA AND IOWA STATE CASE STUDIES ...... 184

Introduction ...... 184

Election Day Registration in Minnesota ...... 184

Election Day Registration in Idaho ...... 201

Discussion ...... 216

CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSION ...... 221

xii

Overview ...... 221

Overall Conclusions from the Two Studies ...... 221

Voter Registration and the Cost of Voting ...... 226

Implications of This Research ...... 229

Limitations of This Dissertation ...... 232

Future Research ...... 236

Conclusion ...... 240

REFERENCES ...... 242

APPENDIX A: SELECTING STATES FOR CASE STUDIES ...... 250

Additional Information about States with Registration Reforms ...... 250

APPENDIX B: STUDY 1 SURVEY RESEARCH QUESTIONS WORDING ...... 264

Dependent Variable Measurement ...... 264

xiii

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1: Datasets Consulted in This Dissertation ...... 10

Table 3.1: Matrix of Combinations of Voter Registration and Turnout Laws in States

Offering EDR and/or SDR ...... 65

Table 4.1: Voter Turnout in the United States, 2008 ...... 82

Table 4.2: Voter Registration in the United States, 2008 ...... 83

Table 4.3: Multilevel Voter Turnout, 2008 ...... 91

Table 4.4: Multilevel Voter Registration, 2008 ...... 93

Table 4.5: Mulilevel Unregistered Voters, 2008 ...... 94

Table 5.1: Same Day Registration in North Carolina ...... 100

Table 5.2: Statistics for Recent Federal Elections in North Carolina ...... 102

Table 5.3: Changes in North Carolina Voter Turnout ...... 105

Table 5.4: Changes in North Carolina Voter Registration ...... 111

Table 5.5: Changes in North Carolina Unregistered Voter Status ...... 115

Table 5.6: Percent Reduction in Error (PRE) for Presidential and Midterm Elections in

North Carolina ...... 118

Table 5.7: Changes in Predicted Probabilities for Presidential and Midterm Elections,

North Carolina ...... 119

Table 5.8: Statistics for Recent Federal Elections in Iowa ...... 123 xiv

Table 5.9: Changes in Iowa Voter Turnout ...... 125

Table 5.10: Changes in Iowa Voter Registration ...... 128

Table 5.11: Changes in Iowa Unregistered Voter Status ...... 131

Table 5.12: Iowa Percent Reduction in Error (PRE) ...... 133

Table 6.1: Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina...... 139

Table 6.2: Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year

Voter Turnout...... 144

Table 6.3: Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Primary

Voter Turnout...... 149

Table 6.4: Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. 2007 General Election Voter

Turnout ...... 151

Table 6.5: Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina; Young

Voters ONLY ...... 155

Table 6.6: Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year

Voter Turnout; Young Voters ONLY ...... 160

Table 6.7: Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Primary

Voter Turnout; Young Voters ONLY ...... 163

Table 7.1: EDR, SDR and Early Voting in Iowa ...... 167

Table 7.2: Newly Registered Voters in Iowa ...... 170

Table 7.3: Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year

Voter Turnout...... 176

Table 7.4: Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year

Voter Turnout: Predicted Probabilities ...... 177 xv

Table 7.5: Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year

Primary Voter Turnout ...... 178

Table 7.6: Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year

Voter Turnout: Predicted Probabilities ...... 179

Table 7.7: Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Same Year Primary Voter

Turnout ...... 180

Table 7.8: Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year

Voter Turnout: Predicted Probabilities ...... 181

Table 8.1: Voter Statistics in Recent Federal Elections in Minnesota ...... 186

Table 8.2: Newly Registered Voters in Minnesota; ALL Voters ...... 189

Table 8.3: Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008

Presidential Election Voter Turnout; ALL Minnesota Voters ...... 191

Table 8.4: Effects of 2006 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; ALL Minnesota Voters ...... 193

Table 8.5: Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; ALL Minnesota Voters ...... 195

Table 8.6: Newly Registered Voters in Minnesota; Young Voters ONLY ...... 196

Table 8.7: Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008

Presidential Election Voter Turnout; Young Minnesota Voters ONLY ...... 198

Table 8.8: Effects of 2006 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; Young Minnesota Voters ONLY...... 199

Table 8.9: Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; Young Minnesota Voters ONLY...... 200 xvi

Table 8.10: Voter Statistics in Recent Federal Elections in Idaho ...... 203

Table 8.11: Newly Registered Voters in Idaho; ALL Voters ...... 205

Table 8.12: Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008

Presidential Election Voter Turnout; ALL Idaho Voters ...... 208

Table 8.13: Effects of 2006 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; ALL Idaho Voters...... 209

Table 8.14: Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; ALL Idaho Voters...... 211

Table 8.15: Newly Registered Voters in Idaho; Young Idaho Voters ONLY ...... 212

Table 8.16: Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008

Presidential Election Voter Turnout; Young Idaho Voters ONLY ...... 214

Table 8.17: Effects of 2006 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; Young Idaho Voters ONLY ...... 215

Table 8.18: Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010

Midterm Election Voter Turnout; Young Idaho Voters ONLY ...... 216

Table A.1: Matrix of Combinations of Voter Registration and Turnout Laws in States

Offering EDR and/or SDR ...... 251

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 3.1: Combinations of Voter Registration and Election Laws as of 2008 ...... 63

Figure 4.1: Voter Turnout by State, 2008 ...... 89

Figure 5.1: Effects of Residential Duration and Age on Turnout (NC) ...... 109

Figure 5.2: Effects of Education and Age on Turnout (NC)...... 110

Figure 5.3: Effects of Education and Age on Registration (NC) ...... 113

Figure 5.4: Effect of Address and Income on Meeting Deadlines (NC) ...... 116

Figure 5.5: Effects of Education and Age on Voter Turnout (IA) ...... 127

Figure 5.6: Effects of Education and Age on Voter Registration (IA) ...... 130

Figure 5.7: Effects of Age on Not Registering Due to Deadlines (IA) ...... 132

Figure 6.1: Predicted Probabilities of Voting in Midterm Election Based on Registration

Method; All Voters ...... 147

Figure 6.2: Predicted Probabilities of Voting in Midterm Election Based on Registration

Method; ONLY Young Voters ...... 162

Figure B.1: Reasons for Not Registering to Vote ...... 265

xviii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Overview

“Free food! Free food!” a male undergraduate bellowed into a bullhorn. I was on the Oval, a central meeting place for generations of students on the heart of The Ohio

State University’s Columbus campus. Here, students gather between classes (or in lieu of attending classes) to pass time tossing around Frisbees, baseballs and footballs or to sun themselves during warm weather. They often solicit interest in a variety of causes, political and otherwise, and recruit others to join student organizations.

The student continued with his sales pitch. Anyone interested could obtain a free lunch by going downtown, registering to vote and voting at a community center open to early voting for the upcoming elections. Since there were no lines that day, it only made sense to vote then.

It was late September 2008. School had only recently started, and this scene was merely the most aggressive of the many get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts I had witnessed as the new school year commenced. During this time one could scarcely walk across the

Oval or to the restaurants and bookstores on nearby High Street without being asked

(usually more than once) whether they were registered to vote. Nearly all these activities

(including the one offering lunch) were on behalf of then-candidate Barack Obama,

1 whose nationwide success at registering and turning out college students has been repeatedly documented.

Although these GOTV events occurred nationwide, they were especially noticeable in battleground states like Ohio where presidential elections are perennially

“too close to call.” Yet while Ohio and North Carolina were both battleground states highly sought after by both Obama and McCain, new voter registration laws meant that

GOTV in these two states differed from that of other battlegrounds like Florida or

Pennsylvania. The two former states permit early voting and have early voting periods during which they allow new voter registrations at early voting polling places. In the case of Ohio, one must register to vote at least 30 days before a given election, but the early voting period begins 35 days prior to election day. Therefore, Ohioans have a small window in which they may register and vote simultaneously. North Carolina, on the other hand, began to allow voter registration to occur at early voting sites which did not open until after the state’s registration deadline of 25 days before election day. In addition voter registration was allowed in person until the last Saturday before election day.

In a democracy like the United States, voting is one of the most common and basic rights in which people may express themselves politically. Far fewer people engage in other activities like writing letters to elected officials, protesting and attending meetings. It follows that the overall success or failure of elections depends on the prevention of fraud, the wide availability of voting and high participation rates (Harris

1929).

The United States unfortunately does not meet these standards despite persistent efforts throughout its history to extend suffrage to women, racial minorities and 18-20 2 year-olds. Even after these changes and following the elimination of literacy tests and poll taxes, American voter turnout has actually declined. This fact is all the more surprising given that Americans are better educated than ever before, and researchers have repeatedly found that better educated people are more likely to vote than their less educated counterparts. Political scientists have spent decades grappling with this puzzle as well as attempting to learn why some people vote and others do not. As they have done so, they have employed explanatory variables like socioeconomic status, attitudes toward the government, degree of electoral competition and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts.

Another line of research has emphasized voter registration requirements, especially since the United States is one of the only countries in the world that requires prospective voters to register. According to Harris (1929) and Scher (2011), states began to enact registration laws during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These requirements served two main purposes. First, they helped prevent voter fraud that occurred when, for instance, individuals working for political party machines cast votes repeatedly, often in jurisdictions where they did not even live. Second, lawmakers imposed these laws as a means of disenfranchising immigrants whom they believed would vote for their opponents. Initial registration laws frequently imposed deadlines as long as one to two years before a given election. Many people, depending on their state of residence, had to register before each election even if they never moved. Wolfinger and

Rosenstone (1980) contend that registration is a particularly serious impediment because it is an additional requirement that citizens must remember to complete long before election day (and long before they begin to think about the election).

Although every state but North Dakota now requires registration, federal laws cap closing dates at 30 days before the election in question. Likewise, in an effort to help citizens complete this task, the necessary forms are available at drivers’ license bureaus and public assistance agencies. Some states now permit registration closer to election day than 30 days.

Beginning in the mid-1970s, Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin enacted election day registration (EDR). Now, persons interested in voting could simply register at the same time and place, thus (presumably) reducing this burden. Since then other states have followed. During this time some of these states (and others) have also enacted early voting. This practice affords people who have already registered the option of voting before election day if they plan to be out of town or simply would prefer to do so sooner.

Some of these states also allow voter registration at early voting sites for citizens who neglected to register before the earlier deadline. If these states do not also permit registration on election day, this practice is known as same day registration (SDR).1 Like

EDR this procedure allows people to wait until they are ready to vote to register.

Just as the overall decline in turnout (and the nation’s low turnout relative to other industrialized countries) is a puzzle, so is the fact that voter turnout and registration rates do not appear to have increased in states that have begun EDR and/or SDR. Previous researchers like Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980) had predicted higher increases in turnout than more recent researchers like Hanmer (2009) have observed once states have put these procedures in place. Uncovering the reason for this unfulfilled expectation is an

1 Many people refer to election day registration as same day registration. However, to avoid confusion in this dissertation, I use EDR only when registration is permitted on election day. In states that allow registration at the time of early voting, I use SDR. 4 important undertaking. Supporters regularly argue for their adoption on the grounds that they improve voter turnout. First, these laws have grown increasingly popular and widespread, especially during the 1990s and 2000s. Indeed, by the 2008 election, some

18 states had established early voting, either with or without the easier registration requirements.

Second, if the reforms do not live up to the advocates’ and academics’ expectations, it is necessary to learn why. The laws’ advocates and civic organizations interested in boosting turnout would need to know so they can tweak the laws and/or pursue other (or additional) avenues for meeting their goal. Likewise, academics need to know not only for the same reasons but also because of the implications this issue has for knowledge about political participation more generally.

Because of this research question’s importance, many scholars have studied voter turnout and how it has changed as a result of the new laws. Although the details vary depending on the study in question, a consensus has emerged among researchers that any observed turnout increases are modest, far more so than earlier optimistic predictions.

Indeed, other political scientists have failed to detect any statistically significant effects.

Some researchers like Hanmer (2009) have already begun to explain why. In his case he contrasts states based on their motivations for passing the new laws. Those enacting EDR out of a desire to improve turnout had modest improvements; states not wanting to improve turnout (that made the changes because they thought EDR would be cheaper to implement) witnessed no changes in turnout. Yet no other scholars have made similar efforts to advance such explanations.

That students worked on their own volition and presumably without compensation to register and turn out their colleagues to vote in an election is unquestionably admirable. Indeed, as someone who teaches introductory political science courses and works diligently to pique students’ interest in the material and connect it with their lives,

I was very happy to witness their endeavors. Yet while I do not deny that such GOTV actions and new voter registration laws have the best of intentions and indeed cause people to register and vote who would not have done so otherwise, I nevertheless had concerns about factors that might reduce the activities’ and new laws overall effectiveness.

My first concern relates specifically to the new voter registration laws. As I explain in Chapter 2, registering to vote is mandatory for virtually all Americans interested in voting.2 The requirement and deadlines vary from state to state. Recognizing the difficulty many citizens have experienced meeting the requirement (particularly during the early twentieth century when it was even more onerous), many well- intentioned state legislators have sought to make this requirement easier to meet in the hopes that by doing so, more citizens would vote. In order for these new state laws to

“work,” there must be a large number of state residents who would vote regularly if only they could meet the registration requirements (and who face no other impediments).

Thus, if the laws truly are effective, then turnout should improve following their implementation and fewer nonvoters should cite voter registration requirements as the reason they stayed home. In other words those advocating these laws could overlook other reasons that many Americans do not vote.

2 North Dakota is the only state without voter registration. 6

My second concern is longer term in nature. In recent years thousands of citizens have indeed used EDR and SDR to register to vote for the first time or to update a previous registration following a move. Clearly, people are responding to the new laws by taking advantage of them, and this fact is encouraging. However, it is not clear that such Americans are as likely to vote in future elections as their counterparts who had completed voter registration prior to the “traditional” deadlines (often 25 or 30 days before an election). In other words citizens who are really interested in voting would likely register much sooner and regardless of whether their state offers EDR or SDR.

Instead, it is quite plausible that people registering with EDR or SDR are doing so because something about the upcoming election piqued their interest, e.g. they might have become enthused by Barack Obama and wanted to help “make history,” perhaps after encountering GOTV activities performed on his behalf. If so then they could be less likely to vote in their state’s 2010 midterm elections than people who had registered sooner and on their own initiative, particularly given that there are often fewer GOTV efforts during midterm election years. Such a finding would suggest that the new registration laws, while useful, alone are insufficient to create regular voters.

This dissertation is based on two separate related studies seeking to explore the two concerns mentioned above. Study 1 uses survey research to study voter registration.

If the reforms achieve their goals, I would expect that fewer people are unregistered once their state implements EDR or SDR. I would also anticipate that among citizens who have not registered to vote, fewer would be unregistered due to the inability to comply with registration deadlines and procedures. If that does not happen, it would suggest that the reforms are not addressing a demand. It could also mean that people are not aware of 7 the new laws if they continue to say that they did not register because they could not meet the deadlines (that were by then nonexistent). If the former scenario is true, it would imply that voter registration requirements are not responsible for low voter turnout and that another factor like a lack of interest in politics or a belief that one’s vote cannot

“make a difference” is to blame instead.

Likewise, Study 2 addresses an intriguing question. As is already known, many people do take advantage of EDR and SDR. It is reasonable, however, to assume that they are not hugely interested in politics and voting, given that they would likely have not registered without one of these options. If so then they would be less likely to vote in subsequent elections than those who had registered weeks earlier. Using statewide voter registration and history files, Study 2 follows newly registered voters in four carefully selected states (Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina) to see whether election and same day registrants are less likely to vote in the next election of the same type (e.g. presidential, midterm, etc.) than “traditional” registrants.

This study has important implications for both “real world” efforts to improve turnout and for obtaining a sound understanding of voter registration. First, if election and same day registrants are indeed less likely to continue voting, partisan and nonpartisan GOTV efforts would be well advised to devote specific resources to these groups of registered voters. Second, if these registered voters are indeed less likely to vote than “traditional” registrants, the registration requirement is clearly not the only reason. That such persons had taken advantage of EDR or SDR to register would indicate the reforms’ usefulness but that the reforms alone are insufficient to increase the number of Americans who vote consistently. 8

Given that these are two separate studies with different research questions, I depend upon a triangulation of datasets to answer them. Table 1.1 below offers an overview. Because the first study seeks to learn whether Americans’ views concerning voter registration requirements have changed as a result of easier procedures, I rely on survey research, i.e. people explaining whether they think registration is easier. The

Current Population Survey, administered monthly to thousands of Americans by the

United States Census Bureau, primarily examines trends in unemployment. However, the

November survey in even-numbered years contains a useful supplement with questions about whether respondents voted in the most recent election, whether they were registered and (if they were not) why they never registered. Meanwhile, because Study 2 seeks to track the same individuals (registered voters) over time, I use official voter files obtained from Secretary of State offices. These files contain much useful information about registered voters, including whether they vote in elections held well after they first register.

Outline

This dissertation proceeds as follows. Chapter 2 consists of a thorough literature review. I cover political science research that has addressed various aspects of voter turnout like demographic variables, socioeconomic status, attitudes toward government and the impact of competitive elections. It also includes a heavy emphasis on the history and impact of voter registration requirements.

Dataset Type of Data Available Information

Study 1 Voting and Registration Supplement Survey Research Whether the respondent voted in the (From the Current Population Survey) last election

Whether the respondent was registered to vote

Reason the respondent was not registered

Demographic information (race, age, how long one has lived at his/her current address)

Socioeconomic status (education and income)

Study 2 Statewide Voter Files Public Records Recent voting history in all elections 10 Date of registration (used to determine method of registration)

Age

Race (North Carolina only)

Congressional district

Party registration (Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina)

Table 1.1. Datasets Consulted in This Dissertation

Chapter 3 contains a research design for both studies as well as the hypotheses tested in later chapters. The research design includes data sources and reasons for selecting the states to serve as case studies in Study 2. At this point I list dependent, independent and control variables and explain how I operationalize each one. I also speak to some of the concerns related to my choices about these matters and the factors that went into the sometimes difficult decisions I have made as I have completed this research.

Study 1 appears in Chapters 4 and 5. Chapter 4 contains multilevel logistical regression models that examine voter turnout and registration in all 50 states during the

2008 election. Explanatory variables include whether the states allow EDR, SDR, early voting and their closing dates. Next, I focus exclusively on unregistered citizens, exploring whether those residing in states with EDR and/or SDR are less likely to cite the deadlines as they reason they did not register than their counterparts who lacked these voter registration options. This chapter establishes the “lay of the land” concerning voter registration requirements during the 2008 presidential election. Building upon these analyses, Chapter 5 contains before-and-after analyses for Iowa and North Carolina. In

2007 Iowa enacted EDR while North Carolina enacted SDR. This chapter contains research similar to the previous chapter, only it seeks to detect changes in the behavior of these two states’ citizens at the time the state laws changed. These analyses are an essential step toward demonstrating the presence or absence of causal relationships.

Chapters 6, 7 and 8 contain intensive case studies of the four states examined in

Chapter 2. I begin in Chapter 6 with Mecklenburg County (Charlotte), North Carolina.

Chapter 7 contains a statewide study of Iowa. As stated previously these two states 11 changed their laws in 2007. Therefore, I am unable to follow newly registered voters for entire, four year election cycles. Chapter 8 combines studies of Idaho and Minnesota.

Both states have EDR; Idaho has had it since the mid-1990s, while Minnesota was the first state to adopt it and has permitted it since the mid-1970s. These states’ voter files do not go back that far, but I can still track persons over a longer period of time than for

North Carolina and Iowa: those who first registered to vote in 2004, 2006 or 2008.

Finally, I conclude my dissertation in Chapter 9. Here, I discuss the broader lessons and scholarly contributions of these two studies. This discussion includes implications for political scientists as well as lawmakers and civic organizations interested in improving voter turnout. I then address some of my dissertation’s limitations, particularly in establishing causal relationships. From there I turn my attention to remaining unanswered questions concerning both registration requirements and turnout more generally. I then segue into a future research agenda that is based largely on these limitations and unanswered questions. This agenda includes ideas or further research concerning voter registration and ideas for how to study voter turnout aside from voter registration.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORY

Introduction

Voting is unquestionably one of the most basic ways that citizens convey their opinions to government officials. Suffrage is among the most cherished rights that citizens in democratic nations enjoy. Given the great importance of voting, this topic is among the most-studied by political scientists who research American politics, especially since American turnout is considerably lower than that of all other industrialized nations, except Switzerland (Powell 1986 and Jackman 1987). Specifically, scholars have explored who votes, how they vote, who stays home and why, including why less than two-thirds of Americans vote even in presidential elections. A long history of scholarship has accumulated over the last few decades.

In this chapter I conduct a thorough review of research regarding American voter turnout and the results of efforts to improve it. I begin by reviewing the theory of voting as a cost-benefit calculation before turning to voter registration requirements and how they (and efforts to ease them) affect turnout. I then briefly examine other factors long known to affect turnout like individual demographics, socioeconomic status, electoral competition and canvassing/GOTV efforts. As I do so, I devote particular emphasis to remaining unanswered questions about who votes and who stays home and how voter registration requirements affect turnout. I also explore the controversy regarding why

American voter turnout has declined since reaching a zenith in the 1960 presidential 13 election and attempts to improve turnout.3 After concluding the literature review by noting what remains unknown, I advance the theoretical framework within which my own research questions fit.

Costs and Benefits of Voting

Burnham (1987) explains that most voter turnout scholarship fits into either a social psychological/survey research approach or an economic/rational choice explanation. While I briefly explain some contributions from the former school of thought, my primary focus is on the rational choice framework. Voter registration research fits nicely into this perspective.

In An Economic Theory of Democracy, Anthony Downs (1957) advances a theoretical framework that has become among the most influential in the turnout literature. According to Downs whether an individual will vote or not can be expressed in the function C < pB. Here, “B” stands for the benefits one would derive if his or her chosen candidate wins and enacts the policies for which the candidate campaigned. The benefits may be tangible like a tax cut, but they may also be less tangible like an expansion of abortion rights for a pro-choice voter. “C” refers to the costs of voting, e.g. taking time out of one’s busy life to become informed about the candidates, registering to vote, etc. Citizens vote when the benefits of voting exceed the costs of doing so times

“p,” the probability of casting the deciding vote. Because the value of “p” is nearly

3 While many scholars have acknowledged this post-1960 decline, McDonald and Popkin (2001) argue that the decline does not exist and stems from scholars’ use of the voting age population, which includes persons who are not eligible to vote because they are disenfranchised felons, are not citizens or have been declared mentally incompetent 14 always infinitesimal, the above expression is rarely true. It is seldom rational for anyone to vote.

Yet millions of Americans vote in every election, so subsequent scholars (Riker and Ordeshook 1968) revised the above formula: C < pB + D, where “D” stands for duty, acknowledging that many people see voting as part of their civic duty and will do so out of a sense of obligation. Riker and Ordeshook go on to speculate that many Americans overestimate the value of “p.” Not satisfied with these revisions, Ferejohn and Fiorina

(1974) argue that instead of assuming that people decide on the basis of risk, they take the course of action that affords them the least regret should if they did not vote but really

“should have” voted.

Attempting to move beyond this confusion, Aldrich (1993) argues cogently that voter turnout is inappropriate for rational choice theories because casting a vote carries both low costs and benefits. Thus, even small changes in explanatory variables can raise or lower turnout levels noticeably. Ultimately, the above rational choice approaches are insufficient to explain turnout because they are too narrow conceptually. For example, when explaining the post-1960 turnout decline, Aldrich argues that the “D” should include additional considerations like partisan identification, external political efficacy and residential mobility. Incorporating such longer term variables (in addition to the unique circumstances surrounding particular elections) into the above models increases their predictive power.

While scholars disagree on the finer points of these cost-benefits analyses, this theoretical view of the voting decision has nevertheless enjoyed tremendous influence in the study of voter turnout. In particular researchers have long regarded voter registration 15 as a crucial voting cost. Indeed, to a lesser extent, state legislators, hoping to improve voter turnout levels in their states or to depress them to their partisan advantage, have done the same. Likewise, more generally, some researchers have focused on citizens’ perceptions of the benefits of voting, finding, for example, that persons with higher educational attainment are more likely to believe that voting is beneficial. Other political scientists have examined the costs of voting such as meeting voter registration requirements. In doing so they have sometimes explored ways of mitigating high voting costs like GOTV and partisan canvassing efforts and the impact of informal political discussions with friends and family members. This literature review is organized to reflect these features of turnout research.

Voter Registration as a Cost of Voting

Within the larger context of this theoretical framework, the uniquely-American voter registration requirement has attracted considerable scholarly attention. One reason for this focus is that turnout in American elections is considerably lower than that of other industrialized nations (Powell 1986 and Jackman 1987). This fact has led researchers to turn to the registration requirement as a possible explanation because the governments in most other nations register their citizens automatically.

Whereas most countries place the registration burden on the government,

American citizens must complete registration on their own initiative. Scholars like

Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) write that the requirement emerged during the early nineteenth century in large, industrial Northeastern states in response to concerns about voter fraud (both intentional and unintentional) among the thousands of immigrants 16 arriving at that time and making their residences in large cities. A century later, with voter fraud persisting and desires in some quarters to keep immigrants disenfranchised, many other states introduced similar provisions between Reconstruction and World War I

(Harris 1929 and Scher 2011).

Among the first political scientists to examine the effects of voter registration requirements on turnout are Kelley, Ayres and Bowen (1967). Studying aggregate turnout across cities in 1960, these researchers report that turnout is indeed higher in cities with less onerous requirements, particularly those without literacy tests and long closing dates.

Furthermore, among cities with permanent registration, demographic and socioeconomic disparities among registered voters are lower when the registration requirements are less stringent.

Arguably the best known study of voter registration is Wolfinger and Rosenstone

(1980). As they study turnout in presidential elections during the 1970s – following passage of the Voting Rights Act and after literacy tests and poll taxes had been banned - they acknowledge that voter registration is indeed burdensome:

Registration is usually more difficult than voting, often involving more obscure information and a longer journey at a less convenient time, to complete a more complicated procedure. Moreover, it must usually be done before interest in the campaign has reached its peak (p. 61).

At this time, of course, some states’ closing dates were 50 days or more before an election. However, the researchers studied additional costs like the hours of operation for registration offices, whether such offices are open on nights and weekends and the availability of absentee voting. The researchers found that closing dates, by far, have the greatest deleterious effect on turnout – about 6.1 percent nationally. Similar to Kelley,

Ayres and Bowen (1967), extending the hours of operation for registration offices would have had a more modest effect on turnout. Despite having lamented registration difficulties, they conclude:

If every state had had registration laws in 1972 as permissive as those in the most permissive states, turnout would have been about 9 percentage points higher in the presidential election, (p. 88).

Subsequent researchers concur with this conclusion. In another study similar to

Wolfinger and Rosenstone, Teixeira (1992) estimates that registration would increase by

10.7 percent and turnout would rise by 7.8 percent. These estimates are based on what would happen if all states adopted EDR, maintained regular and extended hours for

Board of Elections offices, and eliminated purging for nonvoting. Of these reforms, scholars believe that eliminating the closing date (the number of days before an election by which one must register in order to vote) and adopting EDR would have the strongest positive impact. Yet Teixeira tempers his optimism by acknowledging that despite easier of registration requirements, Americans have experienced a concurrent decline in social connectedness since the 1960s and an increasing disconnectedness and lack of trust toward elected officials.4 Thus, while reducing registration requirements could improve turnout, this approach alone is insufficient to bring the United States to the same levels as worldwide leaders in turnout.

Similarly, Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) find that from 1956 to 1988, relative to

EDR states, turnout is 3 percent lower when the closing date is 30 days before a presidential election and 5.6 percent lower when the closing date is 60 days. The researchers also note that in addition to affecting minorities and persons of low

4 Putnam (2000) expands greatly on these ideas. 18 socioeconomic status disproportionately, such laws “make it doubly doubtful that political leaders will devote the resources to efforts to mobilize them” (p. 209). In other words while long closing dates inherently restrict turnout, they also provide little incentive for political parties to help these citizens meet the deadlines.

Efforts to Lower Registration Costs

Since the time of the above research, of course, both the federal government and states have continued to pass laws to facilitate both voting and easier registration requirements. Such laws include the ones at the focus of this dissertation: EDR, SDR and early voting. Even many states without these laws shortened their closing dates so that people do not have register as far in advance to an election. Consequently, researchers gained the ability to learn what actually happens once states change their laws. To a large extent, they have failed to uncover the turnout increases that Wolfinger and Rosenstone

(1980) had previously anticipated.

Motor Voter

Although not the explicit focus of this dissertation, a discussion of the National

Voter Registration Act is helpful for several reasons. This law, to be explained in the next paragraph, is one of the federal government’s most significant attempts to change registration laws. Although registration is still a matter of state law, the NVRA establishes parameters within which states must establish their own laws. A discussion of research by political scientists on the effects of Motor Voter is helpful for two reasons.

First, this research offers ideas for theoretical expectations and hypotheses regarding

19 measures like early voting, SDR, and EDR. Second, it reveals both the methodological challenges that researchers face as well as their solutions.

In 1993, President Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act into law.

Commonly known as “motor voter,” the law’s key provision requires states to provide citizens with the opportunity to register to vote when they apply for or renew their driver’s licenses. As Highton and Wolfinger (1998) explain, the law mandates that the driver’s license application double as the application for voter registration or that DMV officials ask applicants if they wish to register and provide the appropriate form to those persons who are interested in doing so. Under the terms of this law, then, voting remains a two-step process. However, unlike in the past, registration is no longer completely separate from other bureaucratic tasks. Accordingly, government officials, civic organizations and scholars had expressed hope that this cost reduction would raise turnout. Other NVRA provisions place similar requirements on public assistance agencies, allow voter registration by mail, and ban states from purging citizens from the registration rolls simply for failure to vote. Many of these provisions are inspired by states that had either previously adopted them or enacted similar regulations.

Unfortunately, most researchers are unable to report meaningful, significant improvements in voter turnout resulting from NVRA. For instance, using data from the

1984 and 1988 Current Population Surveys, Highton and Wolfinger (1998) demonstrate that Colorado observes increases in registration and turnout of 5.9 and 4.7 percent respectively. These statistics are net figures, as they reflect both increases in Colorado and nationwide decreases during the same period. Furthermore, these effects are greatest among people under 30 and recent movers. As the researchers lament, however, these 20 two groups are small within the nation’s overall population. Therefore, even though EDR would help these citizens even more, it would not have significant overall effects even if implemented nationwide. In the same study, the researchers report that registration by mail and registration at public assistance agencies have virtually no impact on turnout.

Early Voting

One of the most common recent reforms is early voting. In short, early voting means that people are allowed to vote before Election Day. Fortier (2006) distinguishes between absentee voting, in which people vote outside the voting booths and early voting in which citizens may visit the voting booths prior to Election Day.5 Both absentee and early voting take numerous forms with diverse approaches to implementation across the states that practice them.

Historically, many states have required proof that one will be out of town or otherwise unable to go to the polling precinct on Election Day, perhaps due to illness.

More recently, however, many states have relaxed their requirements for absentee voting.

Instead of requiring voters to provide excuses or documentation that they will be out of town on Election Day, they can often request absentee ballots without providing excuses

(Oliver 1996, Burden et al. 2009). Some states even allow them to sign up to receive absentee ballots for every election (Berinsky 2005).

States often change these laws in the hopes of improving turnout. Despite these intentions, Oliver (1996) finds that liberalizing absentee voting guidelines alone does little to improve turnout. Instead, these reforms can only be effective at improving

5 Fortier (2006) cautions that some states use “absentee voting” to refer to when citizens vote prior to Election Day at the local Board of Elections. Therefore, researchers must take great care to define these terms clearly, even if they seem straightforward, and pay close attention to how states record such data. 21 turnout if outside factors like canvassing by political parties are present so that people become aware of changes in election law. Indeed, these reforms are widely thought to be incapable of expanding the electorate. In other words, no one who has never voted previously is likely to decide to vote solely because they are not required to be absent from a given jurisdiction on Election Day.

Absentee voting can also occur by mail. Many states now allow voting by mail

(VBM). Since 1998, Oregon has conducted all of its elections by mail; therefore, polling precincts are nonexistent. As with the liberalization of absentee voting laws, VBM in

Oregon has not been shown to affect turnout. Any increases in turnout that have been detected have been quite small. In studying the effects of VBM in Oregon, Berinsky,

Burns, and Traugott (2001) distinguish among voters and nonvoters. Despite a net gain of about 6 percent in voter turnout because of VBM, the researchers note that most of this effect stems from retaining former voters rather than introducing new voters into the electorate. In other words, people who have a prior history of voting are somewhat more likely to continue to do so than in states without VBM.

Like absentee voting, early voting takes many forms. Sometimes, voters are required to go to the Board of Elections and are not allowed other options. Other states establish vote centers in every county where citizens can early vote. Still others set up voting booths in numerous locations like community centers and shopping malls (Fortier

2006).

The effectiveness of early voting, despite its enormous and growing popularity, has not been established. In fact, some scholars like Burden et al. (2009) believe that early voting actually lowered turnout in the 2008 presidential election by up to 6 percent. 22

This finding was especially applicable in states where it exists in the absence of other reforms like EDR and SDR. However, the reasons for this alarming and unexpected finding are not entirely clear. Future researchers need to study early voting further and consider how elite actors like candidates and political parties have altered their behavior in response to states’ implementation of this practice.

Same Day Registration (Combined with Early Voting)

Burden et al. (2009) also discuss same day registration (SDR). This measure is a marriage of voter registration and early voting. Citizens may early vote at the same time and place they register. In the 2008 election, some states combined SDR with early voting. Effectiveness of SDR for increasing turnout was dependent on its duration before

Election Day; a twelve-day SDR period produces a 3.5 percent increase in turnout.

In this innovative study of these reforms on turnout in the 2008 election, they offer somewhat optimistic findings regarding how EDR and SDR impact turnout. They consider the combinations of reforms that states have implemented in addition to looking at each reform individually. However, early voting, in the absence of same day voting and Election Day registration, actually decreases turnout. One possible explanation is that early voting alone is unable to attract new voters because, unlike EDR and SDR, it does nothing to make registration easier. Therefore, states would need to combine early voting with other available reforms in order to raise turnout levels. Another possibility, according to Burden et al. (2010) is that early voting deprives campaigns of their incentives to continue to mobilize a state’s voters. If large numbers of citizens are voting several weeks before Election Day, then campaigns clearly accomplish nothing by targeting people who have already voted. Instead, they shift their resources toward 23 competitive states that lack early voting. This research represents the most advanced theoretical explanation offered so far. While insightful, scholars still have much that they do not understand.

At this point, these reforms are still quite new, and scholars have devoted scant attention to studying their impact. Of the studies that have been performed, however, most conclude that the effect of these new laws on turnout is only modest at best

(Berinsky 2005, Gronke et al. 2008, and Burden et al. 2009). In explaining these unexpected findings, Berinsky (2005) and Gronke et al. (2008) state that their success or failure depends on whether the reforms expand the electorate. Too often, the people who take advantage of the reforms were already planning to vote, regardless of electoral laws or the convenience of voting. If so, these more relaxed procedures will not bring new citizens into the electorate. In other words, people are not going to decide to vote for the first time simply because they can do so at a shopping mall two weeks before Election

Day. Generally speaking, we still do not know much more than this.

Election Day Registration

Meanwhile, a handful of states have eliminated closing dates altogether, allowing citizens to register on Election Day. In the early 1970s, Minnesota, Maine, and Wisconsin implemented Election Day Registration (EDR) in hopes of improving turnout by making registration requirements less cumbersome. About twenty years later, Wyoming, Idaho, and New Hampshire followed in an effort to circumvent some of the provisions contained in motor voter, passed in 1993. These states did not share the goals behind motor voter and wanted to avoid the perceived financial burdens imposed by the NVRA (Hanmer

2009). Therefore, again, considerable variation remains across states. 24

Because this election law appears to reduce voting costs more than any other reforms and give people who only become interested in the election just before election day the opportunity to vote, scholars have begun to devote more attention in recent years to its effects. Unfortunately, despite observing subtle differences depending on the study in question, a consensus is emerging that its effects on turnout are at best minimal. Using pooled results from the 1980 and 1992 CPS, Highton (1997) compares states with EDR to those that do not allow it. Turnout is about 10 percent higher in states with EDR

(Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin) and states without registration (North Dakota) than in other states. Yet among registered citizens residing in other states, turnout exceeds 90 percent. Comparing the effects of voter registration to other variables, Highton finds that one’s educational attainment is far more predictive of turnout than registration laws.

Therefore, he pessimistically concludes that reforms like motor voter and EDR will not affect turnout.

More recently, Burden et al. (2009), in an analysis of the 2008 presidential election, have found that EDR is the most effective way to boost turnout, by about 4 to 6 percent, with or without other reforms like SDR and early voting. These latter reforms may be helpful, but without EDR, they accomplish less.

Other Research

While the vast majority of scholars concentrate their efforts either on the nation as a whole or comparisons among states, Burden and Neiheisel (2010) examine intrastate variations in election law. Although Wisconsin implemented EDR in time for the 1976 presidential election, it did not require voter registration statewide until 2002 when

HAVA mandated that each state establish statewide computer databases of all registered 25 voters. Previously, registration was required only in municipalities with more than 5,000 people and was optional elsewhere. Taking advantage of this unique situation, Burden and Neiheisel perform a natural experiment in which they estimate the “true effect” of voter registration to be approximately 2 percent.

Interestingly, this study contains a second innovation. The researchers find that once registration was required, declines in voter turnout were not uniform across the state. Municipalities that spend more money on election administration are able to absorb the increased cost of participation, presumably through information campaigns and publicity surrounding the new legal requirement.6 Although they do not dispute previous conclusions regarding the importance of individual socioeconomic variables in predicting registration and turnout, they are able to provide additional explanations for this finding.

The paper reveals the role that election officials have in increasing registration and turnout and offers a new direction for future research.

Individual Level Factors Known to Affect Turnout

Of course other factors besides voter registration requirements are known to affect turnout. Such influences include individual level characteristics and the unique circumstances that surround particular elections. Although the datasets I use in my analyses (discussed in the next chapter) do not include much of these data, it is nevertheless essential to consider briefly this research since people whose individual characteristics make them less motivated or interested in voting would stand to benefit

6 The researchers acknowledge that EDR does not mean that the registration cost has been eliminated. Indeed, persons wishing to register and vote on Election Day must still face several tasks such as locating the right polling place and making sure that they bring proper identification with them. 26 most from easier registration procedures. This section discusses several key individual level characteristics.

Socioeconomic Status and Demographic Factors

As stated above, research has repeatedly demonstrated that ceteris paribus voter turnout is higher among persons enjoying higher socioeconomic status and certain demographic attributes. Such factors include education, income, age and how long someone has resided at the same address, but the relative impact of each is difficult to ascertain since these four variables are often strongly correlated with one another

(Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980).

The independent variables pertaining to individual characteristics typically include income, education, and race, how long one has lived in a particular residence or community, and age. The effects are now so well known that almost every voter turnout study includes each as a control variable, even when the main independent variables are unrelated. Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980) were among the first to articulate their importance. In short, after age, education is the most consequential of these variables.

College graduates are most likely to vote, followed by those with some college and high school graduates. However, the effects of each additional year of schooling are stronger among less educated persons; post-graduate education, meanwhile, matters much less.

With respect to turnout (and participation more broadly), its benefits are manifold.

First, education provides citizens with the skills they need in order to understand both how to register and the political process itself thereby lowering the “cost” of electoral participation. Educated persons are more easily able to gain necessary knowledge about the candidates and information about how to register and where to vote. Furthermore, the 27 bureaucratic task of voter registration does not loom as large to more educated persons.

Second, educated citizens are more likely to believe that voting is one’s civic duty and to exhibit high levels of political efficacy, i.e. to believe that their votes will “make a difference.” Consequently, their “B” and “D” are thought to be higher.

Closely related to education is age; only education is more important in predicting turnout (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980). Evidence consistently demonstrates that older people turn out in higher numbers than their younger counterparts. One reason is that, through myriad life experiences, people learn how to complete bureaucratic tasks more effectively. They can develop skills in this manner regardless of how long they attended school. Therefore, both education and age may be seen as lowering the costs of voting as well as increasing citizens’ perceptions of the benefits.

Income is also positively correlated with turnout, although its effect is smaller than education and age and diminishes once citizens are able to live comfortably, presumably because impoverished people are unable to concern themselves with activities like voting. After this point income no longer exerts an independent, positive effect on turnout. Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980) find similar effects for occupations.

White collar workers vote at higher rates than blue collar and clerical employees. Again, however, the differences in turnout among groups are relatively modest.

Voter turnout has also been shown to increase with length of residence in a given community. After people move to a new city or a new state, they must once again register to vote in their new jurisdiction.7 Given the wide variations in requirements and

7 Generally speaking only when a registered voter moves within the same county can his or her registration be updated. Otherwise, citizens must reregister. 28 procedures for registration and the myriad tasks associated with establishing oneself in a new location, many citizens do not immediately register. In addition, they often need time to become acclimated to the local and state political cultures. Otherwise, they will be unable to develop preferences for candidates or perceptions of what issues are important to them personally. Thus, the cost of both registration and voting is higher for new arrivals in a community ceteris paribus.

Indeed, Squire, Wolfinger and Glass (1987) find that, overall, recent movers

(operationalized as persons who had moved within the last two years) in 1980 are about

10 percent less likely to vote in that year’s presidential election than their more established counterparts. Turnout rates among movers also vary. Highly educated, politically efficacious movers are more likely to vote in their new communities than less educated, politically efficacious movers. Likewise, married people and homeowners are more likely to vote in their new homes than single renters, probably because the former enjoy stronger connections to their new communities. Finally, persons moving within or to EDR states are 20 percent more likely to vote than those moving within or to states that do not allow EDR. Consequently, turnout differences with respect to the above demographic and socioeconomic variables are much smaller in the EDR states.

The above effects of socioeconomic and demographic factors vary somewhat from study to study, but scholars have reached a consensus regarding the overall importance of these individual-level characteristics, particularly education, on predicting turnout. Still, numerous other individual level factors, some of which are psychological, have been shown to predict registration and turnout.

Race

Despite considerable progress in achieving racial equality, members of racial minorities remain less likely to vote than whites as minority status can also be a very large cost to voting. Indeed, the Voting Rights Act was not passed until 1965. Before this time, African Americans voted in very small numbers, particularly in the South.

Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) show that although the racial gap in voter turnout narrowed considerably during the 1960s, it has lingered into the 1990s. Its persistence suggests that historic disenfranchisement alone is an insufficient explanation. Other potential explanations include lower political efficacy levels (discussed more fully in the next section) and the fact that racial disparities can also be found for other individual characteristics like education and income.

Like African Americans Hispanics face similar challenges regarding voting.

Whereas Rosenstone and Hansen find that ceteris paribus, African Americans were 4.4 percent less likely to vote than whites from 1956 to 1988, this figure increases to 5.7 percent for Hispanics. While Hispanics face many of the same challenges as African

Americans, they also experience other difficulties like learning English and assimilating into the United States, especially if they have emigrated here from other nations.

Researchers like Jones-Correa (2005) have found evidence that Hispanics residing in jurisdictions with access to ballots in Spanish (per the Voting Rights Act) were 6 percent more likely to vote in the 1996 and 2000 presidential elections than Hispanics without access to these materials.

Duration of residence in the United States is also of interest to researchers.

Barreto (2005) examines county voting records in California following midterm elections 30 and finds that foreign-born Latinos were more likely to vote than their native-born counterparts, likely because the former were subject to special mobilization efforts. Other scholars like Johnston, Stein and Wrinkle (2003) reveal that Spanish-speaking, longtime residents of south Texas are more likely than comparable English speakers to have voted in the 2000 presidential election. Finally, other scholars like Highton and Burris (2002) have focused their attention on country of origin and learned that turnout is highest among Cuban Americans, followed by Mexican Americans.

Political Efficacy

“Political efficacy” concerns one’s beliefs about the relationship between the government and its people. Persons exhibiting high internal efficacy believe that they can follow and understand politics well and that they are able to exert an impact on the political process. External efficacy refers to whether citizens believe that elected officials care what persons like themselves think about politics. Politically efficacious citizens turn out at higher rates than their less efficacious counterparts. Not surprisingly political efficacy is also correlated with educational attainment (Lewis-Beck et al. 2008).

Contextual Factors Known to Affect Voter Turnout

In addition to the individual factors described above, researchers have also learned much about contextual factors that predict voter turnout. In other words two individuals with the same socioeconomic status might or might not vote depending upon outside influences like the degree of competition in an election and canvassing efforts by political parties, campaign volunteers and nonpartisan organizations. I explore each in this section. 31

Degree of Competition

Generally speaking, turnout is highest in presidential elections because this office is the nation’s highest elected office. Furthermore, these elections simply generate far more media attention, television ads and GOTV activities than any other elections.

Likewise, controlling for the office on the ballot, turnout is higher when elections are more competitive ceteris paribus. Political scientists have identified several reasons for this finding.

Of course rational choice theorists (Downs 1957, Riker and Ordeshook 1968 and

Ferejohn and Fiorina 1974) contend that persons are more likely to vote in competitive elections because the odds are greater that they could cast the deciding vote (or they are more likely to perceive that they could cast the deciding vote). Aldrich (1993) counters that even in very close elections, the “P” is too small to be consequential. Instead, citizens are more likely to vote in these elections because politicians, their political parties and independent organizations pump more money into these contests. Because of the additional ads, GOTV efforts and the like, people can more easily obtain the necessary information for completing voter registration and deciding how to vote. More recent research in congressional elections (Cox and Munger 1989) and so-called battleground states in presidential elections (Cann and Cole 2011) supports this contention.

Canvassing and GOTV Efforts

Generally speaking, canvassing involves attempts by representatives from political parties, candidates’ campaigns, or nonpartisan civic organizations to contact citizens about an upcoming election and encourage them to vote. This contact may occur at any point during the election campaign in the form of a telephone call, a face-to-face 32 conversation at home, or direct mailings. Certainly, the campaigns and parties encourage voting for their candidates, while nonpartisan organizations simply stress the importance of voting from a civic perspective (Gerber and Green 2000a, 2000b, and 2001).8

In theory, canvassing can increase voter turnout by altering both the costs and benefits of voting. It can cut costs by providing information required for citizens to vote like directions to polling places and their hours of operation or helping them register.

Partisan canvassers may also talk about their candidate, how he or she is different from the opponent(s), and why he or she would be a better choice for the prospective voter.9 In both examples canvassers can tailor unique messages to individuals, depending on their needs and desires, raising the perceived benefits of voting.

Not surprisingly political scientists have repeatedly found strong evidence that canvassed citizens vote in greater numbers than their non-canvassed counterparts. Such findings date from Gosnell (1927, 1976) who mailed postcards to residents in twelve

Chicago districts prior to the 1924 presidential and 1925 mayoral elections. These cards encouraged registration and voting as an important means to fulfill one’s civic duty and provided the times and locations for registration and voting. Turnout in these neighborhoods was about 8 percent higher than in comparable neighborhoods where citizens did not receive postcards. When performed effectively, canvassing, then, is a

8 Religious organizations have also become involved, often working independently of political parties. For example, Guth et al. (2002) have explored how religious organizations like the Christian Coalition and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops have mobilized churchgoers, usually to vote Republican. Likewise, when minority organizations (racial and ethnic) canvass, they may emphasize benefits stemming from group solidarity. Therefore, not all canvassing organizations share the same goals and reasons for undertaking their activity. 9 Indeed, Downs (1957) posited that people would not vote when they were unable to perceive differences between two candidates. 33 means of compensating for those individual characteristics that interfere with a citizen’s ability to turn out on his or her own volition.

As a result, contemporary researchers have sought to uncover when and how to increase the effectiveness of canvassing. They have focused on the most effective specific forms of canvassing as well as logistical issues like timing and on what types of citizens to devote limited resources. For example, Gerber and Green (2000a) compared face-to-face mobilization with newer, technologically advanced methods like direct mailing and telephone calls in New Haven, Connecticut. Telephone calls were quite ineffective, probably because persons who could be contacted more easily were also more likely to vote in the first place (Gerber and Green 2000a, 2001). The experimenters had more success with leaflets, though, again, canvassing was especially successful among habitual voters (Gerber and Green 2000b). These conclusions build off previous research like Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) who, arguing for mobilization as a means of compensating for impediments to registration and voting, did not speak to the nuances of how such mobilization efforts are conducted.

Other recent studies have examined what specific methods are most likely to increase turnout and among what types of people. Niven (2004) conducted a quasi- experiment in which a community group and a union visited local residents to discuss their town’s upcoming mayor’s race. Controlling for their previous turnout, he classified residents into three groups: consistent voters, intermittent voters, and seldom voters.

Turnout increased most among intermittent voters (who had only occasionally voted in previous elections). Consistent voters would have voted anyway, and seldom voters were unlikely to vote at all. 34

Additional research has evaluated the effectiveness of partisan canvassing.

Analyzing NES data from 1952 to 1990, Wielhouwer and Lockerbie (1994) find that canvassing by both political parties increases voter turnout, particularly for challengers and out parties in midterm elections. Likewise, the researchers note that increased turnout was greater in the latter years, as the political parties grew more strategic in terms of whom they canvassed. Wielhouwer (1999) finds much evidence that both parties, especially the Democrats, were able to increase political participation among contacted citizens from 1952 to 1994.10 Furthermore, Beck and Heidemann (2012) have witnessed unprecedented increases in canvassing for the 2000-2008 elections.

Related to canvassing efforts are informal discussions of politics among friends and family. Political scientists are beginning to acknowledge that just as such discussions can affect for whom someone votes (e.g. Beck 2002 and Beck et al. 2002), discussions can also affect whether someone votes in the first place. In a survey of citizens living residing in numerous democracies in parts of Africa, Europe and North and South

America, Magalhaes (2012) finds that persons who regularly discuss politics with other people are more likely to vote themselves, especially if they think that their discussants also plan to vote. Of even greater consequence is marriage: persons who think their spouse has voted are 35 percent more likely to vote than persons whose spouse stayed home. This finding is substantively greater than findings concerning canvassing by parties, keeping up with current events and discussing politics with friends. Such a

10 Here, Wielhouwer speculates that the Democrats may have been more successful at targeting people whose participation was dependent upon receiving contact from them. In this study, “political participation” includes displaying campaign materials, volunteering for the party, attending rallies, and attempting to persuade others to vote for a particular candidate. 35 substantial increase likely stems from the accountability that occurs within the context of marriage; one’s spouse is more likely than anyone else to know whether he or she voted.

Interestingly, focusing specifically on American voters, Stoker and Jennings

(1995) use multiwave survey research to discover that in the years following a marriage, people are more likely to match their spouses in terms of voting and other forms of political participation (known as couple correspondence). Thus, many people without a history of political participation begin to participate more if they marry someone who had previously engaged in political participation. Couple correspondence takes time to develop as the transition into marriage often dampens participation. Likewise, if someone who has been married for many years becomes widowed or divorces, his or her political participation habits (that developed in the marriage) often continue.

Raising Turnout Costs?

Although not the focus of my dissertation, a countertrend to the voter registration reforms examined above has emerged within the last decade. Some states, particularly those with Republican governors and Republican-dominated state legislatures, have passed laws requiring voters to provide government-issued photo identification when they report to their polling places. A deeply partisan issue, Republicans support these measures as means to prevent voter fraud and protect the integrity of the electoral process. Democrats, however, fear that such restrictive laws could disenfranchise persons unable to obtain such identification, most of whom are poor minorities. Yet these persons are thought to be much more likely to support Democrats over Republicans, so political strategies also motivate the debate. 36

Just as researchers and advocates of increased political participation are interested in whether these laws engender increased turnout, photo ID laws raise inevitable questions about whether they reduce voter turnout. However, because photo ID laws remain much newer than laws streamlining voter registration, political scientists have not yet had much time to determine their effects. Indeed, even during the months leading up to the 2012 presidential election, several more states have passed such laws. Furthermore, due to provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, southern states with histories of racial discrimination in voting like South Carolina and Texas must first obtain pre-clearance from the Department of Justice. This process can be time consuming.

Citing several working papers, Erikson and Minnite (2009) note that the earliest preliminary studies have produced conflicting findings. Indeed, when researchers investigate these laws, they are searching for small effects that, of course, are quite difficult to detect. Therefore, subtle differences in research design, units of analysis and operationalization of key variables can account for different conclusions. Using data from the Current Population Survey covering 2002-2006 and an ordinal scale for the strictness of identification requirements, the researchers fail to find statistically significant evidence of turnout decline. At this time only Florida and Indiana had the strictest laws in which all voters are required to present photo IDs to vote (unlike in some states where IDs are requested but people without them may still vote). As of September 2012, according to the National Council of State Legislatures, five states have strict photo ID laws.11

11 These five states are Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. The new Pennsylvania law is currently being challenged. 37

Just as researchers are interested in whether new voter registration laws increase voter turnout, they have also begun to examine whether laws requiring photo IDs decrease voter turnout. Although the laws could have opposite effects, political scientists face the same challenge: looking for very small effects easily obscured by countless contextual differences. Erikson and Minnite (2009) caution researchers that “the complexity of electoral laws and voting behavior together with the likely marginal effect of photo ID rules makes statistical outcomes quite sensitive to research designs,” (p. 85).

This advice is important to remember as I move forward with the research contained in this dissertation.

Remaining Questions about Voter Turnout

The large body of research presented above has shed much light on voter turnout in U.S. elections. Political scientists now know far more about turnout and the effects registration laws have on it. Yet several important unanswered questions persist, and these questions form the motivation for my dissertation’s upcoming chapters. They also have enormous bearing on the nation’s political process, particularly as these new registration laws become increasingly popular in the years leading up to the 2008 elections.12 That popularity makes obtaining a deeper knowledge of their effects (or lack thereof) all the more important.

The first large question concerns the disparities between early predictions of higher turnout if more states adopted EDR and researchers’ findings that turnout in the

12 At the same time, however, it is important to remember that laws requiring photo identification are also gaining popularity, particularly since the 2010 elections when Republicans experienced considerable gains in state legislative seats and governorships. Many new officeholders won election as part of the Tea Party. 38 states that have adopted it does not increase to the extent previously believed. In short researchers like Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980), Teixeira (1992) and Rosenstone and

Hansen (1993) predicted that turnout would improve appreciably, by as much as 9 percent. Yet scholarship published in the 2000s has generally found that if turnout improves, the increase is no better than around 4-5 percent. Still other political scientists have failed to detect statistically significant any turnout differences once a state has begun to permit EDR or SDR. Clearly, it is necessary to uncover the reason(s) for this occurrence.

Furthermore, much of this more recent body of scholarship is primarily concerned with whether turnout rates change after a state enacts one or more of the reforms.

Although this information is naturally useful and important, such an approach alone cannot explain why the reforms have failed to live up to previous researchers’ higher expectations. Other approaches that do not focus so exclusively on turnout rates are also needed.

Answering this question requires deeper analyses that examine the demand among citizens for the new registration laws and the extent to which Americans perceive voter registration requirements as “costs,” especially given that even a 30 day closing date

(stringent by today’s standards) is a far cry from having to register at least a year in advance and being subject to literacy tests, poll taxes and racial discrimination. In other words does voter registration still keep people from the polls or do they stay home for some other reason? More generally why haven’t more people registered? Survey research concerning reasons for not voting – both before and after states change their laws – has the potential to enhance and expand political scientists’ knowledge of registration laws’ 39 effects on prospective voters. Likewise, studying the voting behavior of previously registered citizens offers similar opportunities. In both cases such research is beneficial regardless of the findings.

If a new law makes the requirement easier for citizens to meet, but more citizens do not register and vote, then the registration requirement cannot be the reason. This outcome could suggest that registration is no longer a “cost” of voting and that additional efforts to improve turnout should emphasize raising citizens’ perceptions of benefits, perhaps by focusing on motivation, i.e. helping people believe that voting is important.

Such a finding could also imply that even if the reforms have succeeded in lowering this

“cost,” the perceived benefits of voting are insufficient to offset newly lowered costs.

Likewise, if citizens use EDR to register and vote in a given election (assuming they live in states that permit it) but do not vote in a subsequent election, then their nonvoting status in that election is obviously not attributable to registration.

Alternatively, if survey research reveals that unregistered citizens in states with

EDR still attribute their status to registration requirements, then it would also suggest that something other than the registration requirement is keeping them from the polls (or that

Secretaries of State and candidates need to work harder to publicize the easier procedures). Finally, if citizens register with EDR or SDR and are less likely to continue voting than people who registered prior to “traditional” closing dates, such a finding could mean that people registering with the new procedures are also less motivated than others to vote in the first place. If so they would be especially likely to benefit from canvassing efforts.

Therefore, additional research must move beyond a near-exclusive focus on rates of voter registration and turnout before and after EDR or comparisons of EDR states with non-EDR neighbors. Doing so has the potential to generate new knowledge about voter registration requirements, particularly as more and more states consider relaxing their registration deadlines and procedures. Such knowledge is beneficial not only to political scientists but also to the “real world” as policymakers and civic organizations interested in promoting meaningful electoral participation and civic engagement by all Americans.

In the next chapter, I advance a research design for completing two related studies. The first uses survey research to examine reasons people give for not registering to vote and the extent to which individuals ascribe their unregistered status to the registration requirements. It also contains before and after analyses of two states that have eased registration requirements to determine how citizens respond to these changes. The second study uses official state voter files to examine whether citizens’ method of registration (EDR, SDR or traditional) affects whether they vote in subsequent elections.13 Taken together these two studies promise to advance researchers’ understanding of how EDR and SDR affect both voter registration and turnout and offer policymakers a greater awareness of the reforms’ impacts and unintended consequences.

13 Wherever possible in both datasets, I also use demographic data to control for the impact that these individual level characteristics might exhibit on whether people register and/or vote. 41

CHAPTER 3: DOES EASIER REGISTRATION IMPROVE VOTER TURNOUT? A TWO-STUDY RESEARCH DESIGN

Introduction

Research Question

The overarching question to be explored in my dissertation is whether Election

Day registration (EDR) and same day registration (SDR) are fulfilling the hopes of their advocates. Following the adoption of these laws, does voter registration improve? What about voter turnout? Furthermore, are those who register to vote through EDR or SDR as likely to become regular voters as people who registered before their state’s closing date?14

To answer these questions, I perform two discrete studies, each testing different hypotheses with separate data sources. In the first study, I use data from the November

2008 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement to examine how differences across states in terms of aggregate percentages of persons registered can be explained as a function of voter registration laws. I also use the CPS at the individual level of analysis to explore further the impact of these laws on turnout and citizens’ perceptions regarding the ease of voter registration. No other scholar has used the CPS for this purpose. In both instances, I use figures from the CPS along with variables

14 A state’s closing date is the number of days before an election by which citizens must register to vote in order to participate in that election. Today, federal law permits states to set a maximum closing date of 30 days. 42 depicting state voter registration and election laws with controls for the presence of competitive senatorial and gubernatorial elections.

Part of the second study also uses aggregate figures from the CPS while the other part looks very closely at four state case studies to learn about the changes in turnout resulting from the new laws. First, after a state adopts EDR or SDR, how many citizens take advantage of it? What types of people with respect to age, gender and partisanship register with the help of one of these methods? These questions are important for gauging the reforms’ overall impact on voter turnout. Second, are the persons who register through EDR or SDR less likely to vote in future elections than their counterparts who registered before their state’s closing dates? In other words, even if the reforms succeed in increasing turnout in a given election, are the people who register through the reforms as likely to continue voting as those who registered far in advance of an election? While much research has been undertaken to learn whether these reforms have introduced new voters to the electorate, researchers still do not know whether these new registrants continue to vote at the same rates as everyone else.

Such an in-depth investigation of EDR and SDR is needed to supplement the extant literature on this topic. Regardless of the findings, the research undertaken here promises to advance scholarly knowledge of the effects of voter registration laws on registration and turnout levels. If I find that the reforms successfully boost turnout, such evidence would validate many previous expectations of success. However, if the reforms appear to be ineffective at achieving their goals, this knowledge could move policymakers, civic organizations and scholars in a more promising direction with respect to their extensive and, in my view, laudable efforts to improve voter turnout. 43

Chapter Outline

In this chapter I lay out the two studies that form the basis of this dissertation. As

I outline those studies, I describe in detail my goals, hypotheses, data sources and variables. I conclude with a brief discussion of the key contributions that my dissertation makes to scholarship.

Study 1: Voter Registration and Voter Turnout in 2008

Goals of Study 1

The overall goal of Study 1 is to account for whether the availability of EDR and

SDR in certain states explains differences in the rates of voter registration and voter turnout across all 50 states during the 2008 presidential election. To this end, I divide

Study 1 into three parts, each of which builds on the previous parts. Part I begins at the state level of analysis by comparing voter registration and turnout rates across states according to whether they permit EDR or SDR and their closing dates. I include closing dates since longer closing dates have consistently been associated with a deleterious effect on turnout. The second and third parts are based on the individual level of analysis.

In Part 2, I combine demographic information with state laws in an effort to predict whether individuals voted and/or were registered in the 2008 presidential election. I also examine whether unregistered citizens and registered nonvoters residing in states with easier registration laws are less likely to cite voter registration difficulties as the reason they were not registered as compared to residents of states that have more onerous voter registration procedures. Finally, Part 3 is quite similar to Part 2. However, Part 3 examines just two states (Iowa and North Carolina) that enacted reforms in 2007 and 44 assesses changes in citizens’ registration and voting behavior once new laws were in place. This before-and-after comparison is necessary to test for the presence or absence of causal relationships.

Part 1: Aggregate Differences in Voter Registration and Turnout

In order for the reforms to be deemed successful, states that have enacted them must exhibit higher registration and turnout rates than states without them, ceteris paribus. Not surprisingly every scholar who has studied these laws is interested in this information, as it is the most rudimentary criterion necessary to demonstrate the reforms’ effectiveness (e.g. Highton 1997 and Hanmer 2009). Put simply, if I do not detect statistically and substantively significant differences in turnout and registration rates based on voter registration laws, then it is questionable that the reforms have achieved their goal. Therefore, I predict:

Hypothesis 1a: Voter turnout is higher in states that permit EDR or SDR, ceteris paribus.

Hypothesis 1b: Voter registration is higher in states that permit EDR or SDR, ceteris paribus.

These tests are based on voter registration and turnout statistics from the 2008 CPS, administered just after the general presidential election. I also include demographics like education, income and age as control variables.

Part 1, therefore, begins my analyses by offering a broad overview of how registration and turnout rates vary according to state registration laws. As such, it provides the foundations for the analyses performed in Parts 2 and 3. The two latter parts focus on the individuals living in states with different procedures for voter registration.

Part 2: Individual Level Differences in Voter Registration and Turnout

Correlations alone are insufficient to demonstrate the new laws’ effectiveness or ineffectiveness. The analyses performed in Part 1 do not and cannot rule out alternative explanations. Numerous demographic factors have been shown repeatedly to impact whether persons register and vote; these include education, income, age, employment status, race and the length of time that one has resided at the same address (e.g. Verba,

Schlozman and Brady 1995). Any one or more of these individual level variables could be responsible for the findings in Part 1 because the citizenry in some states is better educated, wealthier, etc. than that of other states.

Therefore, in Part 2, I undertake similar analyses, though at the individual level of analysis with demographic variables introduced. As such I use both logit and multilevel modeling to test Hypotheses 2a-b below:

Hypothesis 2a: Individuals residing in states that have adopted EDR or SDR are more likely to vote than individuals residing in states that have not adopted EDR or SDR, ceteris paribus.

Hypothesis 2b: Individuals residing in states that have adopted EDR or SDR are more likely to register to vote than individuals residing in states that have not adopted EDR or SDR, ceteris paribus.

Hypotheses 2a-b build upon Hypotheses 1a-b by shifting the level of the analysis to the individual and controlling for other factors known to affect both registration and turnout. Hypotheses 1a-b cannot account for the possibility that differences in these dependent variables stem from demographic differences across states. Therefore,

Hypotheses 2a-b go one step further in testing for relationships between voter registration and turnout and the laws that govern these procedures at the individual level.

Despite the obvious importance of higher voter turnout and registration, scholars have not paid enough attention to other factors that would help them assess whether and how state electorates respond to the new laws. Instead, additional evidence to support the reforms’ success or ineffectiveness at improving turnout must accompany any observed turnout and registration increases. Although the voter turnout research enjoys a long history in political science, few scholars have moved beyond simply assessing whether voter turnout improves following implementation of EDR or SDR.

For instance, researchers believe that a large number of unregistered and nonvoting citizens do not participate because they are unable to meet the burdensome registration requirement. In other words, these Americans think that voting is important and would do so if they were able to get registered. Perhaps they only become aware of and interested in an upcoming election after the registration deadline passes in their state.

Had they still been permitted to register, they would have done so. If such a group comprises only a small fraction of the unregistered and nonvoting population, enacting

SDR or EDR or shortening the closing date would not result in noticeably higher voter turnout because states would not need liberalized registration procedures. Alternatively, if states have large numbers of citizens who cannot meet traditional registration requirements, then the reforms would have considerably greater potential to boost voter turnout. Therefore, one cannot ascertain the success or failure of the new laws without first learning how many people fit this mold. Under that scenario, fewer people residing in states with easier laws should be unregistered or registered nonvoters than in states without EDR, SDR or short closing dates. Thus, I posit:

Hypothesis 3a: Nonvoting citizens residing in states without EDR or SDR are more likely to be nonvoters due to perceived difficulty in voter registration than nonvoting citizens residing in states with EDR or SDR.

Still, even if I am able to uncover evidence that supports the above logic, I will have merely shown a need for the removal of onerous registration requirements.

Researchers also believe that people would vote in higher numbers if they were no longer subject to the difficulty of these requirements (Timpone 1998). If they are correct, then evidence supporting this idea (in addition to any turnout increases) would appear if, once

SDR or EDR is on the books, (1) more people are registered to vote and (2) among the unregistered and nonvoting public, fewer people cite the registration requirement as the reason that they are not registered. Closely related to this observation is the expectation that large numbers of people take advantage of EDR and SDR. Even if the overall voter registration and turnout rates rise following the implementation of EDR and SDR, one must rule out other possible explanations. For example, if more people are becoming interested in politics and they register to vote before their state’s closing date, perhaps with assistance from campaign volunteers, then the observed increases in registration and turnout cannot necessarily be ascribed to EDR or SDR even if that particular election is the first in which citizens may use EDR or SDR. Thus, I posit:

Hypothesis 3b: Among unregistered citizens, fewer persons are unregistered because they think it is too hard to register in states that have enacted EDR or SDR compared to states that do not permit those practices.

These two hypotheses continue to work toward establishing causal relationships by examining differences in perceptions regarding the ease or difficulty of completing voter registration. Even if the earlier hypotheses are suggestive of such relationships, I could still find that citizens in states with EDR or SDR are as likely as citizens residing in 48 other states to cite the difficulty of voter registration as the reason they had failed to register or vote. If so, such a finding would cast doubt on the liberalization of voter registration laws as a solution to low participation. I also include demographic control variables like education, age and income to rule out these possible alternative explanations.

Part 3: Changes in Voter Registration and Turnout Once EDR and/or SDR are Permitted

In Part 3, I follow the same approach as I do in Part 2. However, there are two key differences. Most importantly, I am interested here in whether the introduction of EDR and/or SDR changes overall voter registration and turnout rates as well as perceptions of the ease or difficulty of completing voter registration. These before-and-after comparisons are a necessary supplement to Part 2 because such changes are an important ingredient in demonstrating any causal relationship regarding a new law or policy. They speak to the presence or absence of a causal relationship between EDR and SDR and voter registration and turnout rates. If the Part 3 analyses show substantively and statistically significant increases in turnout and registration as well as fewer unregistered citizens and registered nonvoters citing the difficulty of registration as the reason for their status, then such evidence would suggest a causal relationship. If correlations are observed in Part 2 but Part 3 fails to show changes once new laws take effect, then the relationships in Part 2 cannot logically be attributed to the new voter registration laws.

The second difference is that I focus on two state case studies for the before-and- after comparisons: Iowa and North Carolina. In 2007, Iowa enacted EDR, and North

Carolina established SDR. Because of the recency with which they made these changes

49 and the of the CPS samples, I have the CPS data necessary to make these before-and-after comparisons described here.

A final issue concerns disparities in the electorate with respect to demographics and socioeconomic status. As acknowledged previously civic organizations and state legislatures push for reforms like EDR because they believe the new laws will improve voter turnout. Likewise, although voter turnout in the United States is well known for being low compared to peer nations, certain types of citizens are much more likely to vote than others. Advocates for the election laws examined in this dissertation also hope that the laws will be especially helpful members of racial minorities, young persons and those with low educational attainment and income. Thus, if the new laws live up to the high hopes of reformers, they should improve overall turnout rates in states; in so doing their effects should be particularly noticeable among these persons.

Therefore, I advance my next hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Following a state’s implementation of EDR or SDR, disparities in the state’s electorate with respect to socioeconomic and demographic factors should decline.

Data

To test Hypotheses 1-3, I utilize the 2008 edition of the Current Population

Survey’s (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplement. Embedded in a regular survey intended primarily for the study of economics and unemployment, this biennial supplement has long been a mainstay for studies of voter turnout. The Census Bureau interviews well over 100,000 citizens from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, using representative samples of residents in each state. It includes questions about whether respondents voted in the federal elections held earlier in the same month. Since 50

1996 citizens who did not vote have also been asked why they did not vote and whether they had registered. Likewise, if they are not registered, they are also asked why not.

Registered citizens are asked how they registered the most recent time they did so. The survey also includes rich demographic information long known to affect turnout like educational attainment, age, race, employment status and length of residence at one’s current address. I complement the CPS data with information regarding state election statutes which serves as the main independent variable for these hypotheses and information about competitive senatorial and gubernatorial races.

Still, this impressive dataset is not without key shortcomings. Although it contains many demographic variables that serve as useful controls, it lacks the rich attitudinal questions found in the American National Election Study. For instance it contains no questions about political efficacy, political and ideological views, beliefs about whether voting is one’s civic duty and partisan identification.15 Of course my literature review in the previous chapter acknowledges the importance of these factors in predicting turnout.

Nevertheless, the Voting and Registration Supplement remains an excellent data source for pursuing these questions.

Dependent Variables

To test Hypotheses 1a-b, I use the 2008 edition of the CPS to construct my measures of the dependent variables for each state. The dependent variables are not the registration and turnout rates themselves, but how they compare to national averages. In other words, how far above or below that national averages are turnout and registration in

15 These omissions are due to the federal government’s sponsorship of the survey and concerns that these questions could unfairly favor one political party or the other. 51 each state? This approach enables me to learn whether the registration laws help explain disparities in voter turnout and registration levels across states, rather than looking at states alone without making direct comparisons.16

The first dependent variables in Hypotheses 2-3 are, of course, whether an individual voted and was registered to do so. I measure voting with the CPS question about whether someone voted in a given election after excluding respondents who were under the age of 18 or who identified as noncitizens. I measure registration, the second dependent variable, with the question of whether each citizen has registered to vote. The survey includes this question for all persons who reported that they did not vote in the election held earlier in the same month; for persons responding that they voted, registration is implied.

The third and fourth dependent variables are the reasons given for not voting and not registering to vote. Anyone who answers “no” to either or both of the previous questions is asked to choose among a long list of reasons that they did not vote and/or did not register. Both questions feature lists of about 10 possible reasons like lack of political efficacy, long lines, lack of interest in politics, inclement weather and being too busy.17

Of interest here are two answer choices that relate to the question of voter registration:

“did not meet registration deadlines” (for not registering) and “registration problems” (for not voting). In each case the dependent variable is whether a respondent in each state gave one of these responses to the questions regarding why they did not register or vote.

16 For example, the nationwide turnout in 2008 was 61.6 percent. North Carolina’s turnout rate was 66.1 percent, so the dependent variable for North Carolina is +4.5. 17 See the appendix for actual question wording. 52

Independent Variables

In testing Hypotheses 1-3, the main independent variables are each state’s statutes concerning registration and voting. Closing date, mentioned earlier, refers to the number of days before an election by which one must register to vote. All 50 states and the

District of Columbia have closing dates. Even the most facilitative states, like Iowa, still have a closing date for accepting voter registration applications by mail. Closing date is numbered from 1 to 30. The remaining laws are EDR, SDR, no excuse absentee voting18 and early voting. I operationalize each with dummy variables: 1 for states that permit these practices and 0 for those that do not.

I include the latter two practices because they are also known to affect voter turnout. While they do nothing to ease voter registration requirements, they have been shown to help persons who have already registered to vote continue to vote in subsequent elections. If one or both of these practices are permitted, then persons may use these methods to vote with greater convenience. They do not have to worry about being unable to vote due to an unexpected trip out of town or illness on election day. Some studies of early voting have concluded that while early voting and VBM do not enhance voter turnout, they may nevertheless retain more effectively persons who had registered previously (Berinsky, Burns and Traugott 2001). Researchers examining no-excuse

18 Absentee voting differs from early voting because it takes place by mail, while early voting requires people to go to the county clerk (or a satellite office) to cast a ballot. All 50 states offer absentee voting for persons who are unable to go to the polls because they will be out of town on Election Day or have illnesses or disabilities that prevent them from visiting polling places. Other states permit any citizen to vote absentee by mail without giving a reason for requesting a ballot (Fortier 2006). 53 absentee voting have reached similar conclusions (Oliver 1996, Karp and Banducci 2001 and Berinsky 2005).

Control Variables

Many of this study’s control variables consist of demographic characteristics known to impact voter registration and turnout significantly. Fortunately, as noted earlier, the CPS contains much helpful demographic information that I use in Parts 2 and 3.

Education is the number of years of schooling that one has completed; I group people here based on whether they have obtained a high school diploma or GED, some college and an undergraduate and/or graduate or professional degree. Household income is measured from 1 to 16, numbers that give ranges for the actual amounts of money. Age is a person’s age measured in number of years. Race is whether the respondent is black: 1 if so, 0 otherwise. Duration of residence refers to how long, in number of years, a person has resided at a particular address.19

Study 2: State Case Studies

Goals of Study 2

Whereas Study 1 examines differences in registration and turnout across states, in

Study 2, I focus my attention only on states that have enacted EDR and/or SDR and individuals who live in these states. Specifically, I am interested in whether states’ overall registration and turnout rates increase as a result of the new reforms. I also contrast the voting behavior of individuals who use the new procedures to register with those who opted to register much earlier through traditional means. Thus, unlike in Study

19 When testing Hypothesis 4, these control variables are actually the study’s independent variables. 54

1, my focus here is on whether an individual who has already voted once will return to the polls in a future election.

My overall goal in Study 2 is to follow up Study 1 by exploring the long term effects of EDR and SDR on persons who use them to register to vote. If the reforms reach their full potential, then I would expect that people using them to register would vote in future elections at the same frequency as those persons who registered without them.

However, it is possible that election day and same day registrants had not registered earlier because they do not follow politics very closely and did not become interested in voting until just prior to the election.

Study 2 is divided into two parts, each with separate objectives. In Part 1, I closely examine differences in voter registration and turnout within states once they adopt

EDR or SDR. Whereas Study 1 is primarily a cross-sectional analysis of voter registration and turnout nationwide in 2008, Study 2 provides before-and-after comparisons of states that have implemented EDR and/or SDR. Are more people registered to vote once the new laws take effect? Does voter turnout increase as a result?

Such evidence is clearly necessary for the purposes of determining whether the reforms are meeting their goals.

Part 2 examines the longer term effects of EDR and SDR on voter turnout. That is, do the people who register through EDR or SDR in a given year continue to vote in subsequent elections at the same rate as persons who registered to vote in the same elections, though before their state’s closing date? Perhaps persons who registered just before or on Election Day did so only after a campaign volunteer piqued their interest in the election and encouraged them to use EDR or SDR to register and vote at the same 55 time and place. Such citizens might not have registered and voted otherwise, while persons maintaining an abiding interest in politics would have registered on their own initiative long before the closing date. This scenario is consistent with Timpone (1998) who shows that short-term political factors affect whether someone votes in a particular election, but not whether they were registered to do so. However, his research consisted of elections that occurred during the 1980s. Where EDR and/or SDR are allowed, such short-term factors could also impact voter registration.

Here, my interest is only in states that have adopted EDR or SDR and the citizens who live in them. The analyses in Part 1 of Study 2 use CPS data and are similar to the first part of Study 1. The analyses in Part 2 are based on four carefully selected state case studies. Each of the states has implemented EDR and/or SDR, in a different way from the other three. Likewise, because Part 2 involves tracking the same voters over time, I use voter registration and history files from these states’ Secretary of State offices. After explaining both parts of Study 2 in greater depth and advancing testable hypotheses, I describe my data sources, rationales for choosing case study states, dependent, independent and control variables.

Part 1 – Increases in Voter Registration and Turnout Following the Implementation of EDR and/or SDR

As mentioned above Part 1 provides before-after-comparisons of turnout for presidential elections in each state that has adopted either EDR or SDR. Do voter registration and turnout rise following the implementation of either or both of these reforms? If so, why? Are the observed increases due to the reforms themselves or national trends coinciding with their adoption? Are the new registrants persons who

56 would not have registered had their state not adopted EDR and/or SDR? Of course, if the answer to these questions is “no,” then the reforms cannot be deemed successful because they will have failed to meet their goals of expanding the electorates in the states that adopted the new policies. This criterion is clearly necessary to pronounce success, but a careful examination of other factors offers a more thorough assessment.

Evidence that states with EDR and/or SDR have higher voter registration and turnout rates than other states and fewer residents cite voter registration requirements as the main reason they did not vote (or were not registered) is necessary but not sufficient to establish causal relationships between liberalized voter registration laws and voter registration and turnout rates. Instead, before-and-after comparisons are required to discern whether these rates changed following the implementation of the new laws.

Alternatively, a finding that once the new laws have taken effect, these rates are not substantively and statistically different from the former rates would suggest that the reforms had little effect overall.

Therefore, I posit:

Hypothesis 5a: Voter registration increases relative to national trends after a state adopts EDR or SDR.

Hypothesis 5b: Voter turnout increases relative to national trends after a state adopts EDR or SDR.

The tests of Hypotheses 5a-b are quite similar to Study 1, Part 1. Both are designed to provide initial, broad overviews that lay the foundation for subsequent, more rigorous tests. However, instead of commencing with all 50 states as Study 1 does, Study

2 begins only with states that have already given citizens the choice of registering with the new procedures. As of 2008, some 18 states permit EDR and/or SDR. The first states 57 to adopt the reforms did so during the 1970s, but the reforms have gained tremendous popularity over the last two decades. For many states the 2008 presidential election was the first such election in which EDR or SDR was available.

Part 2 – Longer Term Voting Behavior for Election Day and Same Day Registrants

Even if voter registration and turnout increase once states change their laws, the reforms would fail to reach their full potential to address low turnout if people who use

EDR and SDR to register and vote in a given election are less likely to continue to vote in future elections than their counterparts who had not taken advantage of the reforms to register before the same election. Once they have registered, they usually reregister only if they move to another county or state. Otherwise, they are no longer subject to the registration requirement.

It is possible that election day and same day registrants differ from other registrants in terms of their levels of political interest. Indeed, I expect that persons with a strong, abiding interest in politics register far earlier than persons with a weaker or occasional interest in politics to be dependent upon short-term factors to enable them to register and vote. Such factors might include high publicity in the news media or the likely closeness of an election and the resultant campaign. In such a case, campaign volunteers may work aggressively to register citizens and perform get-out-the-vote

(GOTV) activities.

Exploring this idea is crucial for two main reasons. The first is that this research extends the analyses in Study 1. If Study 1 reveals that in states with EDR and/or SDR, fewer people are unregistered, report difficulties meeting the registration requirements and voter turnout increases, then I would expect election day and same day registrants 58 subsequently to vote with the same frequency as persons who registered prior to their state’s closing dates. Alternatively, if the survey research from Study 1 demonstrates that

EDR and SDR do not increase voter turnout, then I would not anticipate finding that the same individual election day and same day registrants would return to the polls.

Therefore, this idea is an extension of Study 1. If Study 1 points to the success of the registration reforms in promoting turnout, then Study 2 could offer additional support for that conclusion.

The second reason for studying the longer term effects of EDR and SDR is normative. Many scholars, policymakers and civic organizations have lobbied vigorously for the reforms because they strongly believe in the salutary effects of high turnout on the political process (Hanmer 2009). Their goal is for large numbers of citizens to register and vote in all elections. While they would be happy to see citizens vote in a single election, ideally, they really do not want them to vote only in one election and stay home in the future. Yet if EDR and SDR hold this unintended consequence, then additional efforts that complement these registration reforms will be needed to meet that goal.

Ultimately, this research is necessary for a critical and thorough assessment of EDR and

SDR.

Furthermore, if someone registers at their polling place with EDR in a given election and they neither vote in the next election nor change their address, then their nonvoting in that election is no longer attributable to the registration requirement. If large numbers of election day and same day registrants vote only once, then merely easing the registration requirement is insufficient to expand the electorate permanently.

Therefore, I advance my final hypothesis:

Hypothesis 6: Persons who use EDR or SDR to register to vote in a given election are as likely to vote in the next election as persons who registered prior to their state’s closing date to vote in the same election.

Data

To test Hypothesis 5a-b, I use aggregate figures for voter registration and turnout in states that have changed their voter registration laws. I also use aggregate demographics as controls. To test Hypothesis 6, I must know when and how citizens registered to vote and in which subsequent elections they voted. To that end I use the statewide voter registration and history files available from four states’ Secretaries of

State. In the past, political scientists have relied upon voter registration records (often at the county level) to validate responses to survey questions regarding whether one voted in a recent election (Shaw, de la Garza and Lee 2000, Bernstein, Chadha and Montjoy

2001, Berent, Krosnick and Lupia 2011). These files also are ideal for testing Hypothesis

6 because they contain voter history for many past elections and enable me to create large datasets to examine voters not only in terms of registration method but also to compare them with respect to the specific elections for which they had first registered and voted.

The Help America Vote Act (HAVA), passed by Congress in 2002, requires each state to create a statewide database containing information about every registered voter in the state. Although the files’ exact contents vary from state to state, they also provide much other data (besides voting history) that is useful for my purposes, including dates of registration, age, gender and voting district information. Southern states are required to record the registered voter’s race (due to a provision in the Voting Rights Act of 1965). 60

States with party registration record voters’ affiliations. Other states even follow the same voters as they move around within the state. It is also possible to glean additional information from them. For instance, the files contain the voters’ congressional districts which would allow me to determine the impact on turnout of an unusually competitive congressional election. Because of the difficulty involved in obtaining and analyzing these data, I limit my use of the databases to a small number of carefully selected states. I outline my choices below.20

Case Study Design

Today, voter registration and election laws like EDR, SDR, no excuse absentee and early voting vary enormously across all states. Some states go to greater lengths to facilitate voter registration and turnout than others. For example, many states require all citizens to register at least 30 days before an election and permit only the ill, handicapped and persons who know that they are going to be out of town on election day to participate in either absentee or early voting. At the other end of the spectrum are states which close registration by mail only 10 days before election day and allow registration at early voting sites or at their polling place on election day.

Consequently, Burden et al. (2011) classify states into groups based on which combinations of these practices they have enacted. In their study of early voting and turnout in the 2008 presidential election, they find that the success of early voting depends partially upon whether states also provide EDR or SDR. By the same token, the

20 Unfortunately, like the CPS, these voter files lack attitudinal variables like partisan identification (not the same as partisan voter registration) and some demographic and socioeconomic characteristics like education and income. Yet large surveys used for American politics research like the American National Election Study and Voting and Registration Supplement do not follow the same people over time. 61 long term effects of EDR and SDR may depend on whether states also offer early voting.

Therefore, ceteris paribus, I expect previously-registered citizens who have the option of voting early to vote at higher rates than their counterparts who must vote on election day.

This idea is consistent with findings by political scientists who have learned, perhaps not surprisingly, that early voting fails to improve voter turnout in the states that allow it. The same is true for no-excuse absentee voting. Neither reform facilitates voter registration or eases the requirements for doing so. Nevertheless, researchers have learned that the reforms improve the retention of previously registered voters, as described in Study 1. In other words, with these two reforms on the books, persons who have already begun to vote are more likely to continue to do so because they have additional voting options available to them in case they are out of town, ill or otherwise unavailable on election day.

Figure 3.1 presents the combinations of EDR, SDR and early voting in states during the 2008 presidential elections. States appearing in red (Connecticut, Minnesota,

New Hampshire and Rhode Island) only permit EDR. Alaska and Idaho, shown in yellow, offer EDR and early voting. The green states, including Iowa, Maine, Montana,

Wisconsin and Wyoming allow SDR in addition to both EDR and early voting.21 Lastly,

California, Illinois, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Vermont (in blue) offer both

SDR and early voting.

21 Also in green is North Dakota. Although it does not practice voter registration, citizens there may take advantage of in-person early voting and no-excuse absentee voting. 62

In undertaking the case study analyses described here, I do not make hypotheses about differences across states. Instead, I am examining each of the four states separately.

However, I have chosen to use the Burden et al. (2011) categories because they have

Figure 3.1: Combinations of Voter Registration and Election Laws as of 2008 Legend: Red = EDR only (CT, MN, NH, RI); Yellow = EDR and early voting (AK, ID); Green = EDR, SDR and early voting (IA, ME, MT, ND, WI, WY); Blue = SDR and early voting (CA, IL, NM, NC, OH, VT)

63 found that combinations of voting laws can enhance or reduce the overall effectiveness of the registration reforms. Thus, my goal is to examine states with different combinations of laws in an effort to be as thorough as possible.

Degree to which States Facilitate or Discourage Registration and Turnout

One key characteristic of an effective scientific research design is that it subjects its hypotheses to the most rigorous tests possible. If after such tests it fails to reject a hypothesis, then its theory is deemed plausible. The objective is to make every effort to rule out alternative explanations. Applying this logic to the questions at hand, the key states to examine are those that go to the greatest lengths to facilitate registration and turnout. Ideally, then, I will look within each category of combinations of registration and election laws and select for analysis those states that offer new procedures in the most facilitative way. Selecting other states would leave open the possibility that the reforms, if implemented differently, might have a different, more positive impact. Alternatively, if analyses of EDR and SDR in the most facilitative states fail to detect turnout increases, then it is highly unlikely that reforms would be effective elsewhere.

Table 3.1 depicts each group of states based on the registration reforms that are in place in each state and include whether early voting is allowed for all voters. This information is useful because citizens residing in states that permit early voting (in addition to EDR or SDR) have more voting methods available to them than their counterparts who may only vote on election day. The former may be more likely to continue voting. Finally, Table 3.1 contains the years in which the states enacted their

State When Laws Changed How Far Back? Special Note(s) (If applicable)

California 2000 1994

Illinois 2005 N/A Data not sold to researchers

New Mexico 1987 N/A

North Carolina 2007 2002

Ohio 2007 2000

Vermont 1993

Connecticut 1972 up to 20 votes Applies only for presidential elections

Minnesota 1973 2005

New Hampshire 1994 2009 Data not sold to researchers

Continued

Table 3.1. Matrix of Combinations of Voter Registration and Turnout Laws in States Offering EDR and/or SDR: A SDR and Early Voting, B EDR Only, C EDR and Early Voting, D EDR, SDR and Early Voting

Table 3.1 continued

Rhode Island 1990 2004 Applies only for presidential elections

B22

Alaska 1967 2001 Applies only for presidential elections

Idaho 1994 2004

Iowa 2007 2001

11 66 Maine 1977

Montana 2005 8 elections

North Dakota no voter registration since 1951

Wisconsin 1975 2008

Wyoming 1993 2008 Not sold to researchers

22 None of the states in this category permit no excuse absentee voting. All other states in the remaining categories allow this practice.

reforms and how far back voter turnout history is available. This information is vital for determining which states to analyze.23 I now walk through each of the four categories.

Same Day Registration and Early Voting

This category is the only one that includes states that do not permit EDR. All of these states have an early voting period. Anyone who had missed the earlier closing date may register in person, either at the local Board of Elections office or a satellite location designated for early voting. Among the six states in this category, I choose North

Carolina to study the longer term effects of SDR on turnout.

North Carolina has several characteristics that make it an ideal choice to serve as one of this dissertation’s four cases. First, as shown in Table 3.1, the data are indeed suitable for testing Hypothesis 6. Individual voter history is available back to 2002. North

Carolina established SDR in 2007. Second, North Carolina is the only Southern state that has implemented SDR, and no Southern states have EDR. As the South consistently lags behind the rest of the nation in turnout, it has plenty of room for improvement. Third, despite its status as a Southern state, it has long enjoyed a reputation for Progressive state politics, something that began during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

(Key 1949 and Cooper and Knotts 2008). North Carolina has long placed a premium on education and is home to world class universities and research institutions. Race relations have generally been smoother relative to the Deep South. Finally, North Carolina has had a more successful economy, particularly with respect to manufacturing (Key 1949).

Today, although North Carolina is below the national averages on many educational and economic indicators, it is a leader within the South. It ranks among the

23 Readers interested in a more detailed account of these issues should consult the appendices. 67 best educated and most prosperous Southern states (Cooper and Knotts 2008). Among

Southern states, such a reform likely has the greatest potential for success in North

Carolina.

Yet another characteristic of North Carolina that would suggest that SDR would be effective in raising voter turnout levels is the degree of partisan, electoral and political competition it displays. Like all other Southern states, the Democrats dominated state politics through the 1960s and beyond. Today, they continue to hold many prominent positions in state government (Prysby 2007). However, Key (1949) observed that North

Carolina has long contained a noticeable Republican presence, especially in its western, mountainous regions. Although no Republican would hold state or federal office until the

1970s, this change began earlier in North Carolina than elsewhere in the South.

Compared to its neighbors, North Carolina elections are more competitive. In particular, although Republican presidential candidates have won North Carolina since 1980, it was a battleground in 2008 with President Obama carrying the state by only about 14,000 voters after an intense campaign there (Barone and Cohen 2009).

North Carolina’s SDR almost certainly enabled Obama to attract and carry an unusually large number of new registrants who would not have registered otherwise.

Furthermore, the unusually large number of new registrants provides a good chance to study the reform’s consequences. Ceteris paribus, I expect these competitive elections to increase the chances that voter registration reforms bring new voters into the electorate, but the question is whether they will be retained for future elections.

EDR Only

Each of the four states that offer EDR alone, rather than in combination with SDR and/or early voting first established EDR at least 15 years ago. The most facilitative is

Minnesota, and I can use its data to test Hypothesis 6. Indeed, when Minnesota enacted

EDR in 1973, it was the first state to do so. Unlike some states that enacted EDR in the

1990s, the Minnesota legislature did so explicitly to address concerns about the deleterious effects of low voter turnout on the democratic process. Many state lawmakers supported EDR because they believed it would bring more citizens into the electorate and that a larger electorate could engender a more effective government (Hanmer 2009).

Indeed, Minnesota enjoys a long reputation for good government, and many students of election law consider its system a model for the entire nation to follow. It has adopted numerous measures like EDR to insure high turnout, and it has many procedures in place to maintain the integrity of the electoral process (Huefner, Tokaji and Foley

2007). On measures of social capital and civic engagement across the 50 states,

Minnesota ranks among the top three or four states. This ranking is based on numerous factors, including voter turnout and overall involvement in the civic life of one’s community (Putnam 2000). Taken together these factors suggest strongly that Minnesota goes to great lengths to facilitate voting by as many people as possible.

However, the use of election laws to encourage persons who have already registered to vote to continue to do so is a different matter. Per state law absentee and early voting are restricted to persons who know that they will be out of town on Election

Day or who face permanent illnesses and/or disabilities that would prevent them from appearing at their polling places. Although the popularity of no excuse absentee and early 69 voting has soared nationwide in recent years, Minnesota has yet to enact such measures.

Consequently, a Minnesotan who takes voting seriously but who is required to travel out of the county just days before Election Day would be unable to vote.

EDR and Early Voting

Meanwhile, Idaho is one of two states (along with Alaska) that combine EDR with early voting. During the 1990s Idaho enacted EDR because state officials there were concerned about the expense of implementing motor voter. Because the National Voter

Registration Act of 1993 exempted states with EDR from meeting its requirements, Idaho opted to establish EDR. Unlike in North Carolina and Minnesota, concerns about low voter turnout did not influence this choice (Hanmer 2009).

Idaho permits early voting through the last Friday before Election Day, and state law guarantees that each county operate at least one early voting center, usually at the county Board of Elections offices. VBM is available upon request as long as the county

Board of Elections receives the request by the Wednesday prior to Election Day. In both cases anyone may participate for any reason. Therefore, Idahoans may use VBM or early vote at their convenience so that if called away from the county just prior to Election

Day, they can still vote.

EDR, SDR and Early Voting

The final classification is the most facilitative of both registration and voting. As of the 2008 presidential election, six states allowed EDR, SDR and early voting. Among these states, Iowa is the most facilitative and is the state that I am selecting for analysis.

Like the other states in the previous category, Iowa has several characteristics that make it an excellent choice. First, like North Carolina, Iowa liberalized its voter registration 70 laws in 2007, and its voter history extends back to 2001. Therefore, I have sufficient data to test Hypothesis 6.

Second, for persons who register to vote by mail, the closing date is 10 days prior to Election Day. Although persons who miss this deadline may use EDR like

Minnesotans and Idahoans, Iowans may also register at the early voting sites (usually the county Board of Elections offices) which remain open until the day before Election Day.

Persons who had already registered may vote at one of the early voting sites without offering an excuse. They may also request a VBM ballot, though by law, those ballots are only available to those who anticipate being out of town and the ill or disabled. However, unlike in most states with these statutes, voters need not offer excuses, so it is likely that many citizens without excuses still request these ballots.

Much like Minnesota, Iowa features an active and engaged electorate. Putnam

(2000) ranks Iowa among the top few states in terms of social capital and civic engagement, though slightly lower than Minnesota. After all, presidential candidates must visit every county in the state to earn the support of voters at the Iowa Caucus.

Both major political parties regarded Iowa as a battleground in 2000 and 2004

(Shaw 2006). Although Democrats have won the state in the most recent presidential elections, George W. Bush carried it in 2004 with 50 percent of the vote. Al Gore won it in 2000 with only 49 percent of the vote. It remained up for grabs in 2008 with both campaigns aggressively contesting it. Then, however, Obama carried it with about 54 percent of the vote, or about 147,000 more votes than McCain. Therefore, Iowans had more incentive to vote than did citizens of most other states.

Dependent Variable

When testing Hypotheses 5a-b, I use official turnout figures from the United

States Election Project24 and voter registration figures from the Almanac of American

Politics to construct the dependent variables. For each state that has changed its voter registration laws, I calculate the differences in registration and turnout in the presidential elections immediately after states adopted EDR and/or SDR. Next, I perform the same calculations for the national figures. Finally, I subtract the national figure from the state figure; the difference is the measure of the dependent variable for each state. In this way I control for any impact that national registration and turnout trends might have on the states.

To test Hypothesis 6, the dependent variable is voter turnout in the midterm general election immediately following another election in which someone was first registered and voted. I use this dependent variable to gauge whether people return to the polling place for a general election after the one for which they had originally registered to vote. It is coded as 1 if they do and 0 otherwise. Given that turnout is always higher in presidential elections relative to midterm contests, I fully expect to see declines in voter turnout as a state moves from a presidential election to a midterm election. Of interest here, however, is whether the usual turnout declines increase or decrease following the introduction of SDR for the 2008 elections and whether same and election day registrants vote at lower rates than traditional registrants.

24 Available at http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm (November 30, 2012). 72

Independent Variable

Because Hypothesis 6 addresses long term voting behavior, I am interested in how the person registered. Specifically, I distinguish between persons who registered prior to their state’s closing date and those using EDR or SDR to register. In each of the four cases, I use dummy variables broken down by both year of the first presidential election and the registration method. Inevitably, the tests of each case vary somewhat due to the available data and years when states adopted EDR and SDR. Therefore, I describe these independent variables and their excluded categories more thoroughly when I examine each state.

Control Variables

The state voter files also contain the voters’ ages. This information is important given that, in most states, persons who move to another county or state are required to reregister in the jurisdiction of their new residence. In such cases, many states delete old records. For example I would have no way of knowing whether a newly registered 50- year-old had a long voting history in another county or state. Thus, I use age to separate younger voters (who I know have no prior voting history) from everyone else for a more precise test of my hypothesis.

Partisanship is another important variable that is not contained in the CPS. When registering to vote, citizens in many states are given the option of affiliating with a political party. Their choices become part of the public record and appear in the statewide voter files for Iowa, Minnesota and North Carolina.25 This information is helpful because partisans are more likely vote and to be interested in politics (Lewis-Beck et al. 2008).

25 Idaho does not have party registration. 73

Likewise, given that recent presidential elections have shown increasing partisanship and partisan canvassing, partisan registration could predict voter turnout in subsequent elections.

Contributions to Scholarship

The research design advanced in this chapter offers two key contributions to the burgeoning literature on how voter registration reforms impact voter turnout. I conclude this chapter by reiterating them briefly. In so doing, I review how my research builds upon others’ work.

From Study 1, the first contribution is that the dissertation examines not only differences in voter registration and turnout but also whether the reforms affect citizens’ perceptions regarding the ease or difficulty of registering in their state. If perceptions change then such evidence would buttress findings that voter registration and turnout improve. Alternatively, if these rates increase but perceptions remain unchanged, that would suggest that the observed increases may not be due to the reforms. Lastly, if the reforms neither improve registration and turnout nor affect these perceptions, then I would know that that approach is an ineffective method of addressing low voter turnout.

This scenario would be similar to a physician who makes the correct diagnosis but prescribes the wrong treatment. Study 1 is beneficial because much extant research has already found modest improvements in turnout following the implementation of EDR and

SDR (Burden et al. 2011; Hanmer 2007, 2009; Highton 1997, 2004). However, scholars still lack sufficient knowledge as to whether these changes are due to the laws themselves or some other reason. Therefore, using the CPS questions about why people do not 74 register or vote and examining how the reasons change with the new laws is a key contribution of this study.

Study 2, meanwhile, focuses the spotlight on persons who have used the reforms to register to vote. While some scholars have found modest improvements in turnout following the introduction of EDR or SDR, Study 2 examines whether the same individuals vote in future elections after the one for which they originally register. No researcher up to this point has posed this question, but it is an important question to explore since these reforms appear to be geared toward those who would not have registered otherwise, likely because of a minimal interest in politics. If they are less likely to continue voting than persons who had registered for the same election but by the traditional deadline, then such persons might benefit in future elections if campaigns and civic organizations continue to canvass them. Such knowledge would allow the reforms to reach their full potential in insuring that more Americans participate in elections.

CHAPTER 4: CHANGES IN PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE EASE OR DIFFICULTY OF COMPLETING VOTER REGISTRATION AS A FUNCTION OF CHANGES TO STATE ELECTION LAWS: A MULTILEVEL APPROACH

Introduction

I now begin Study 1, which continues into the next chapter. Both chapters examine the impact of EDR and SDR on voter turnout, registration and the reasons unregistered citizens cite for not registering. Study 1 contains two related objectives. My goal in the present chapter is to examine the extent to which differences in voter registration laws account for disparities in voter turnout and registration rates as well as the reasons unregistered citizens have not completed voter registration. If advocates of the reforms are correct, then I should find that states with EDR and/or SDR have higher turnout and registration rates. In addition to fewer unregistered citizens, the remaining unregistered citizens in these same states should also be less likely to ascribe their status to registration laws. That is, EDR and SDR should ease the registration burden so that persons who had previously been unregistered for this reason are now registered.

The subsequent chapter offers an additional lens through which to view the impact of these election laws. In an effort to detect the presence or absence of causal relationships, I complete before-and-after analyses of North Carolina and Iowa. In 2007,

76 these two states adopted SDR and EDR, respectively. I test for evidence of changes that have occurred between 2004 and 2008.

The analyses contained in this chapter should also shed light on whether socioeconomic factors – long associated with predicting voting – exhibit a reduced impact on the aforementioned dependent variables (see e.g. Wolfinger and Rosenstone

1980, Teixeira 1992 and Rosenstone and Hansen 1993). After all, many reformers have pushed for these changes in election law in hopes of expanding the electorate to include persons from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (e.g. Carbo and Kirschner 2008).

This chapter proceeds as outlined in Chapter 3; I begin with an overview of state laws and their effects on aggregate registration and turnout. Next, I move to the individual level of analysis by exploring how these laws impact registration and turnout at the individual level. Are persons of a certain socioeconomic background more likely to respond to the laws than those from other backgrounds? The most important component of this analysis is, of course, the focus on unregistered citizens and their reasons for not completing voter registration. To test the hypotheses advanced in the previous chapter, I use data from the 2008 Current Population Survey. However, the before-and-after studies also use the 2004 CPS data. I conclude with a discussion of my findings and segue to the next chapter.

Part 1: State Level Analyses

The purpose of my state level analyses is to test Hypotheses 1a-b – that voter turnout and registration are higher in states that permit EDR or SDR ceteris paribus.

Thus, these analyses are preliminary. My initial goal is to establish not only that turnout 77 and registration rates vary across states but also that differences in state election law explain at least a portion of the observed variation.

Dependent Variables

The two dependent variables are statewide voter turnout and registration rates in

2008. To operationalize state turnout rates, I use the voting eligible population (VEP) turnout figures for the highest office, i.e. the President. This measure is available from the

United States Election Project.26 McDonald and Popkin (2001) advocate measuring turnout as the percentage of the voting eligible population instead of the traditional voting age population (VAP) because the former measure excludes noncitizens, convicted felons and the mentally incompetent. I then subtract the 2008 nationwide VEP turnout rate of

61.6 percent from each state’s VEP turnout rate. Therefore, the difference between the state VEP and the national VEP is the dependent variable measure for each state.

Obtaining the registration rates for each state is somewhat more difficult. I use data from the 2008 Current Population Survey. Each of the more than 90,000 respondents was asked in November 2008 whether they had been registered to vote in the recent presidential election. I create this measure in the same way as the turnout measure. I obtain the percentage of survey respondents from each state and the District of Columbia that said they were registered to vote and subtract from these figures the 2008 national average of 71.87 percent. Since both dependent variables are aggregate percentages of voters and registered citizens for each state, I estimate ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to test Hypotheses 1a-b.

26 The measures come from the United States Election Project’s website http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm. Last date of access: November 30, 2012. 78

Independent Variables

Each of the main independent variables is the presence or absence of certain voter registration laws and whether early voting is permitted as of 2008. Of primary interest are election day registration (EDR) and same day registration (SDR). I also include closing dates. The first three variables are dummies (1 if the state has adopted the practice and 0 otherwise). This information comes from Burden et al. (2011).

Closing dates are the number of days before an election by which one must register to vote in that election (0-30 days). Some states stop accepting registration applications by mail at a certain point, after which in-person voter registration continues for a somewhat longer period. In such cases I use the closing date nearer to election day.

Similarly, states that permit EDR do not necessarily allow voter registration continually up through election day. For example, although Minnesota was the first state to enact

EDR, it does not accept any new registrations between one and 20 days prior to election day. I code Minnesota’s closing date as 20 days to distinguish it from other states that allow registration continually. As I discussed in the last chapter, a Minnesotan who misses the 20 day deadline but will also be out of town on election day faces a disadvantage that an Iowan would not experience. The latter individual, if the election is less than 10 days away, could still complete SDR at his or her county Board of Elections offices.

Control Variables

Finally, both models include the following three control variables: education, age, and income. I operationalize education as the percentage of residents in each state over

79 the age of 25 with at least a bachelor’s degree. For both age and income, I use the median figures for each state. This information comes from the Bureau of the Census.27

Two additional controls appear at the state level. The first is the margin of victory in the 2008 presidential election by state. Ceteris paribus, I expect that citizens living in states where the election is expected to be close will have a better chance of voting than citizens in states where the election is less competitive. Researchers have observed this phenomenon due in part to the electoral college, which influences the degree to which a citizen’s vote impacts the election’s outcome. However, this factor also matters because competitive states receive far more public appearances by candidates and money spent on television advertisements and GOTV efforts (Shaw 2006). I operationalize this control as the percentage difference in the vote between Obama and McCain in each state.

Therefore, I expect an inverse relationship between this variable and voter turnout.

The second control is for state level turnout in the 1972 election relative to the national average. I include this variable to account for the possibility that states with

EDR, SDR and early voting already had high voter turnout before enacting them. Indeed,

Hanmer (2009) points out that several of the first states to establish EDR (Maine,

Minnesota and Wisconsin) were concerned about the deleterious effects of low turnout on the democratic process and hoped that this more facilitative law would expand their electorates. I use the 1972 figures because Minnesota, the first state to enact EDR, did so in 1973. They come from Table 3-26 in A Statistical History of the American Electorate

27 Median income figures for 2008 are available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/statemedian/index.html. Median age by state is available here: http://www.census.gov/popest/data/state/asrh/2008/SC-EST2008-02.html . The percentages of persons over the age of 25 in each state with at least a bachelor’s degree are available here: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2011/tables/11s0229.pdf Last date of access: 9 March 2012. 80

(Rusk 2001). I standardized the state figures relative to that year’s nationwide turnout of

56.4 percent.

Results

Tables 4.1 and 4.2, respectively, show the initial findings for nationwide voter turnout and voter registration (by state) as a function of election laws and the controls mentioned above. Beginning with bivariate least squares regressions in the left column of

Table 4.1, I find that states that permit EDR and SDR exhibit appreciably higher turnout in the 2008 presidential election. On average, EDR states have a 6.3 percent higher turnout than other states. Turnout in SDR states is almost 4 percent higher than elsewhere. Meanwhile, consistent with Burden et al. (2011), early voting alone has a deleterious effect on turnout; states allowing it in some capacity have turnout rates almost three percent lower than states without it. This effect is marginally statistically significant

(p=.075). Finally, in a departure from much previous research like Wolfinger and

Rosenstone (1980), closing date has little effect on turnout. This finding likely stems from federal laws that now prohibit closing dates longer than 30 days; such laws have only been passed well after the period Wolfinger and Rosenstone examined.

The center column of Table 4.1 contains the same variables together as part of a multiple regression analysis. Here, the effects previously observed even out. EDR and SDR both result in turnout increases ranging from 4 to 5 percent. Early voting now demonstrates a statistically significant decline in turnout of about 4.6 percent. According to the adjusted

R-squared statistic, these four laws account for about one-third of the variation in 2008 voter turnout by state.

Bivariate Variables Coefficients p-values Coefficients p-values Coefficients p-values

EDR 6.324 .000 4.789 .006 4.344 .005 (1.669) (1.672) (1.480) SDR 3.763 .044 4.094 .031 3.645 .032 (1.820) (1.834) (1.638) Early voting -2.931 .075 -4.636 .003 -3.201 .027 (1.612) (1.503) (1.394) Closing date -.181 .066 .0790 .35 -.002 .974 (.096) (.084) (.077) Margin of victory -.200 .000 (.047) 1972 turnout .003 .966 (.075) Education .504 .006 (.175) Income .0001 .667

82 (.0001)

Age .166 .553 (.263) Constant 4.332 .061 -17.220 .168 (2.253) (12.267)

N=51 N=51 F(4,46)=7.30 F(9,41)=8.02 Prob>F=.0001 Prob>F=.0000 R²=.3882 R²=.6377 Adjusted R²=.335 Adjusted R²=.5581 Root MSE=4.6415 Root MSE=3.7836

Table 4.1: Voter Turnout in the United States, 2008

Bivariate Variables Coefficients p-values Coefficients p-values Coefficients p-values

EDR 3.533 .019 2.712 .061 4.256 .005 (1.457) (1.409) (1.443) SDR 1.493 .334 2.814 .075 1.781 .266 (1.529) (1.543) (1.579) Early voting -3.451 .007 -4.466 .001 3.536 .012 (1.220) (1.257) (1.336) Closing date -.080 .349 -.025 .739 -.101 .213 (.085) (.075) (.080) Margin of victory -.093 .047 (.046) Average 1972 turnout -.102 .165 (.072) Education .368 .034 (.167) Income -.000 .065 (.000)

Age .114 .656 (.254) Constant 2.143 .281 1.682 .889 (1.962) (12.016)

N=50 N=50 F(4,45)=5.08 F(9,40)=3.86 Prob>F=.0018 Prob>F=.0014 R-squared=.3110 R-squared=.464 Adjusted R-squared=.2498 Adjusted R-squared=.3443 Root MSE=3.88 Root MSE=3.62

Table 4.2: Voter Registration in the United States, 2008

At this point, however, I have not introduced controls. One might reasonably expect that some other factor is responsible for the above findings. The last column in

Table 4.1 introduces the margin of victory, turnout in 1972, education, income and age.

Overall, the relationships observed in the center column remain intact though somewhat smaller. States with EDR retain a 4.3 percent increase in turnout, while SDR states exhibit a 3.6 percent higher turnout over other states. States with early voting alone have

3 percent lower turnout. Closing dates have no effect.

Margin of victory has a modest, inverse relationship with voter turnout. Each one- percent increase in the margin of victory results in a small turnout decline (less than 1 percent), perhaps because the election was less competitive in states like Minnesota and

Wisconsin where turnout is perennially high. Meanwhile, statewide turnout in the 1972 presidential election fails to achieve either statistical or substantive significance. Because of this and the fact that the main independent variables all retain both forms of significance, it is clear that the new registration laws improve turnout modestly.

Education also holds a modest turnout increase, while age and income lack statistically significant effects. The adjusted R-squared statistic is now just under 0.56.

Table 4.2, presented in the same format as Table 4.1, shows the relationships between election laws and voter registration, aggregated to the state level. Overall, these models do not predict the percentages of states’ citizens who are registered to vote as effectively as they predict actual voter turnout. Starting with bivariate regressions in the left-hand column, states with EDR, ceteris paribus, have about a 3.5 percent higher voter registration than states that have not adopted the practice. Early voting has a 3.5 percent decline in voter registration. Both variables are statistically significant, while SDR and

84 closing date are not. In the multiple regression context, these relationships persist; EDR becomes marginally significant (p=.061), while the decline associated with early voting increases to about 4.5 percent. This model’s adjusted R-squared statistic is about 0.25, somewhat lower than when predicting turnout.

Finally, I introduce the same control variables as before. The magnitude of the relationships between EDR and early voting is about the same for registration as it was for turnout; ceteris paribus, EDR results in about a 4 percent increase in voter registration while early voting is associated with a drop of about 3.5 percent in voter registration.

These findings are not a function of whether the election in a state was competitive or its

1972 turnout levels. The full model eliminates these alternative explanations.

Discussion

The preliminary analyses above demonstrate that, in 2008, election laws account for a portion of the differences in statewide voter turnout and registration rates. These variations persist in the presence of several control variables. However, I still do not know whether individuals are more likely to report voting and being registered if EDR and/or SDR are available in their states. Individual level analyses are needed for a more complete understanding of the role that election laws play in predicting turnout and registration, particularly compared to socioeconomic indicators. These analyses appear in the remainder of this chapter as well as in Chapter 5.

Part 2: Multilevel Analyses

I now turn my attention to the survey research from the 2008 Voting and

Registration Supplement of the Current Population Survey. These data enable me to add

85 individual level characteristics to the state level variables in the previous analyses to create multilevel datasets. I also look specifically at unregistered citizens.

Variables

Whereas the dependent variables in the previous section are statewide turnout and registration figures, the first two dependent variables in the multilevel models are whether survey respondents reported voting and being registered to do so (1 if so and 0 otherwise). Next, focusing only on unregistered citizens, the remaining dependent variable is whether unregistered citizens attribute their status to their inability to meet registration deadlines rather than another reason. About 15 percent of respondents chose registration deadlines. They are coded as 1, while all others are coded as 0. The question wording and response options may be found in this dissertation’s appendix.

The key independent variables are the same election laws as before, as is their operationalization. The same is true of the margin of victory and 1972 turnout. Likewise, the other control variables remain the same, although I now operationalize them at the individual levels. These control variables are now based on self-reports by CPS respondents. Similarly, education is the number of years of schooling completed.28 I also control for respondents’ race and how long they have resided at their current addresses (6 months, 1.5 years, 3.5 years or 5 years).

Methodology

The dependent variables are now binary. I estimate each model twice – once with logistic regressions and again with multilevel logistic regressions. Logistic models are

28 Persons completing “some college” or an associate’s degree are coded as having completed 14 years of school. Recipients of master’s degrees are coded as having completed 18 years of school; professional degrees: 20 years; doctorates: 22 years.

86 clearly appropriate for binary dependent variables. However, I also estimate multilevel logit models given the nature of the independent and control variables.

As stated above many variables are measured at the individual level while others like the key independent variables are state level characteristics. Multilevel models are most appropriate when a researcher believes that membership in a particular group, e.g. residing in a particular state, affects outcomes above and beyond individual level characteristics like age and educational attainment. For example suppose that the CPS contains two identical individuals – married men with “some college” who are both 44 years old and make $40,000 per year. Further, they have each lived in their respective homes for over five years. However, one of them resides in Mississippi while the other is from Michigan. Single-level models like OLS and logit would assume that these two men have the same chance of voting and registering etc.

Elazar (1984) distinguishes states’ by their divergent political cultures. He classifies states this way. States with a moralistic political culture are those in which politics is seen as a means of improving life for everyone, and all citizens are encouraged and expected to participate in this shared endeavor. Minnesota and Michigan are two such examples. Alternatively, in states with individualistic or traditional political cultures, high rates of participation are thought to be unnecessary. Mississippi, like most other southern states, is said to have a traditional political culture. Therefore, of the two men with identical socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, the one in Michigan may be more likely to vote than the one from Mississippi.

More recently, Hanmer (2009) conducted archival research which revealed that when Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin adopted EDR in the 1970s, they did so because

87 lawmakers in those states were concerned that low voter turnout rates were harmful to the democratic process. As such they believed that easing the registration requirement would boost turnout, enabling the government to hear more citizens’ voices. Alternatively, during the 1990s, Idaho, New Hampshire and Wyoming adopted the practice to gain exemptions from federal mandates established by motor voter. The latter three states saw no improvements in turnout while the former three experienced modest gains. Thus, to some extent, Hanmer’s explanation for these conflicting findings is that the two groups of states have different political cultures.

Consequently, single-level models like OLS and logistic regression assume that all observations’ errors are homoskedastic and independent of one another. Yet the states’ distinct political cultures mean that the observations’ errors may partially depend on the level 2 units (i.e. states) to which they belong. In other words the errors would be

“clustered” by state. If so these basic regression assumptions would be violated, and the estimates obtained from single-level models would be inefficient. Such models would underestimate the errors’ sizes and find statistical significance when in fact they should not (Steenbergen and Jones 2002 and Gelman and Hill 2007). Therefore, I must use multilevel modeling.

Figure 4.1 below displays the percentage of survey respondents by state who reported voting in the 2008 presidential election. The figure also includes 95 percent confidence intervals, indicated by the lines surrounding each state’s estimates. Clear differences in turnout are apparent, with some states reporting much higher percentages than other states, indicating that one’s home state is a factor in predicting turnout. These differences further demonstrate the need for multilevel logistic regressions.

88 0.9

P e 0.85 r c 0.8 e n 0.75 t

0.7 V o t 0.65 i n 0.6 g

0.55

HI ID IN IA

CT KS PA SD

AL AZ DE LA NE TN TX UT VT

AR CA CO DC NC OR

AK GA KY NV NH NY ND OH OK VA

ME MT

MD MA MN MO NM

WV WY WA

Figure 4.1: Voter Turnout by State, 2008 (Source: 2008 CPS; Lines indicate 95 percent confidence intervals)

89 Findings

Table 4.3 depicts logit and multilevel logit estimates for voter turnout in 2008, both with and without controls. I also display a likelihood ratio test that compares the overall model fit for logit and multilevel logit. This test demonstrates that the latter models provide a better fit for these data. Looking first at the logit coefficients, those for

EDR, SDR and early voting all attain statistical significance, even with controls. The sign for early voting is once again negative. Closing date, meanwhile, does not predict turnout. The logit models suggest that EDR and SDR engender statistically significant increases in the probability of voting by citizens living in for the states that allow EDR and/or SDR.

However, the multilevel logit estimates tell a different story. Even without the controls, only early voting retains statistical significance. The same is true in the presence of controls. Here, however, SDR attains statistical significance (p=.038). Most of the level 1 demographic variables in both models are statistically significant.

What is the magnitude of these effects? Predicted probabilities for fixed effects at observed values indicate only a minimal increase in voting among citizens living in SDR states (74.5 percent) relative to residents of other states (73.7 percent). Although the 95 percent confidence intervals do not overlap, this effect is nevertheless quite negligible.29

However, persons residing in states that allow early voting are about 5 percent less likely to have voted than their counterparts who lacked the early voting option (77.1 percent versus 72.1 percent, respectively).30

29 The lower and upper bounds of the 95 percent confidence intervals for SDR states are .7356 and .7384 for states without SDR and .7436 and .7464 for states with SDR. 30 Here, the confidence intervals are .7696 and .7724 for people voting in states without early voting and .7196 and .7224 in states with early voting.

90 Variables Logit p-values Multilevel logit p-values Logit p-values Multilevel logit p-values

EDR .173 .000 .097 .244 .130 .000 .119 .101 (.026) (.083) (.032) (.072) SDR .174 .000 .164 .071 .183 .000 .156 .038 (.025) (.091) (.031) (.075) Early voting -.229 .000 -.327 .000 -.204 .000 -.241 .000 (.022) (.075) (.026) (.062) Closing date -.003 .022 -.001 .800 -.003 .152 .001 .843 (.001) (.004) (.002) (.004) Margin of victory -.008 .000 -.003 .154 (.001) (.002) Avg. turnout ‘72 .005 .002 -.000 .942 (.002) (.004) Income .078 .000 .081 .000 (.003) (.003) Age .024 .000 .024 .000 (.001) (.001) Education .295 .000 .300 .000 (.006) (.005) Length at home .137 .000 .145 .000

(.007) (.006) Black .910 .000 .887 .000 (.043) (.039) Asian -.877 .000 -.870 .000 (.064) (.054) Latino -.095 .015 -.098 .008 (.039) (.037) Multiracial .134 .143 -.148 .043 (.092) (.073) Constant 1.120 .000 2.143 .281 -5.06 .000 -5.328 .000 (.038) (1.962) (.105) (.130)

N=80,667 N=68,056 Wald x²(4)=247.65 Wald x²(14)=8539.53; Prob>x²(14)=.000 Prob>x²=.000 Likelihood ratio vs. logistic regression: x² test stat = 209.12; Pseudo R²=.1487 p value=.000

Table 4.3: Multilevel Voter Turnout, 2008

91 Shifting to the estimates for voter registration (Table 4.4), EDR and SDR fail to attain statistical significance in multilevel models even though they demonstrate these effects in the full logit model. SDR, however, is marginally significant (p=.08).

Therefore, it appears that persons living in states with EDR or SDR are no more likely to report having been registered to vote than their counterparts in other states lacking these registration methods. The negative effects of early voting once again hold up in both the logit and multilevel contexts, even with controls. Instead, individual level SES variables like income, age, education, duration living at the same address and race predict whether citizens are registered to vote. Again, the likelihood ratio test indicates a need for the multilevel models.

The final dependent variable is whether unregistered citizens cite registration deadlines as “the MAIN reason” they were not registered in 2008.31 The results appear in

Table 4.5 along with the likelihood ratio test that once again concludes that the multilevel models provide a better fit. They are considerably different from the two previous models. First, the EDR and SDR coefficients are negative, which is the hypothesized direction.32 Here, the EDR dummy variable retains statistical significance across all four models. This finding indeed indicates that fewer unregistered persons cite registration deadlines as the reason they did not register when EDR is available to them. The other reforms, however, fail to reach conventional levels of statistical significance (though closing date is close at p=.067). As in previous models, most of the level 1 demographic

31 Interestingly, interviewers also ask this question in North Dakota, even though it is the only state that does not require registration. A t-test comparing North Dakota to the rest of the nation reveals that far fewer North Dakotans cite deadlines as the reason they are not registered. The test statistic is 3.77. This finding suggests that people there indeed are well enough informed to know that their state does not require registration. 32 The hypothesized direction is now negative because I expect that if EDR is available, then fewer unregistered citizens would cite the deadlines as the reason they never completed registration. These respondents are coded as 1, so the relationship should be inverse.

92 Variables Logit p-values Multilevel logit p-values Logit p-values Multilevel logit p-values

EDR .203 .000 .101 .263 .157 .000 .131 .146 (.031) (.090) (.037) (.090) SDR .137 .000 .161 .103 .149 .000 .164 .080 (.029) (.099) (.035) (.094) Early voting -.243 .000 -.328 .000 -.207 .000 -.252 .001 (.026) (.081) (.031) (.078) Closing date -.004 .016 -.003 .573 .004 .071 .003 .548 (.002) (.005) (.002) (.005) Margin of victory -.007 .000 -.004 .079 (.001) (.003) Average 1972 turnout .001 .477 -.005 .260 (.002) (.004) Income .068 .000 .071 .000 (.003) (.003) Age .024 .000 .025 .000 (.001) (.001) Education .300 .000 .308 .000 (.006) (.005) Length at home .131 .000 .140 .000

93 (.008) (.007)

Black .723 .000 .706 .000 (.049) (.045) Asian -.887 .000 -.827 .000 (.069) (.059) Latino -.070 .102 -.076 .060 (.043) (.040) Multiracial .159 .107 -.089 .277 (.099) (.082) Constant 1.580 .000 1.808 .000 -4.536 .000 -4.591 .000 (.043) (.122) (.116) (.156)

N=80,229 N=67,774 Wald x²(4)=160.58 Wald x²(14)=6710.92; Prob>chi-squared=.0000 Prob>chi-squared(4)=.0000 Likelihood ratio vs. logistic regression: x² test stat = 227.20; Pseudo R²=.0022 p value=.000

Table 4.4: Registered in 2008?

93 Variables Logit p-values Multilevel logit p-values Logit p-values Multilevel logit p-values

EDR -.722 .000 -.650 .000 -.729 .000 -.704 .000 (.093) (.152) (.103) (.149) SDR -.204 .008 -.238 .135 -.206 .014 -.196 .185 (.078) (.159) (.087) (.148) Early voting .133 .047 -.003 .983 .042 .575 -.082 .500 (.067) (.130) (.074) (.122) Closing date -.002 .588 .007 .332 .007 .206 .014 .067 (.004) (.008) (.005) (.008) Margin of victory -.0002 .934 .004 .306 (.003) (.004) Average 1972 turnout .004 .438 .004 .583 (.005) (.007) Income .050 .000 .050 .000 (.009) (.008) Age -.018 .000 -.018 .000 (.002) (.002) Education .087 .000 .087 .000 (.015) (.013)

94 Length at home -.083 .000 -.088 .000

(.018) (.016) Black .330 .004 .214 .046 (.115) (.107) Asian -.248 .091 -.168 .204 (.147) (.133) Latino .159 .081 .141 .109 (.091) (.088) Multiracial .127 .578 .065 .736 (.228) (.193) Constant -1.696 .000 1.873 .000 -2.459 .000 -2.638 .000 (.114) (.202) (.248) (.289)

N=12,919 N=10,935 Wald x²(4)=85.59 Wald x²(14)=300.53; Prob>x²=.000 Prob>x²(4)=.0000 Likelihood ratio vs. logistic regression: x² test stat = 37.51; Pseudo R²=.0055 p value=.000

Table 4.5: Multilevel Unregistered Voters, 2008

94 controls are statistically significant in the hypothesized directions. Predicted probabilities reveal that a person living in a state with EDR has about an 8.7 percent chance of attributing his or status as an unregistered citizen to the inability to meet registration deadlines.33 Meanwhile, someone living in a state without EDR has about a 16.8 percent chance of providing the same answer, almost double that of persons with EDR as a registration option. Likewise, predicted probabilities demonstrate that, when living in an early voting state, unregistered citizens are slightly more likely to cite the registration requirement as their reason for not registering than if they were not permitted to vote early (.158 if early voting is not allowed versus .145 if early voting is available).34

Discussion

Taken together the three logit and multilevel logit models tell an interesting story about the effects of voter registration reforms and early voting on registration and turnout. First, there are considerable differences in effects when acknowledging the hierarchical nature of the data. Namely, the multilevel models question the reforms’ overall effectiveness at boosting voter turnout and registration rates. Only SDR appears to have increased turnout in 2008. Furthermore, likelihood ratio tests have indicated that all three models offer a better fit of the data than the logit models. Therefore, effects of more liberalized voter registration laws are at best minimal. Instead, socioeconomic and demographic variables are more powerful predictors.

Second, unregistered residents of states that offer EDR are only about half as likely to ascribe their unregistered status to registration deadlines as are their counterparts without access to EDR. People in EDR states seem aware that that option exists in their

33 With 95 percent confidence intervals, the range is from 8.64 percent to 8.76 percent. 34 The upper and lower bounds of the 95 percent confidence intervals are .1574 and .1586 (no early voting) and .1444 and .1456 (early voting is allowed).

state (though some unregistered citizens still cite the deadlines). Still, they do not appear more likely to have voted. This observation implies that among persons for whom registration deadlines impede voting, other challenges remain. In other words merely abolishing registration deadlines is insufficient to cause such persons to vote. Indeed, about 42 percent of respondents selected the answer “not interested in the election or not involved in politics.”

Conclusion

This chapter meets two objectives. First, I have established that registration laws like EDR and SDR help account for differences across states in their voter turnout and registration rates. To recap, ceteris paribus, states with EDR exhibit voter turnout levels about 4.3 percentage points higher than states that do not allow it; for SDR, this figure is about 3.6 percent. Closing dates, however, fail to exert any statistically significant effect on either dependent variable. Second, when working with multilevel survey research, I fail to detect similar evidence of success in boosting turnout and registration with the reforms. Indeed, only SDR is shown to improve turnout and, even here, by no more than

1 percent. Regarding voter registration none of the election law variables predict it; only the individual level variables do so.

Nevertheless, in EDR states, unregistered persons, when asked why they never registered, are only about half as likely to cite registration requirements as their counterparts who reside in other states. This fact is encouraging news, as it suggests that traditional registration requirements are indeed burdensome and that EDR does address this voting impediment. However, two important caveats likely limit the overall success

of EDR. First, only about 15 percent of unregistered citizens ascribe their status to the inability to meet onerous registration requirements. Instead, as previously noted, a plurality of respondents are not interested in politics or do not think their vote would

“make a difference.” Second, it does not appear that such citizens would automatically vote in the presence of EDR, as established by the first multilevel model. In other words persons who are unable to meet registration requirements likely face additional impediments to voting, like a lack of interest in politics and/or low political efficacy.

Even after completing these analyses, several unanswered questions remain. First,

I still do not know what changes (if any) occur when a state initially introduces a new registration law. The cross-sectional data analyses completed in this chapter could be concealing major changes. Second, I do not know whether or how EDR and SDR alter the composition of the electorate. I take up both of these issues in Chapter 5 when I perform before-and-after comparisons of Iowa and North Carolina.

CHAPTER 5: CHANGES IN PERCEPTIONS REGARDING THE EASE OR DIFFICULTY OF COMPLETING VOTER REGISTRATION IN NORTH CAROLINA AND IOWA: TWO STATE CASE STUDIES

Introduction

So far the results presented in the previous chapter have come only from the 2008 presidential election. This research offers some evidence that states with new voter registration laws exhibit modestly higher turnout and registration levels as well as fewer unregistered citizens ascribing their status to the registration deadlines. However, the exclusive focus on 2008 cannot establish cause-and-effect relationships. To that end an examination is needed of whether states experience changes in these dependent variables after they implement the new laws.

In addition, I still know little about the extent to which the new laws engender equalizing effects on the electorate’s composition in terms of socioeconomic status and demographic factors. Presumably, such laws should be most beneficial to poorer, less educated citizens because these individuals are least able to meet traditional voter registration requirements. Indeed, the same researchers who have studied overall voter turnout rates have also noted that the nation’s electorate is disproportionately high with respect to socioeconomic status. Likewise, individuals with certain demographic characteristics like younger people, racial minorities and recent movers are known to vote in lower numbers than members of other demographic groups (e.g. Wolfinger and

Rosenstone 1980, Teixeira 1992 and Rosenstone and Hansen 1993).

To explore these questions, this chapter consists of case studies using Current

Population Survey data from North Carolina and Iowa. In 2007, North Carolina established SDR, and Iowa enacted EDR. I have chosen these states because they enacted different reforms and because the recency with which they did so offers the necessary data for before and after comparisons.35

Furthermore, as mentioned in Chapter 3, these two states also contrast nicely with respect to their degrees of competition in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. The opposite is true of Iowa. Likewise, these states have different histories concerning electoral participation. While North Carolina has consistently exhibited participation levels below national averages, Iowa has long enjoyed a national reputation as a turnout leader.

This chapter proceeds with separate analyses of North Carolina and Iowa. As I complete each case, I commence with background information about recent voter turnout and registration trends in each state and specific discussions of the changes these two states made to their registration laws. I then examine each state, using the same demographic and socioeconomic variables from the previous chapter. After presenting my findings, I offer concluding thoughts for Study 1 and motivations for Study 2.

35 While a number of states now allow EDR and SDR, the vast majority began to permit these practices at least 20 years ago. As of 1996, however, the Voting and Registration Supplement expanded to include questions concerning methods and timing of voting and registration and reasons for not registering and not voting (if already registered).

Effects of Same Day Registration in North Carolina

Changes in North Carolina Election Laws

I begin with North Carolina, selected to examine changes in voter registration that have resulted from SDR. In 2000 North Carolina established early voting centers that all registered voters may use without stating a reason.36 Starting with the November 2007 general election (for local races), the law also permits voter registration at these sites.

Now, citizens who miss the 25 day closing date may visit an early voting location in their county of residence, register and vote immediately. SDR begins on the third Thursday before Election Day and concludes on the last Saturday before Election Day (see Table

5.1).

______

2008 2008

Primaries General Election

Closing date April 11 October 10 SDR begins April 17 October 16 SDR ends May 3 November 1 Election Day May 6 November 4 ______Table 5.1. Same Day Registration in North Carolina

The extent to which the SDR window facilitates registration and voting is unclear.

Some prospective voters in North Carolina may not know the details of the law and assume that they can register on election day. Perhaps people procrastinate and gain an interest in voting at the last minute, especially because election coverage in the news media increases and shifts toward voting procedures. If so, of course, they will be out of

36 North Carolina law also allows voting by mail without an excuse as long as the local Board of Elections receives the ballot request at least one week prior to the election.

100

luck. Furthermore, EDR is the reform that so many researchers consider to be the gold standard for voter registration.37 Alternatively, SDR may be quite convenient for persons who will be out of town on election day or too busy to vote on election day. North

Carolinians have an 18 day period in which they may do so at their convenience.

Voter Registration and Turnout in North Carolina

According to the United States Election Project, nationwide turnout, based on the voting-eligible population (VEP) in the 2004 presidential election is 60.1 percent (as shown in the middle column of Table 5.2), just over 2 percent higher than in North

Carolina. Four years later, North Carolina was a highly-contested battleground state, and that figure climbed to 66.1 percent, positioning North Carolina above the national average. Interestingly, voter registration rates in North Carolina are consistently higher than national figures and improve modestly under SDR, though less than the corresponding national figures. Finally, during this time, fewer unregistered citizens cite deadlines as the reason they are not registered, especially in North Carolina. Why were these turnout increases so much greater in North Carolina than nationwide? In addition to

SDR’s debut, Obama carried North Carolina by only about 14,000 votes. Both competition and more facilitative laws could have easily played a role.

Voter Turnout

I now begin an in-depth focus on North Carolina. As is evident from Table 5.2,

SDR’s introduction coincides with a considerable turnout surge unseen nationally. At the same time, the percentage of unregistered citizens who cite registration deadlines as the

37 Indeed for several years before the state adopted SDR, some lawmakers had unsuccessfully pushed for EDR. Instead, SDR resulted from a compromise with the state Board of Elections. The latter supported SDR because it expected that SDR would be less susceptible to fraud and easier than EDR for local officials to implement (Carbo and Kirschner 2008).

101

main reason they did not register lowers considerably. Are these changes attributable to the introduction of SDR?

Given that laws like SDR and EDR are intended not only to increase turnout but also to reduce the impact of demographic and socioeconomic factors in determining

______

Year North Carolina United States NC - US

2004 57.8 percent 60.1 percent -2.3 percent 2008 66.1 61.6 +4.5

2008-2004 8.3 1.5

2004 80.0 73.4 +6.6 2008 84.0 83.1 +0.9

2008-2004 4 9.7

2004 19.4 16.2 +3.15 2008 9.5 13.9 -4.39

2008-2004 -9.9 -2.3

Source: United States Election Project: http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm; Date of access: November 30, 2012 (turnout); Current Population Surveys (registration and deadlines). Table 5.2. Statistics for Recent Federal Elections in North Carolina: A Voter Turnout in Recent Federal Elections, B Voter Registration in Recent Federal Elections, C Registration Deadlines as the MAIN Reason for not Completing Voter Registration

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participation, I seek to move beyond the overall statistics presented in Table 5.2. I estimate separate logit models for the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections with voting, being registered and ascribing one’s unregistered status to the registration deadlines as the three dependent variables.38 If SDR reduces or eliminates the effects of demographic characteristics on voting, then those factors should lose their power to predict voting once that state implements SDR. Otherwise, any changes from year to year in turnout, registration and reasons for not registering should be due to another reason.

As I test each dependent variable, I include as independent variables the same socioeconomic and demographic variables. The two socioeconomic factors are income and education. Research has consistently demonstrated that higher income and educational attainment result in a much higher propensity to vote. In particular education has been shown to be powerful in this regard because educated persons are more easily able to meet voter registration requirements, have a deeper sense of civic duty and are more likely to understand and care about politics (e.g. Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980).39

Demographic factors known to impact whether people vote and register include age, length of time residing at the same address and race. Young adults (under 30) vote at the lowest rates, whereas senior citizens turn out at the highest rates. Researchers have observed this trend in almost every election for which the necessary data are available.

Similarly, voter turnout increases among citizens who have lived at the same address for longer periods of time. After someone moves, particularly if they have moved to a new

38 I provide separate models for each election to reduce the possibility that a dummy variable for election year in a pooled model might contain additional election-year factors apart from voter registration laws. (Footnote 37 continued) Even if a pooled model had attained statistical significance, I would have no way of eliminating the possibility that some other difference between 2004 and 2008 accounted for that finding. 39 In a previous paper on this analysis, I created an interactive variable that combined education and income. However, it failed to provide additional predictive power beyond the two variables alone. Therefore, I include separate variables for income (measured on a scale from 1 to 16) and education (operationalized as the number of years of school that survey participants had completed).

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county or state, they must reregister. They must also acquaint themselves with the politics of their new surroundings, a process that often takes time. Furthermore, this task is usually not among newcomers’ highest priorities. Therefore, persons living at the same address for longer periods are more likely to be registered and to vote. Finally, racial minorities are known to vote at lower rates than whites. This fact is especially true for blacks who have long faced discrimination, particularly in Southern states like North

Carolina. Today, even though minorities are less subject to discriminatory laws and practices, they often exhibit lower degrees of political efficacy, i.e. they are less likely to believe that they can influence the government and that elected officials care what they think about politics. Assuming then that the reforms are equalizing electoral participation with respect to demographics and socioeconomic status, I anticipate less ability to predict turnout, registration and reasons for not registering to vote with these variables.

Table 5.3 depicts voter turnout in North Carolina in both 2004 and 2008. In both elections all variables with the exception of Asian, Latino and multiracial attain statistical significance and (except black) appear in the hypothesized directions. That is, better educated, higher income persons, etc. are more likely to report having voted in 2004 or

2008 relative to their lower SES counterparts. Interestingly, however, blacks were more likely than whites to have voted in both years. In addition the pseudo-R² value for 2004 is just under 0.17, while the 2008 figure is about 0.145, meaning that the same variables are slightly more predictive before EDR became law. Nonetheless, in both years, these figures are not very high, suggesting that factors other than socioeconomic status and demographic variables predict voter turnout more effectively than registration laws.

104 Variable 2004 p values Pred. Probability 2008 p values Probability Income .148 .000 .437 .072 .000 .257 (.018) (.019) Age .031 .000 .463 .022 .000 .335 (.004) (.005) Education .248 .000 .243 .348 .000 .313 (.030) (.038) Length residing at home .144 .001 .159 .091 .024 .102 (.044) (.040) Black .917 .000 .225 .875 .000 .211 (.178) (.192) Asian -.335 .636 -.074 -.784 .138 -.181 (.705) (.528) Latino -.575 .256 -.123 .182 .705 .046

105 (.506) (.482) Multiracial .460 .309 .112 .351 .636 .088 (.452) (.741) Constant -5.952 .000 -5.697 .000 (.488) (.588)

N=1,682 N=1,416 Wald chi-squared=244.68 Wald chi-squared=141.61 Prob > chi-squared=.0000 Prob>chi-squared=.000 Pseudo R-squared=.1688 Pseudo R-squared=.1449

Table 5.3: Changes in North Carolina Voter Turnout (DV: Voted in 2004 or 2008?)

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What are the magnitudes of each of these variables on their relationships with voter turnout? How do these effects change between 2004 and 2008? Recall that advocates of the reforms hope that the new practices will not only improve voter turnout but also assist minorities, new residents and younger persons in completing voter registration. Consequently, the reforms, if successful, would lower disparities in the electorate’s demographics. Therefore, the goal of my interpretation efforts is to shed light on this important question. To this end I emphasize what happens to the differences between those likely to vote (high SES, people who have lived in the same place for longer periods, etc.) and those less likely to vote (low SES, recent movers, etc.).

Table 5.3 also contains predicted probabilities for each variable separately as it moves from its minimum to maximum values while I hold the other variables constant at fixed values.40 For each model in this chapter, I set income at the average value for the state, education as a high school diploma, age at 25 years, residence at the same address as less than six months and race as white. I have selected these values because, theoretically, I am most interested in persons expected to be the least able to meet voter registration requirements.

Looking together at 2004 and 2008, education is a predictor of voting, with the most educated persons about 24 percent more likely to have voted than the least educated people. Furthermore, its range expands to nearly 31 percent in 2008. Income, however, is much more consequential to begin with in 2004 but is also less important in 2008, when the range is only about 26 percent. Among demographic variables, length at the same

40 With education the figures indicate the increase in the probability of voting for college graduates relative to high school graduates, rather than from minimum to maximum values. The reason is that each state contains very small numbers of individuals with minimal formal education or advanced degrees. Their presence distorts the impact of education.

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address contains the smallest variation, dropping from about 16 percent to 10 percent in

2008. Similarly, the effect of age drops from about 46 percent to 34 percent.

At the same time, political scientists have long recognized that the likelihood of a person voting depends on combinations of these factors so that, for example, income may fail to predict turnout among well-educated citizens. Therefore, I also examine predicted probabilities of key combinations of variables. Because of my interest in disparities, I emphasize the differences between demographic groups like college and high school graduates. In other words I am less interested in the probabilities of such persons voting per se and more interested in how the disparities differ both before and after the reforms become law.

Furthermore, the predicted probabilities in Table 5.3 hold age constant at 25 even though the dataset includes individuals of all ages. Yet aging can allow high school graduates to “catch up” to college graduates and new residents to “catch up” to established residents. Do the effects observed among young people disappear as they grow older?

To answer this question, I offer predicted probabilities that compare the effects of these factors together on turnout in both 2004 and 2008 in North Carolina. Graphs depict as solid lines the differences in predicted probabilities of voting, registering or being unregistered due to an inability to meet registration requirements. To obtain these differences, I subtract the predicted probabilities of, say, new residents from that of more established residents or high school graduates from college graduates. Assuming that registration reforms have an equalizing effect on the electorate’s composition, these differences should be smaller in 2008, especially for younger, less educated persons who

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have not lived at the same address for long. Therefore, I focus on these groups with predictions based on the modal values (e.g. high school and college graduates) and/or high and low values (e.g. new residents versus those living more than five years at the same address) to show these differences. Each figure also features bootstrapped 95 percent confidence intervals as dashed lines.

Beginning with length of residence at the same address, Figure 5.1 displays the differences in the predicted probabilities of voting for individuals of all ages who have lived in the same household for only six months and those who have spent five or more years at their residence. Several key differences appear between 2004 and 2008. First, the turnout disparities between new and established residents are smaller in 2008 for younger persons. In other words duration of residence at the same address makes less of a difference in predicting voter turnout in 2008. The difference in 2004 ranges from about

14 percent for the youngest voters to about 5 percent for the elderly; the range is from about 12 percent to 8 percent four years later, though the confidence intervals overlap somewhat for the two years. In this regard, SDR appears to have marginally reduced

(though not eliminated) the impact of a demographic factor on the likelihood of voting, providing an additional opportunity for new arrivals to register to vote in a state that has experienced considerable growth in recent years. Furthermore, length of residence at the same address is indeed less consequential among older voters.

What about other variables like education? Figure 5.2 plots the differences in predicted probabilities of voting by educational attainment across all ages. Side-by-side plots of 2004 and 2008 again reveal that the disparities among high school and college graduates increase modestly from 2004 to 2008 but that these differences shrink

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Effects of Residential Duration and Age on Turnout (NC)

2004 2008

0.20 0.20

0.15 0.15

0.10 0.10

0.05 0.05

0.00 0.00 Pr(y=voted|5 years at address)-Pr(y=voted|6 months at address) at months address)-Pr(y=voted|6 at years Pr(y=voted|5

20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80

Age Age

Figure 5.1: Effects of Residential Duration and Age on Turnout (NC)

noticeably as people age. Thus, age clearly remains an influential predictor of turnout even following the adoption of SDR.

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Effects of Education and Age on Turnout (NC)

2004 2008

0.4 0.4

0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2

0.1 0.1

Pr(y=voted|College Grad)-Pr(y=voted|High School Grad) Pr(y=voted|CollegeGrad)-Pr(y=voted|High

0.0 0.0

20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80

Age Age

Figure 5.2: Effects of Education and Age on Turnout (NC)

In sum, then, with the possible exception of length of residence at the same address, SDR does not appear to have equalized turnout with respect to demographic characteristics. With respect to education, the disparities actually appear to increase, though the reason remains unclear. While turnout indeed improves from 2004 to 2008 among all citizens in North Carolina, demographic disparities linger.

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Variable 2004 p values Pred. Probability 2008 p values Probability

Income .106 .000 .374 .034 .113 .121 (.020) (.022) Age .031 .000 .356 .027 .000 .298 (.005) (.006) Education .261 .000 .207 .381 .000 .248 (.035) (.045) Length residing at home .069 .116 .071 .055 .240 .055 (.044) (.047) Black .521 .007 .115 .321 .131 .070 (.192) (.213) Asian -1.119 .097 -.272 -.733 .248 -.179 (.674) (.635)

111 Latino -.444 .303 -.109 -.317 .541 -.075

(.431) (.518) Multiracial .586 .294 .128 (.558) Constant -4.667 .000 -5.044 .000 (.542) (.694)

N=1,673 N=1,403 Wald chi-squared=168.39 Wald chi-squared=96.99 Prob > chi-squared=.0000 Prob>chi-squared=.000 Pseudo R-squared=.1359 Pseudo R-squared=.1341

Table 5.4: Changes in North Carolina Voter Registration (DV: Registered in 2004 or 2008?)

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Voter Registration

What about changes in voter registration rates? In addition to turnout, SDR, if effective, should boost the overall registration rates of North Carolinians. Table 5.4 displays the results of the logit models in 2004 and 2008. Beginning with a broad overview, two facts immediately stand out to the reader when comparing Table 5.4 with the voter turnout models in Table 5.3. First, several variables predicting turnout fail to predict registration, losing statistical significance. In particular the duration of living at the same address loses its statistical significance in both election years while the income and black variables are the only statistically significant during the 2004 election. Second, in both election years, the pseudo R² values are lower for registration than for turnout.

They also vary less from one election to the next than the pseudo R² values in the two turnout models.

For interpretation I provide many of the same predicted probabilities as before.

Once again the effect of education on predicting registration grows 4 percent from 2004 to 2008. Predicted probabilities for income, age and length at the same address all decline during this time, especially for income. The range for age in 2008 is about 30 percent, down from 36 percent four years earlier. Length of residence at the same address has a very small effect for both years, especially 2008. As with turnout, Figure 5.3 depicts predicted probabilities as a function of age and educational attainment, for both high school and college graduates. As before the introduction of SDR has done little to reduce voter registration rates; in fact, the disparities appear somewhat greater in 2008. The slopes of the predicted probability lines do not change noticeably. Instead, age does far more to lower the two registration rates. Among 22 year-olds in 2008, the difference is

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Effects of Education and Age on Registration (NC)

2004 2008

0.25 0.25

0.20 0.20

0.15 0.15

0.10 0.10

0.05 0.05

Pr(y=registered|College Grad)-Pr(y=registered|High School) Pr(y=registered|CollegeGrad)-Pr(y=registered|High

0.00 0.00

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Age Age

Figure 5.3: Effects of Education and Age on Registration (NC)

around 20 percent; it drops to about 5 percent by age 80. Overall, the registration data tell a story similar to turnout.

Reasons for not Registering to Vote

Lastly, I consider whether, under SDR, fewer people ascribe their unregistered status to registration deadlines. Recall that the dependent variable here is a dummy variable: whether unregistered citizens choose registration deadlines as “the MAIN

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reason” they did not register from among a long list of answer choices. Estimates from logit models for both 2004 and 2008 are provided in Table 5.5, following the same format as the two previous dependent variables. Immediately, in both years, one notices both the lower pseudo R² values and the appreciably smaller Ns. In the Voting and

Registration Supplements, very few respondents report being unregistered. In 2004, unregistered blacks and persons earning high incomes were more likely than whites and lower income individuals to choose registration deadlines as the reason they had not registered. Unregistered persons who have lived at the same address for longer periods of time were less likely to select this response. Meanwhile, in 2008, income was the only variable to attain statistical significance. This finding would suggest that the introduction of SDR has expanded the electorate by facilitating easier voter registration procedures.

Among young high school graduates who are also recent movers, the range of predicted probabilities for income scarcely changes. For length at home, the relationship is in the opposite direction as before with people living at the same address about 9 percent less likely to give this response than recent movers. By 2008 this variable has lost its statistical significance.

Figure 5.4 shows the effects of income and length at the same residence on the likelihood of voter registration deadlines representing a major impediment to completing registration. The predicted probabilities change noticeably between 2004 and 2008.

Starting with 2004 several facts stand out. First, people who have lived at the same address for longer periods are more likely to meet registration deadlines. Second, unregistered individuals with higher incomes (regardless of how long they have held the same address) are more likely to blame the registration requirements than poorer people.

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Variable 2004 p values Pred. Probability 2008 p values Pred. Probability

Income .155 .000 .356 .267 .002 .359 (.043) (.087) Age .016 .115 .241 -.024 .134 -.118 (.010) (.016) Education .158 .063 .136 -.025 .767 -.011 (.085) (.084) Length residing at home -.205 .025 -.135 -.051 .762 -.024 (.091) (.169) Black 1.192 .005 .274 .649 .345 .094 (.425) (.687) Asian -1.144 .287 -.156 (1.074) Latino .133 .860 .026

115 (.754) Constant -4.979 .000 -3.893 .005

(1.121) (1.379)

N=325 N=212 Wald chi-squared=25.29 Wald chi-squared=13.13 Prob > chi-squared=.0007 Prob>chi-squared=.0222 Pseudo R-squared=.0992 Pseudo R-squared=.1185

Table 5.5: Changes in North Carolina Unregistered Voter Status (DV: Ascribed Unregistered Status to Registration Deadlines?)

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Effect of Address and Income on Meeting Deadlines (NC)

2004 2008

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0.0

-0.2 -0.2

-0.4 -0.4

5 10 15 5 10 15 Pr(Reg. Deadline|5 years at address) - (Reg. Deadline|6 months at address) Deadline|6at (Reg. months - address) Deadline|5 Pr(Reg. at years Income Income

Figure 5.4: Effects of Address and Income on Meeting Deadlines (NC)

Furthermore, at higher incomes, the difference between new and established residents increases appreciably, with newer residents much more likely than established residents to cite the legal requirements (though the confidence intervals still overlap).

This pattern largely disappears by 2008. Now, the predicted probability lines are nearly identical, with wider confidence intervals for newer residents. In 2008 higher income

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individuals remain more likely to say that they were affected by the laws, though there is less variation based on duration of residence at the same address. Overall, again, fewer of the 2008 respondents, regardless of race and income levels, cite closing dates as the main reason they never registered to vote.

An Obama Effect?

Because these voter registration reforms coincided with a competitive presidential election, I must consider whether the foregoing results are actually attributable to

Obama’s aggressive campaign efforts instead of the easier voter registration law. To investigate this possibility, I compare differences between the last two presidential elections with those of the two most recent midterm elections, neither of which featured the high publicity of the 2008 presidential election. I start with the percent reductions in error (PRE) for the two sets of elections and then provide predicted probabilities of voting, being registered and citing registration deadlines as the key reason for not registering.

Percent reductions in error (PRE) are a common way of assessing the overall predictive power of maximum likelihood models (Long 1997). I obtained these figures for each dependent variable in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010 (not shown) and then calculated the PRE changes from 2004 to 2008 and 2006 to 2010, which I display in

Table 5.6. Given my expectation that SDR reduces the impact of socioeconomic and demographic disparities, I should find that, after the new laws are in effect, the models should lose their predictive power, resulting in lower PRE statistics. The left-hand side of

Table 5.6 shows lower PRE values for turnout and registration, but not reasons for being unregistered, meaning that the first two models are less able to predict outcomes than the

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Presidential Elections Midterm Elections

Voter Turnout

Change in PRE from 2004 to 2008 Change in PRE from 2006 to 2010 -8.20% -15.22%

Voter Registration

Change in PRE from 2004 to 2008 Change in PRE 2006 to 2010 -4.20% +18.91%

Registration Deadlines

Change in PRE from 2004 to 2008 Change in PRE 2006 to 2010 +12.13% -1.93% ______Table 5.6: Percent Reduction in Error (PRE) for Presidential and Midterm Elections in North Carolina

former ones. In midterm elections, the same is true for voting and reasons for not registering. However, the PRE for the registration dependent variable rises greatly from

2006 to 2010. Taken together this information suggests that turnout disparities were lower in 2010 than in 2006 – evidence suggesting that the Obama campaign alone is insufficient to account for the observed reductions in demographic and socioeconomic disparities.

Next, I examine the differences in predicted probabilities of voting, registering and ascribing one’s status as unregistered to deadlines. Predicted probabilities for 22 year-old, white high school graduates whose household incomes are in the $40,000 range and who have resided at their current address for less than six months appear in Table 5.7 along with their differences between presidential and midterm elections. Looking first at

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Presidential Elections Midterm Elections

2004 .353 2006 .114 2008 .449 2010 .166

Difference -.096 Difference -.052

Presidential Elections Midterm Elections

2004 .585 2006 .389 2008 .626 2010 .284

Difference -.041 Difference +.105

Presidential Elections Midterm Elections

2004 .244 2006 .126 2008 .142 2010 .142

Difference +.102 Difference -.016

*All predicted probabilities are for white, 22 year-old, high school graduates, who have only lived at the same address for 6 months or less, whose annual income was between $40,000 and $49,999. ______Table 5.7. Changes in Predicted Probabilities for Presidential and Midterm Elections, North Carolina: A Voting, B Registering to Vote, C Registration Deadlines

the table’s left-hand side, it is clear that persons with the aforementioned characteristics were more likely to vote and register and less likely to cite registration deadlines as the

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reason for not registering in 2008 than in 2004.41 Turning to the right-hand side, these young persons (thought especially likely to abstain) were less likely to be registered and more likely to cite deadlines in 2010 than four years earlier.

However, they were about 5 percent more likely to vote in 2010 than in 2006.

This last fact is indicative of SDR engendering higher turnout in an off-year election.

Comparisons of presidential and midterm elections suggest that, while the Obama campaign affected turnout that year, turnout improvements also appear in midterm elections. Still, however, it is unrealistic to believe that the unique circumstances of the

2008 had no effect on turnout in the Tar Heel state. In all likelihood the Obama campaign utilized SDR to its advantage. These facts suggest that SDR has affected turnout in and of itself, but researchers interested in how new election laws affect registration and turnout must also acknowledge the impact of each election’s idiosyncrasies. Furthermore, these unique circumstances serve to illustrate the necessity of paying close attention to contextual factors like electoral competition when studying the effects of registration laws on turnout. Such seemingly tangential factors can have considerable effects on one’s findings.

Conclusion

Taken together, these findings suggest strongly that SDR indeed responded to a need among unregistered North Carolinians. Many Tar Heel residents appear unable to meet their state’s 25 day closing date, perhaps only becoming interested in elections shortly before election day. The SDR window enables them to be heard. At the same time, however, questions remain as to what would have happened had the state’s first

41 Note that for registration deadlines, the lower predicted probability in 2008 means that these individuals were less likely to be unregistered due to an inability to meet the deadline. Unlike with the two previous dependent variables, then, a lower predicted probability is suggestive of the reforms’ effectiveness.

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presidential election under the new statutes not been so competitive. Another interesting finding concerns the impact of race. Contrary to much previous literature, disparities by race observed here are negligible. Indeed, at times, blacks may be participating at slightly higher rates than whites. This finding raises the question of whether it is an anomaly or part of a larger trend. Of course, this observation may also result from the success of

Obama’s campaign efforts in the state and use of SDR to mobilize blacks. Therefore, the differences in these dependent variables under SDR might not appear in congressional and local elections.

Interestingly, North Carolina’s SDR likely enabled Senator Obama to win the state’s fifteen electoral votes. Before the general election, 91,736 North Carolinians registered through SDR (News and Observer 2008). It is widely known that the Obama campaign used SDR to register thousands (Barone and Cohen 2009). Obama carried

North Carolina by just over 14,000 votes, making North Carolina the second closest state in the Obama-McCain outcome. Obama would have needed about 13.8 percent of those voting in North Carolina to support him in order to carry the state.42 Although we will never know for sure, it is safe to assume that well over 13.8 percent of the same day registrants voted for Obama. Therefore, SDR in North Carolina was consequential because, presumably through the Obama campaign’s mobilization effort, it introduced to the electorate enough new voters (who might not have otherwise registered) to change the

42 According to official statistics compiled by the North Carolina State Board of Elections, on November 4, 2008, 4,219,053 North Carolinians voted in the presidential election. Of those 91,736 had used SDR to register. In the presidential election Obama received 49.7 percent of the vote and McCain received 49.4 percent. If I exclude the same day registrants from the total number of voters, then Obama is ahead of McCain by 12,657 votes. Thus, Obama would have needed about 13.8 percent of the same day registrants to vote for him in order for him to carry North Carolina.

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outcome of a very close, highly contested election. If North Carolina had not had SDR,

McCain may have won it instead.

Effects of Election Day Registration in Iowa

Changes in Iowa Election Laws

What about Iowa? During the same time period as North Carolina, Iowa implemented both SDR and EDR - a somewhat more facilitative election law than North

Carolina’s SDR. The latter ends three days before election day. Throughout the period of this study, Iowa law mandates that citizens complete voter registration no later than 5:00 pm on the tenth day before election day. Persons may also register in person at their county Board of Elections office or at satellite locations offering early voting any time before election day. Iowa law also permits in-person early voting (at the Commissioner’s office or satellite locations) and absentee voting for all citizens, no questions asked.

Therefore, Iowa offers another good test of the same hypotheses. In this section I follow the same format as I did for North Carolina.

Voter Registration and Turnout in Iowa

Electoral participation in Iowa is much different from North Carolina. Table 5.8

(below) provides the same information for Iowa as Table 5.2 contains for North Carolina.

Several facts stand out. First, Iowa turnout is between 7.8 and 9.8 percent higher than nationwide turnout in federal elections. Second, whereas nationwide turnout rose 0.5 percent from 2004 to 2008, Iowa turnout declined by the same margin. Likewise, the degree to which Iowa turnout exceeded nationwide turnout also dropped 2 percent during the same period. The same is true for registration rates, though Iowa’s lead over the national averages is lower in 2008 than previously. As expected far fewer unregistered

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Iowans cite registration deadlines than citizens from other states. Overall, Iowa is strikingly different from North Carolina.

Voter Turnout

Although voter turnout in Iowa held steady at around 69 percent for both presidential elections, the question remains as to whether the introduction of EDR had an equalizing effect on the electorate’s composition by aiding persons of lower socioeconomic status in registration. Table 5.9 contains separate logit models for the

______Year Iowa United States IA - US

2004 69.9 percent 60.1 percent +9.8 percent 2008 69.4 61.6 +7.8

2008-2004 -0.5 1.5

2004 82.9 73.4 +9.5 2008 84.7 83.1 +1.6

2008-2004 1.8 9.7

2004 9.7 16.2 -6.5 2008 7.1 13.9 -6.8

2008-2004 -2.6 -2.3

C ______Table 5.8. Recent Voting Behavior in Iowa: A Voter Turnout in Recent Federal Elections, B Voter Registration in Recent Federal Elections, C Registration Deadlines as the MAIN Reason for not Completing Voter Registration43

43 Source: United States Election Project: http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm; Date of access: November 30, 2012.

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2004 and 2008 presidential elections, retaining the same format as the North Carolina models. In both elections persons turning out at a statistically significantly higher rate are older with higher incomes, educational attainment and greater residential stability. Except for Asian Americans (who have a lower likelihood of voting), one’s racial background fails to predict turnout in either election. Interestingly, many of the predictors’ coefficients change little from 2004 to 2008. The same is true concerning changes in a strong variation as one moves from its minimum to maximum values (around 30 percent). Otherwise, the variables have largely the same effects in both years. Apart from education, in descending order, income has the most powerful effect, followed by age and duration of residence in one place.

As in North Carolina, I also examine pairs of variables to study further how some variables combine to affect certain people differently from others, particularly for older people. Substantively, EDR appears to have had little effect on the demographic and socioeconomic composition of the electorate as shown in Figure 5.5. It depicts the differences in the predicted probabilities of voting in 2004 and 2008 as a function of age and education (solid lines) and 95 percent confidence intervals (dashed lines). Assuming that EDR aids less educated citizens in registration and voting, this difference should decline in 2008. However, the difference remains remarkably similar; college graduates in both years are more likely to vote with education playing an appreciably lesser role among the elderly. In this respect, then, EDR does little to affect the electorate’s composition; aging does much more to reduce turnout disparities by educational attainment. Predicted probabilities for age and length of residence (not shown) tell

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Variable 2004 p values Pred. Probability 2008 p values Probability

Income .108 .000 .381 .115 .000 .403 (.018) (.020) Age .018 .000 .278 .018 .000 .268 (.004) (.005) Education .414 .000 .329 .378 .000 .313 (.043) (.039) Length residing at home .104 .015 .113 .122 .004 .132 (.043) (.043) Black .440 .374 .107 .781 .245 .184 (.495) (.671) Asian -1.427 .023 -.315 -1.602 .001 -.339 (.630) (.485) 125 Latino -.592 .224 -.145 1.471 .076 .307 (.486) (.829) Multiracial -.202 .804 -.051 .583 .515 .141 (.815) (.896) Constant -6.576 .000 -6.240 .000 (.617) (.595)

N=1,555 N=1,458 Wald chi-squared=187.53 Wald chi-squared=181.84 Prob > chi-squared=.0000 Prob>chi-squared=.000 Pseudo R-squared=.1571 Pseudo R-squared=.1699

Table 5.9: Changes in Iowa Voter Turnout (DV: Voted in 2004 or 2008?)

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predicted probabilities for each variable. As in North Carolina, the effect of education has much the same story, though the difference between young and elderly persons is much smaller (even though it was slightly greater in 2008).

Voter Registration

Table 5.10 presents the same logit models as before, with voter registration as the dependent variable. Overall, the impact of each variable remains quite similar to the previous model. Likewise, no variable loses or gains statistical significance between 2004 and 2008. The same is true for predicted probabilities. Not surprisingly, then, the impact of the demographic and SES factors on voter registration is also comparable to their effects on turnout. Once again, in an effort to look beyond single predictors, Figure 5.6 reveals that disparities in education have a weaker effect on registration among older persons. However, these effects remain unchanged after EDR’s implementation. Contrary to what advocates of EDR had hoped, simply becoming more facilitative of registration does not engender higher levels of voter registration. Instead, demographic and socioeconomic variables are more powerful predictors.

Reasons for not Registering to Vote

Finally, Table 5.11 focuses specifically on unregistered citizens. Why have they not registered to vote? Are these persons less likely to cite the inability to complete voter registration on time once EDR is allowed? Looking first at 2004, only age predicts whether one cites voter registration requirements as the reason they did not register.

Consistent with expectations older persons are less likely to do so than their younger counterparts. In 2008, this variable becomes marginally significant (p=.075), suggesting

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Effects of Education and Age on Voter Turnout

2004 2008

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0.0 0.0

-0.2 -0.2

-0.4 -0.4 Pr(y=voted|College Grad)-Pr(y=voted|High School Grad) Pr(y=voted|CollegeGrad)-Pr(y=voted|High

20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80

Age Age

Figure 5.5: Effects of Education and Age on Voter Turnout (IA)

that among unregistered citizens hindered by the registration requirement, fewer are young people. Interestingly, the pseudo-R² values are much lower than in the two previous models, and this value drops to only .0394 by 2008. More tellingly, the Wald test statistic in 2004 is only marginally significant (p=0.64) and is not at all statistically significant in 2008. Graphs of the probability of citing the legal requirements (Figure 5.7)

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Variable 2004 p values Pred. Probability 2008 p values Pred. Probability

Income .083 .000 .294 .108 .000 .374 (.019) (.022) Age .015 .001 .207 .018 .001 .225 (.004) (.005) Education .433 .000 .280 .440 .000 .266 (.047) (.047) Same address .152 .002 .143 .123 .014 .114 (.048) (.051) Black .009 .985 .002 .394 .630 .084 (.485) (.817) Asian -1.597 .019 -.372 -2.269 .000 -.489 (.683) (.502) Latino -.892 .087 -.219 1.366 .166 .230 (.521) (.988) Multiracial .643 .564 .135 128 (1.115)

Constant -6.062 .000 -6.361 .000 (.675) (.690)

N=1,554 N=1,448 Wald chi-squared=155.75 Wald chi-squared=158.71 Prob > chi-squared=.0000 Prob>chi-squared=.000 Pseudo R-squared=.1568 Pseudo R-squared=.1917

Table 5.10: Changes in Iowa Voter Registration (DV: Registered in 2004 or 2008?)

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for one’s status as unregistered show no change from 2004 to 2008, and that, during both years, the youngest persons are most likely to cite registration deadlines. As people grow older, they become considerably less likely to do so. Therefore, the legal requirements of voter registration did not affect any group of Iowans disproportionately (except young people), so there was very little effect that EDR could possibly have had following its introduction.

Conclusion

On the whole Iowa’s introduction of EDR appears to have had little impact on the composition of the state’s electorate with respect to lessening the demographic and socioeconomic disparities associated with turnout, registration and whether unregistered citizens cite deadlines as their reason for not registering. Further supporting this assertion are the changes in PRE values from 2004 to 2008 which appear in Table 5.12. For each dependent variable, the models’ predictive power declines from 2004 to 2008. However, these differences are marginal. The greatest, for voter registration, is only about 5 percent. Thus, the PRE values provide additional evidence of EDR’s minimal impact in the Hawkeye State.

Conclusion

Do states experience increased voter turnout and registration rates following their implementation of more liberalized registration laws? What happens to the overall demographic composition of the electorate? Does it equalize once the new laws are in place? These questions are complex. Taking the two state case studies together, there are

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Effects of Education and Age on Voter Registration (IA)

2004 2008

0.30 0.30

0.25 0.25

0.20 0.20

0.15 0.15

0.10 0.10

0.05 0.05

Pr(y=registered|College Grad)-Pr(y=registered|High School) Pr(y=registered|CollegeGrad)-Pr(y=registered|High

0.00 0.00

20 30 40 50 60 70 80 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Age Age

Figure 5.6: Effects of Education and Age on Voter Registration (IA)

no straightforward answers. Instead, the effects are conditional on contextual characteristics of the states that enact them. The separate case studies of North Carolina and Iowa reveal key differences in the impact of new election laws in these two states. In short North Carolina appears to have had more success with SDR than Iowa with EDR.

Two explanations could reasonably account for this fact. The first is the historic nature of

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Variable 2004 p values Pred. Probability 2008 p values Pred. Probability

Income .020 .729 .047 .008 .917 .012 (.059) (.081) Age -.045 .009 -.234 -.040 .074 -.129 (.017) (.023) Education .131 .177 .096 .002 .985 .001 (.097) (.134) Same address -.129 .283 -.075 .061 .666 .030 (.120) (.142) Black -.506 .680 -.068 (1.228) Latino .095 .931 .015 (1.098) Constant -2.024 .107 -1.241 .445 (1.258) (1.623)

131 N=265 N=205

Wald chi-squared=11.62 Wald chi-squared=3.91 Prob > chi-squared=.0637 Prob>chi-squared=.4187 Pseudo R-squared=.0959 Pseudo R-squared=.0394

Table 5.11: Changes in Iowa Unregistered Voter Status (DV: Ascribed Unregistered Status to Registration Deadlines?)

131 Effects of Age on Not Registering Due to Deadlines (IA)

2004 2008

0.25 0.25

0.20 0.20

0.15 0.15

0.10 0.10

0.05 0.05

Pr(Unregistered due to RegistrationDeadlines) to due Pr(Unregistered

0.00 0.00

20 40 60 80 20 40 60 80

Age Age

Figure 5.7: Effects of Age on Not Registering Due to Deadlines (IA)

account for this fact. The first is the historic nature of the 2008 presidential election.

Although Obama carried both states, he campaigned aggressively only in North Carolina.

Consequently, numerous appeals and registration drives targeted unregistered North

Carolinians, incorporating the newly-available SDR. Iowans were not subject to such efforts. Without this stimulus, some Iowans likely stayed home. The second possible explanation, mentioned previously, is a ceiling effect in Iowa. Even in 2004, Iowa had the

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Presidential Elections

Voter Turnout

Change in PRE from 2004 to 2008 -0.13%

Voter Registration

Change in PRE from 2004 to 2008 -4.97%

Registration Deadlines

Change in PRE from 2004 to 2008 0%

Table 5.12: Iowa Percent Reduction in Error (PRE)

sixth highest turnout rate of any state.44 North Carolina’s turnout and registration rates were much lower, so it had more room for improvement.

Generally speaking neither state equalizes its electorate’s demographic and socioeconomic factors. With minimal exceptions, voter turnout and registration disparities persist after the reforms’ implementations. Substantively, in North Carolina,

SDR appears to have partially reduced differences in turnout and registration between recent movers and more established residents. Racial differences also are somewhat smaller.45

More broadly Study 1 (the preceding and current chapters) shows evidence of modest successes resulting from the implementation of liberalized registration laws.

States with the newer laws generally have slightly higher turnout and registration levels,

44 Nevertheless, Iowa’s introduction of EDR in the 2008 election might have prevented a steeper turnout decline from 2004 (see Table 5.3). 45 One remaining unanswered question concerns the impact of individual level political factors like partisan identification, political efficacy, strength of preference for one candidate or another and interest in politics. This uncertainty, of course, stems from the absence of this information in the Voting and Registration Supplement, as I mentioned previously.

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yet in multilevel models (from Chapter 4), many of these effects disappear. Individual level demographic characteristics do a better job predicting whether people vote and whether they have registered. At the aggregate level, EDR does indeed lower the possibility that unregistered citizens attribute their status to registration laws. However, because that does not necessarily lead to higher turnout, it seems very likely that unregistered citizens face other impediments to voting.46 Changes to registration laws alone cannot address these concerns. Likewise, the research presented in the current chapter uncovers scant evidence that EDR and SDR equalize the electorate with respect to socioeconomic factors.

Nevertheless, many people use EDR and SDR if available. Therefore, people do take advantage of these new ways to register, particularly when canvassed. This fact raises a different, though no less important, question: do such registered citizens continue to vote in future elections? Given that many people likely only used SDR with the help of campaign volunteers, they may not begin voting regularly. Perhaps they only became interested in the 2008 presidential election due to its historic nature or Obama’s charisma.

If so then the reforms would have the unintended consequence of increasing the number of intermittent voters who vote only occasionally (Niven 2004), an outcome that those advocating the reforms (and greater electoral participation) would rather avoid. Using voter history data obtained from Secretary of States’ offices, Chapters 6-8 presents four state case studies to explore this important question.

46 Recall, of course, that when the CPS asks unregistered citizens why they have not registered, a plurality respond that they are not interested in voting.

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CHAPTER 6: MECKLENBURG COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA, AND SAME DAY REGISTRATION

Introduction

Overview of Same Day Registration and Analyses

I now begin the four state case studies with North Carolina, selected to examine the longer term effects of same day registration (SDR) on voter turnout. Whereas Study 1 examined the extent to which EDR and SDR expanded and changed the composition of states’ electorates, Study 2 addresses the question of whether same day registrants are as likely as “traditional” registrants to keep voting in future elections. Thus, I limit Study 2 to persons who have already registered to vote.

In 2000 North Carolina established early voting centers that all registered voters may use without stating a reason.47 Seven years later former governor Mike Easley signed a bill authorizing SDR. In this chapter my analyses concern all persons who registered to vote in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, on or after September 12,

2007. My analyses begin on September 12 because the second primary occurred one day earlier. This way, all persons analyzed are registered voters who had the option of completing same day registration or registering earlier. The November 2007 general election was the first election in which SDR was permitted statewide. That election contained numerous races for city and county offices and referenda on municipal and

47 North Carolina law also allows voting by mail without an excuse as long as the local Board of Elections receives the ballot request at least one week prior to the election.

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county bond issues. I estimate separate logit models that predict turnout in the 2010 midterm general elections based on the first election in which a person was registered to vote and how they registered. 48

I begin this chapter by presenting demographic and political characteristics of those who registered during these periods. Within the groups, I separate the same day registrants from everyone else in order to learn the extent to which the two groups are different with respect to characteristics like age, race and partisanship. I am interested in these factors because they could also affect turnout. To test Hypothesis 6 - that persons using SDR to register to vote are as likely to vote in the next federal election as persons who registered prior to their state’s closing date - I begin by estimating full models that include all Mecklenburg County residents who registered to vote after the second primary election in 2007.

I limit the second part of my analyses to young persons for whom the 2007 or

2008 elections were the first in which they were old enough to vote. This way, voters who had previously registered in another county or state do not confound my findings. If a large number of “new” registrants had previously registered elsewhere and began to vote consistently in federal elections and continue this practice in Mecklenburg County, my results could be distorted.49 For these persons, SDR may be a simpler way to maintain the habit of voting once they move to Mecklenburg County. In the event that many

48 Originally, I was interested in studying only those who registered for the 2008 general election to see whether they voted in 2010, but I added two more waves of registrants. 49 Using the files alone, I have no way of ascertaining, for example, whether a 45-year-old who registered to vote in 2007 registered for the first time or because he or she had recently moved from another county or state. In most states, when registered voters move within the same county, election officials automatically update the voter’s record. Unfortunately, when someone who previously registered in another county or state registers elsewhere, election officials usually create a new record and expunge the old one.

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people using SDR fall into this category, I would be unable to reach accurate conclusions about how persons using SDR differ from other people who registered much sooner.

Why Mecklenburg County?

For the purposes of this study, I limit my analyses to Mecklenburg County, which includes all of the city of Charlotte and a portion of its surrounding suburbs. I am analyzing Mecklenburg County for several reasons. First, Mecklenburg County makes available its voter information and history on its county Board of Elections website.50

Second, the county is the largest in the state, and it offers me a very large N.51 Third, the county is quite diverse with a large black population and a mix of Democrats and

Republicans. Finally, parts of the county lie within three different congressional districts.

North Carolina’s perennially competitive 8th Congressional District includes a small portion of Mecklenburg County.

Results

Overview

In this section, I present data on the numbers of Mecklenburg County residents who registered to vote before the 2007 general election and 2008 presidential primary and general elections, along with demographic information. Next, I test Hypothesis 6 and several alternative explanations. The latter consist of the impact of voters’ race, competitive elections and partisan registration. I also estimate predicted probabilities based on modal values in order to assess substantive significance.

50 Mecklenburg County includes both its voter information and history in the same file while the North Carolina Secretary of State maintains this information in separate files. Because several thousand voters appear in one file or the other, but not both, I use the county file. 51 As of July 2011, Mecklenburg County had 604,000 registered voters, so the Ns for each race, congressional district and party are very large.

137 First, Table 6.1 contains cross tabulations depicting voter registration by method before each of the three aforementioned elections. The figures reported there are for all persons in Mecklenburg County whose first election as a registered voter in that county occurred in one of these elections, but I have excluded registered voters who did not vote in the first election after they registered. I have done so because, unlike in Study 1, I am now interested in whether persons who have already voted in one election vote in a second election. I also provide information regarding registered voters by age, race, political party and (for the general presidential election) congressional district.

Several facts stand out from this table. First, the number of new voter registrations increased dramatically in each new election. This substantial increase is due to the heightened media attention for each subsequent election and the presence on the ballot of higher offices on the ballot for later contests as well as Mecklenburg County’s rapid growth over the past several decades. In the 2008 general election, just over 6,600 (about

12 percent of the total) of the new registrants used SDR to register. That percentage is about the same as for the 2008 primaries. However, about one-third of the new registrants for the 2007 general election used the newly-available SDR.

To see whether same day registrants are “different” from persons who registered before the closing date, Table 6.1 compares both groups by demographic and political characteristics. For the 2007 general election, about three-fourths of traditional registrants were white, and the rest were black. About 70 percent of same day registrants were white.

Both groups were half Democratic with 25 percent Republican and another 25 percent

Independent. Same day registrants are an average age of about 38 while traditional registrants are about three years older.

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2007 General Election 2008 Primaries 2008 General Election

New Registrants Sept. 12 – Nov. 3, 2007 Nov. 4, 2007 – May 3, 2008 May 4 – Nov. 1, 2008

Trad. Registration 1,379 (66%) 14,160 (90%) 47,356 (88%) SDR 697 (34%) 1,621 (10%) 6,635 (12%) Totals 2,076 15,781 53,991

Traditional Registrants Same Day Registrants Traditional – Same Day Registrants Race

White 74 percent 71 percent +3 percent Black 26 29 -3

139 Partisanship

Democrat 45 percent 48 percent -3 Republican 26 24 +2

Age (mean) 40.71 37.90 -2.81 Age (std. dev.) 15.45 15.55

B Continued Table 6.1. Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina: Voter Registration before Recent Elections in Mecklenburg County, B Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, Sept. 12 - Nov. 3, 2007, C Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, Nov. 4, 2007 - May 3, 2008, D Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, May 4 - Nov. 1, 2008

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Table 6.1 Continued

Race

White 60 percent 61 percent -1 percent Black 40 39 +1

Partisanship

Democrat 71 percent 76 percent -5 Republican 7 4 +3

Age (mean) 36.71 36.65 -0.06 Age (std. dev.) 15.13 15.43

140

Race

White 43 percent 52 percent -9 percent Black 35 43 -8 Continued

140

Table 6.1 continued

Partisanship

Democrat 52 percent 58 percent -6 Republican 18 18 0

Congressional Districts

th + 8 15 percent 14 percent 1 9th 50 51 -1 12th 35 34 +1

Age (mean) 34.47 36.27 -1.8 Age (std. dev.) 14.71 14.01

141 D

Note: The figures in this table include all persons who registered to vote in Mecklenburg County during the specified time periods.

141 Shifting to the presidential primaries, blacks comprise about 40 percent of both groups of new registrants. Likewise, both groups were heavily Democratic with very few

Republicans and about 20-25 percent Independent. North Carolina was one of the last states to hold its presidential primary, and it was highly contested by both Senators

Clinton and Obama. The average age of both groups of registrants was 36.

For the general presidential election, about 43 percent of traditional registrants were white, and one-third was black. Both groups increased by about 7-8 percent among same day registrants. About 18 percent of both groups registered as Republicans.

Democrats comprised about half of the traditional registrants and 58 percent of the same day registrants. Among congressional districts there was little difference across groups of registrants, despite the 8th District’s perennial status as a competitive district. The distribution of registrants by congressional districts is roughly the same as it is within

Mecklenburg County. Interestingly, same day registrants were about 1.5 years older than traditional registrants (36.2 versus 34.7, respectively).

In summary, more than 70,000 people registered before one of these three elections; of those, nearly 9,000 used SDR. For each election, the percentages of new registrants who are black and/or Democratic are slightly higher among same day registrants. This evidence suggests that SDR has helped expand North Carolina’s electorate, and the Obama the campaign also played a role.

Full Models (All Mecklenburg County Voters)

Tables 6.2-6.4, present the results of a series of logit estimations to test the hypothesis that newly registered persons vote in the midterm election at the same rate regardless of registration method. I test this hypothesis for the 2008 general presidential

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election, the 2008 presidential primaries and the 2007 general election, respectively. Each of the five models contain a dummy variable for method of registration (1 for SDR, 0 otherwise), the main independent variable. Model 1 is the base model, while Models 2-4 test the possible alternative explanations of race, partisanship and congressional districts.

Model 5 contains all of the variables.

Looking first at the 2008 general presidential election, Table 6.2, Model 1 shows that midterm turnout was higher for persons who registered before the October 10 closing date. Predicted probabilities reveal that same day registrants who registered after the closing date were about 3 percent less likely to vote in the 2010 midterms than their counterparts who had registered sooner. This fact suggests that SDR introduced to the electorate a small group of intermittent voters or seldom voters (Niven 2004).52

I now introduce controls for possible alternative explanations. The first is race.

The 2008 presidential election was unique in part because Barack Obama’s candidacy was the first time an African American won a major party’s nomination. Given that the

Obama campaign targeted North Carolina’s large African American community (Barone and Cohen 2009), it is probable that they registered numerous blacks who would not have otherwise been interested in voting. Indeed, his mere presence on the ballot likely generated high interest among blacks in the 2008 presidential election. This unique situation provides an excellent opportunity to test Hypothesis 6 among a group of people

52 Niven (2004) distinguishes among three groups of voters: consistent, seldom and intermittent. Consistent voters have a history of voting in most elections, while seldom voters are registered nonvoters who vote only in certain elections. Intermittent voters move in and out of the electorate, though not necessarily in a clear pattern.

143 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Variables 2008 SDR53 -.163** -.156** -.168** -.170** -.189** (gen. pres election) (.031) (.031) (.031) (.031) (.031) Black -.089** .243** (.021) (.025) Democrat -.047* -.002 (.024) (.026) Republican .754** .731** (.028) (.029) 8th Congressional District .412** -.357** (.020) (.021) Constant -1.05** -1.02** -1.229** -1.270** -1.474** (.010) (.013) (.019) (.015) (.024)

*p<.05, **p<.01

144 N=53,991 2 Pseudo R .0005 .0008 .0150 .0075 .0203

Table 6.2. Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year Voter Turnout (Mecklenburg County, North Carolina;54 All Voters55)

53 The excluded category is persons who registered prior to the closing date for the 2008 presidential election but after the May primary. 54 All of the coefficients below are from logit models. 55 These models include every person who registered to vote in Mecklenburg County between the 2008 primary and general presidential elections. Every person (observation) in each of the above models voted in the 2008 presidential general election. The dependent variable is whether someone also voted in the 2010 midterm elections.

144 that was mobilized and stood to benefit from the SDR law.56 For example, it is realistic to expect that because the 2010 midterm elections did not feature Obama as a candidate, the incentive that African Americans had to vote disappeared in 2010. If so, the SDR dummy variable would lose statistical significance.

Table 6.2, Model 2 introduces a control for the registrants’ race (1 if black, 0 otherwise), but the main independent variable retains statistical significance. In fact, its coefficients and standard errors are virtually unchanged from Model 1. Therefore, the relationships found in Model 1 cannot be written off as a function of the same day registrants’ race. Interestingly, the coefficient for the control variable is negative and statistically significant, meaning that black voters in 2008 had a lower probability of voting in the 2010 midterms than non-blacks. Such a finding could suggest that blacks were especially prone to leaving the electorate in 2010 since Obama was not on the ballot then. However, both black and white 2008 same day registrants were about 3 percent less likely to vote in 2010 than their counterparts who registered before the SDR window.

Among both groups of registered voters, whites were about 3 percent more likely than blacks to vote in a midterm election. Thus, the overall finding is that SDR reduces the likelihood of voting in a midterm election is not due to race.

Another alternative explanation is that, given the Obama campaign’s strong presence in the state, partisanship could explain differences in midterm election turnout.

After all, nearly 58 percent of same day registrants in 2008 declared themselves

Democrats. Furthermore, the 2010 midterms featured a strong showing nationwide among Republicans angry over health care reform and hoping to regain control of

56 Southern states like North Carolina are required by provisions in the Voting Rights Act of 1965 to report the race of all registered voters in their statewide voter files.

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Congress. Taken together, both factors make partisanship a plausible alternative explanation.

Table 6.2, Model 3 includes dummy variables for voter registration as a Democrat

(1 for Democrats, 0 for all others) and as a Republican (1 for Republicans, 0 otherwise), with unaffiliated registrants as the excluded category. Again, the coefficient for the main independent variable retains statistical significance and is almost identical to those in the first two models. The control variables are both statistically significant, though in different directions. In this model, the predicted probabilities tell much the same story as before with blacks. Consistent with expectations Democrats were about 15 percent less likely to vote in 2010 than Republicans, regardless of registration method. Same day registrants were about 3 percent less likely to vote in 2010 than traditional registrants in the same political party. Therefore, because the turnout declines from November 2008 to

November 2010 among both Democrats and Republicans are greater for same day registrants than early registrants, partisanship is not responsible.

What about the degree of competition across congressional districts? Might residents of the 8th Congressional District be more likely to vote given that their congressional race is regularly far more competitive than the 9th and 12th Congressional

Districts? Table 6.2, Model 4 includes a dummy variable for residence in the 8th

Congressional District (1 if yes, 0 otherwise). Strangely, however, constituents of the 8th

Congressional District were less likely to vote in a midterm election than Mecklenburg

County residents living in one of the other districts. This finding holds up regardless of registration method. As before same day registrants were about 3 percent less likely to vote in the 2010 midterms than earlier registrants.

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Finally, Model 5 includes all of the control variables. Like the partial models discussed already, the main independent variable retains its statistical significance. The coefficients and standard errors remain remarkably similar to those of the other models.

So do all the control variables. Ceteris paribus same day registrants in 2007 and 2008 were significantly, but only slightly, less likely to turn out in 2010.

Predicted probabilities in Figure 6.1 illustrate these effects. I provide them for both groups of registrants, with control variables held at their modal values (white,

0.7

0.6

0.575

0.5 0.495

0.4

0.329 0.3 0.286

0.2 0.186

Lines Indicate 95 Percent Confidence Intervals ConfidencePercent95 Lines Indicate 0.159 Probability of Voting in Voting the2010ofElections Midterm Probability

0.1

0 2007 Early 2007 SDR 2008 Primaries 2008 Primaries 2008 General 2008 General Registration Early SDR Early Elections SDR Registration Registration

Figure 6.1. Predicted Probabilities of Voting in Midterm Elections Based on Registration Method (All Voters)

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Democrat and a resident of either the 9th or 12th Congressional Districts). The figure shows that same day registrants voted in the 2010 midterms at a slightly lower rate than persons who had registered before the closing date in October. Still, however, overall turnout in the midterm elections was never more than one-fifth of both groups.

I now perform the same analyses for persons registering for the 2008 presidential primaries. Table 6.3 presents these results in the same manner as before. The base model depicts a negative, statistically significant relationship. Predicted probabilities (not shown) reveal that same day registrants were about 6 percent less likely to vote in the

2010 midterms than traditional registrants. Interestingly, however, both groups of presidential primary voters were about 15 to 18 percent more likely to vote in 2010 than those who had registered to vote in the general election. This finding suggests that the timing of registration, with primary registrants more likely to be higher interest voters, greatly influenced future voting regardless of whether SDR was used.

I introduce several control variables, following the same procedures as in Table

6.2. In Models 2-5, the SDR dummy variable retains statistical significance, indicating that persons who registered with SDR to vote in the 2008 primaries were less likely to vote in November 2010 than those who had completed traditional registration. This finding is not due to any of the control variables.

According to predicted probabilities based on Model 2, both blacks and whites were about 5 percent less likely to vote in 2010 if they used SDR. Blacks who had registered for the 2008 primaries were more likely than whites to vote in 2010, regardless of the registration method. Both Democrats and Republicans (Model 3) were more likely than Independents to vote in 2010. The magnitude of the relationship, according to

148 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Variables 2008 SDR57 -.247** -.238** -.234** -.240** -.202** (pres. primaries) (.054) (.054) (.054) (.054) (.055) Black .288** .467** (.032) (.037) Democrat .212** -.091* (.040) (.042) Republican .796** .861** (.073) (.073) 8th Congressional District .237** -.330** (.032) (.034) Constant -.258** -.415** -.463** -.380** -.805** (.017) (.025) (.035) (.024) (.044)

*p<.05, **p<.01

149 N=15,781 2

Pseudo R .0010 .0047 .0067 .0035 .0164

Table 6.3. Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Primary Voter Turnout (Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,58 All Voters59)

57 The excluded category is persons who registered prior to the closing date for the 2008 presidential primary. 58 All of the coefficients below are from logit models. 59 These models include every person who registered to vote in Mecklenburg County between the 2007 general election and the 2008 presidential primary. Every person (observation) in each of the above models voted in either the May 2008 primary. The dependent variable in each model is whether someone who voted in the May 2008 primary also voted in the 2010 midterm elections.

149 predicted probabilities, is the same as before, with Republicans about 15 percent more likely to vote in 2010. When looking only at one party at a time, traditional registrants were about 5 percent more likely than same day registrants to vote in 2010. This relationship was quite similar for residing in the 8th Congressional District (Model 4).

Finally, Model 5, which includes all of the control variables tells much the same story as before. For white Democrats who do not live in the 8th Congressional District, SDR reduces 2010 turnout by about 4 percent. A graph of predicted probabilities and 95 percent confidence intervals appears in Figure 6.1.

Lastly, Table 6.4 features the findings for persons who registered for

Mecklenburg County’s 2007 general elections. I include five models, as before. As with the two previous groups of registrants, persons completing SDR in 2007 were less likely to vote in 2010 than persons who had registered earlier. Here, however, the difference between the two groups is about 8 percent. Therefore, although the difference in midterm voter turnout between earlier and same day registrants is now greater than before, persons who cared enough to complete SDR in 2007 were still far more likely to vote in 2010 than same day registrants who registered a year later.

For each of the additional models, the dummy variable for SDR retains statistical significance, so the effect of SDR is not a function of one of these factors. Both black and white registrants who used SDR were about 7-8 percent less likely to vote in 2010 than members of the same race who had completed registration prior to the closing date.

Interestingly, unlike in Table 6.2, the black coefficient was positive, because, overall, within this group of registrants, blacks were more likely than whites to vote in 2010.

When controlling for political party affiliation (Model 3) and competitive congressional

150

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Variables 2007 SDR60 -.315** -.326** -.324** -.314** -.329** (.095) (.095) (.095) (.095) (.095) Black .469** .551** (.109) (.124) Democrat .352** .211 (.106) (.112) Republican .340** .369** (.123) (.124) 8th Congressional District .087 .219* (.095) (.102) Constant .555** .448** .314** .497** .097 (.056) (.061) (.088) (.084) (.115)

151 *p<.05, **p<.01

N=2,076 Pseudo R2 .0040 .0109 .0085 .0043 .0162

Table 6.4. Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. 2007 General Election Voter Turnout (Mecklenburg County, North Carolina,61 All Voters62)

61 All of the coefficients below are from logit models. 62 These models include every person who registered to vote in Mecklenburg County between the second primary and the November 2007 general election. Every person (observation) in each of the above models voted in the November 2007 general elections. The dependent variable in each model is whether someone who voted in the 2007 general election also voted in the 2010 midterm elections.

151 districts (Model 4), same day registrants were still less likely to vote in 2010 than persons who had registered earlier in 2007. Persons registering in 2007 as either a Democrat or

Republican were more likely than the unaffiliated to vote in 2010. However, predicted probabilities reveal that unlike in the 2008 general presidential election, there are no differences between Democrats and Republicans with respect to the likelihood that they would vote in 2010, probably because persons who registered to vote in 2007 were unlikely to be influenced by short term, election specific factors. Likewise, for this group of registered voters, residing in the 8th Congressional District has no effect on the probability of voting in 2010.

Finally, in the full model, same day registrants still exhibit a statistically significant lower chance of voting in 2010. Predicted probabilities based on modal values of all variables (white Democrats living in either the 9th or 12th Congressional Districts) reveal that same day registrants are about 8 percent less likely to vote in the 2010 midterm general elections than traditional registrants. Nevertheless, about half of these same day registrants still vote in 2010, a likelihood that is triple that of persons using

SDR to vote in the 2008 primaries. Figure 6.1 graphs these predicted probabilities.

Therefore, the timing of voter registration is every bit as important as the registration method when predicting subsequent voter turnout. Same day registrants who registered before all three elections were somewhat less likely to vote in 2010 than those meeting the closing date. More telling, however, is the fact that regardless of registration method, persons who registered before a local election were far more likely to vote in 2010 than people who had registered for either presidential election. Therefore, the timing of voter

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registration predicts future turnout in two ways: how soon before an election it occurs and the type of election for which one is drawn into voter registration.

Overview of Restricted Models (First Time Voters Only)

In this section I reestimate the same models as above, but with only young voters.

In many states like North Carolina, when someone registers to vote after having been previously registered in another county or state, election officials in the new county of residence create a new record and expunge the prior voting history that the old record contains. Therefore, the models estimated above likely include some individuals who had first registered to vote before moving to Mecklenburg County. This possibility is even more real given the high growth rate in Mecklenburg County over the last several decades.

As stated previously, my goal in this study is to learn whether same day registrants subsequently vote at lower rates than their counterparts who registered to vote earlier. Indeed, numerous academics, lawmakers and civic organizations advocated for

SDR, believing that it would enable many people to register to vote for the first time.

That all young persons must register to vote means that they are of particular interest to those advocating registration reforms. However, if numerous same day registrants voted regularly before they moved to Mecklenburg County, then the results presented above could lead to inaccurate conclusions about the subsequent effects of SDR on first-time registrants. Specifically, I would risk overestimating the rates at which they voted in a future election. Furthermore, young persons are less likely to acquire the habit of voting in all elections, something that develops gradually (Plutzer 2002). In this way they could

153

be different from other adults. If so the results of the full models just presented would not apply to young persons.

Thus, I replicate the analyses above with models that include only young persons.

Young persons included in the restricted models were first-time voters in either 2007 or

2008. The restricted models contain registered voters whose ages ranged from 18 and 21 during those years because their first election is the first one in which they were at least

18, eliminating the possibility that they had registered elsewhere before moving to

Mecklenburg County.

Table 6.5 provides overall statistics for young registrants, grouping them into the same categories as Table 6.1 had done for all newly registered Mecklenburg County citizens. On the whole, the figures are similar to those of Table 6.1. For each of the first three elections in which SDR was available, the number of new voter registrations increased. About 160 young persons registered to vote in the 2007 general election with

43 percent using SDR to do so. For the 2008 presidential primaries about 2,300 young persons registered for the first time with 10 percent using SDR. The general election saw triple this number of new registrants, 12 percent of whom used SDR. One notable difference, however, is that the number of young persons registering in 2007 was extremely small, but these voters were somewhat more likely than older voters to use

SDR. The reason for this observation is unclear though it could stem from the fact that

Obama was not yet on the ballot.

The second half of Table 6.5 depicts those who registered before each of these elections broken down by race, partisanship and congressional district. New registrants in

2007 were about 70 percent white, regardless of registration method. Democrats

154 2007 General Election 2008 Primaries 2008 General Election

New Registrants Sept. 12 – Nov. 3, 2007 Nov. 4, 2007 – May 3, 2008 May 4 – Nov. 1, 2008

Trad. Registration 90 (57%) 2,093 (90%) 5,905 (88%) SDR 68 (43%) 235 (10%) 842 (12%)

Totals 158 2,328 6,747

Traditional Registrants Same Day Registrants Traditional – Same Day Registrants

Race

White 71 percent 69 percent +2 155 Black 29 31 -2

Partisanship

Democrat 43 percent 42 percent +1 Republican 33 41 -8 Nonpartisan 24 18 +6

B Continued

Table 6.5. Cross-Tabulations for Mecklenburg County, North Carolina; Young Voters ONLY: A Voter Registration before Recent Elections in Mecklenburg County, B Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, Sept. 12 – Nov. 3, 2007, C Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, Nov. 4, 2007 – May 3, 2008, D Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Mecklenburg County, May 4 – Nov. 1, 2007

155

Table 6.5 continued

Traditional Registrants Same Day Registrants Traditional – Same Day Registrants

Race

White 61 percent 64 percent -3 Black 39 36 +3

Partisanship

Democrat 65 percent 75 percent -10 Republican 9 4 +5 Nonpartisan 25 20 +5

156 Race

White 53 percent 56 percent -3 Black 47 44 +3

Partisanship

Democrat 54 percent 62 percent -8 Republican 16 14 +2 Nonpartisan 30 23 +7 Continued

156

Table 6.5 continued

Traditional Registrants Same Day Registrants Traditional – Same Day Registrants

Congressional Districts

th 8 23 percent 27 percent -4 9th & 12th 77 73 +4

Note: The figures in this table include only persons who were between 18 and 21 years old who registered to vote in Mecklenburg County during the specified time periods.

157

157 comprised about 40 percent of both groups. Republicans were a similar percentage of same day registrants, up from about one-third of traditional registrants. Nonpartisans form a greater presence among traditional registrants, implying that same day registrants were slightly more partisan than earlier registrants.

Among persons registering between this election and the May 2008 primaries, only 60 percent of traditional registrants and 64 percent of same day registrants were white. However, both groups were overwhelmingly Democratic with fewer than one in

10 Republicans. By this time, of course, then-Senators Clinton and Obama were nearing the end of their long-fought campaign for their party’s nomination. Obama’s victory was very likely, though Clinton did not suspend her campaign for another month. On the other hand, John McCain had long ago secured the Republican nomination, so Republicans, at least at the presidential level, had little to vote on. Between 20 and 25 percent of these registrants were Independents, as North Carolina holds semi-open primaries.

Before the general election, African Americans accounted for almost half the new, young people who registered before the closing date. Forty-four percent of same day registrants were black. Among new, young voters, just over half of the traditional registrants were Democrats, as were 62 percent of the same day registrants. This increase appears to be due to efforts by those campaigning for Obama to register likely supporters with SDR. Independents represented about 30 percent of traditional registrants and 23 percent of same day registrants. Finally, the competitive 8th Congressional District saw registration jump 5 percent among those using SDR.

Blacks comprise higher percentages of newly registered young persons than they did among all registered voters, especially for both presidential elections. For the general

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election, nearly half the new registrants were black. Solid majorities of new persons registered as Democrats, especially for the presidential primary. Except for the 2007 election, Democrats outnumbered Republicans and Independents by a greater margin among same day registrants than earlier registrants. On the other hand, blacks consistently formed a higher percentage of traditional registrants.

Results of Restricted Models (Young Voters Only)

I now present logit models and predicted probabilities that depict the voting behavior of young voters based on their method of voter registration. They appear in

Tables 6.8-6.9 and parallel the models presented in Tables 6.4-6.5 that contained all voters in Mecklenburg County.63 My findings among young voters are somewhat different from those based on voters of all ages.

First, Table 6.6 examines the effects of registration method before the 2008 presidential election on voter turnout in the 2010 midterms. Interestingly, the main independent variable fails to attain statistical significance in all five models, meaning that, although the sign is negative (the hypothesized direction), there is no real difference in 2010 voter turnout among the two groups of registrants. Indeed, the confidence intervals for these groups overlap considerably. Other than the constant, only

Republicans (Model 3) and the constituents of the 8th Congressional District were more likely to vote in 2010 regardless of the registration method.

Interestingly, in the full model, the black dummy variable becomes positive and statistically significant. Still, however, the main independent variable does not attain statistical significance, suggesting that perhaps the young persons who registered late to

63 I also estimated the same model for those registering to vote in the November 2007 general elections. However, with only 168 young persons registered during that period, nothing attains statistical significance. Therefore, I do not present these results. The N is likely too small.

159 (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Variable 2008 SDR64 -.041 -.040 -.023 -.035 -.031 (pres. general election) (.102) (.102) (.103) (.103) (.103) Black -.014 .354** (.065) (.081) Democrat .022 -.111 (.079) (.087) Republican .810** .807** (.091) (.093) 8th Congressional District .350** .260** (.065) (.069) Constant -1.879** -1.874** -2.053** -2.017** -2.232** (.034) (.043) (.064) (.044) (.074)

*p<.05, **p<.01

160 N=8,519 2 Pseudo R .0000 .0000 .0154 .0043 .0197

Table 6.6. Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year Voter Turnout; Young Voters ONLY 65 (Mecklenburg County, North Carolina66)

64 The excluded category is persons who registered prior to the closing date for the 2008 presidential election but after the May primary. 65 The models in this table include only persons who were between 18 and 21 years old when they registered to vote in Mecklenburg County prior to the 2008 general presidential election and who voted in this election. The dependent variable in each model is whether someone also voted in the 2010 midterm elections. 66 All of the coefficients below are from logit models.

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vote for President were no less interested in politics than those who had registered earlier.

However, only about 8 percent of either group voted in 2010. Figure 6.2 presents these findings along with 95 percent confidence intervals.

Table 6.7 presidential primary registrants, tells a much different story. In each of these models, same day registrants who registered just before the 2008 presidential primaries were less likely to vote in 2010 than traditional registrants, perhaps because they had registered to vote for Obama. Predicted probabilities based on Model 1 (contains no controls) reveal that same day registrants are about 6 percent less likely to vote in

2010 than traditional registrants. Both groups, however, return to the polls at higher rates than anyone who first voted in the general election. This finding holds up in each of the subsequent models with control variables. Model 2 shows that registered blacks were actually more likely than whites to vote in 2010 regardless of when they registered. The same is true for both Democrats and Republicans relative to Independents (Model 3).

Both groups of registered Republicans were more likely to vote in 2010 than Democrats, but the gap based on registration method was greater for Republicans (10 percent) than

Democrats (about 7 percent). Living in the 8th Congressional District had no effect on voting in 2010. Finally, in the full model, the statistical significance disappears for

Democrats, but the relationship remains similar (about a 5.5 percent decrease in 2010 voter turnout among same day registrants). Figure 6.2 displays these findings.

Young voters differ from older voters in several respects. First, they vote in future elections at much lower rates than older voters, even if they registered before the same

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0.25

0.2

0.172

0.15

0.119 0.1 0.088 0.085

0.05

Lines Indicate 95 Percent Confidence Intervals ConfidencePercent95 Lines Indicate Probability of Voting in Voting the2010ofElections Midterm Probability

0 2008 Primaries Early 2008 Primaries SDR 2008 General Early 2008 General Elections Registration Registration SDR Method of Voter Registration

Figure 6.2. Predicted Probabilities of Voting in Midterm Election Based on Registration Method (ONLY Young Voters) election. Second, registration method before the 2008 general election does not predict voting in 2010. The reason for this finding is not entirely clear, however, it may stem from the fact that all young voters were less likely to keep voting and there were many fewer young voters.

Discussion

Taken together the models for both all voters and only young persons reveal that persons who registered with SDR were somewhat less likely to vote in the 2010 midterms

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(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Variable 2008 SDR67 -.475** -.480** -.452** -.465** -.431* (pres. primaries) (.169) (.169) (.170) (.169) (.171) Black .283** .543** (.093) (.113) Democrat .311** .168 (.115) (.121) Republican 1.075** 1.205** (.169) (.174) 8th Congressional District .097 .164 (.092) (.103) Constant -1.112** -1.272** -1.432** -1.158** -1.737** (.048) (.073) (.101) (.065) (.133)

*p<.05, **p<.01

163 N=2,607 2

Pseudo R .0030 .0062 .0168 .0034 .0251

Table 6.7. Effects of Registration Method on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Primary Voter Turnout; Young Voters ONLY68 (Mecklenburg County, North Carolina69)

67 The excluded category is persons who registered prior to the closing date for the 2008 general presidential election but after the 2007 general election. 68 The models in this table include only persons who were between 18 and 21 years old when they registered to vote in Mecklenburg County prior to the 2008 presidential primary and who voted in that election. The dependent variable is whether someone who voted in the 2008 presidential primary election also voted in the 2010 midterm elections. 69 All of the coefficients below are from logit models.

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than their counterparts who had completed voter registration before the closing date. In most cases the differences in turnout were no more than 3 percent, though the differences were greater for young persons who registered in order to vote in the 2008 presidential primaries. Furthermore, these differences persisted even after introducing controls.

Therefore, they cannot be attributed to the new registrants’ race, partisanship and residence in a competitive congressional district.

In addition, predicted probabilities based on the logit coefficients reveal that the differences in midterm voter turnout between same day and traditional registrants were greater for certain groups of people than others. For example more Republican same day registrants dropped out of the electorate in 2010 than Democratic same day registrants who had registered for and voted in the general presidential election. The reason for this result is not clear. Generally speaking if the group’s overall turnout in 2010 was relatively high, then the gap between same day and traditional registrants was greater.

Another major finding concerns the importance of when (before which election) someone registers for predicting voter turnout. Among all voters who registered before the 2008 general election regardless of registration method, between 15 and 20 percent voted in the 2010 midterm elections. Thousands fewer registered before the 2007 general election, which only included city and county elections. These elections typically generate far less publicity than even a midterm election. Yet about 50 percent of these same day registrants voted in 2010 even though they had registered a year earlier than the presidential registrants. This finding challenges previous research like (Erikson 1981) that concludes that voter registration is such a crucial hurdle to clear. Just because someone registers to vote does not mean that they will vote in future elections.

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Presidential elections, particularly the most recent contest, appear to draw into the electorate people with a less consistent interest in politics than those who register before local elections.

More generally these analyses demonstrate the ability of a new voter registration law to expand an electorate permanently. In each of the first three elections with SDR, thousands of citizens used this method to register to vote. The effect of SDR on turnout is clearly discernible. Yet these analyses also reveal its limitations, namely that these registrants are somewhat less likely than other voters to continue voting in the future.

They also provide guidance for boosting voter turnout among registered voters. Those who register to vote in high-visibility elections will need additional attention from GOTV efforts since they appear to be less interested in politics than persons who registered to vote in lower profile elections. At the same time, the models’ low R2 values demonstrate that many other factors predict turnout than the timing and method of voter registration.

Based on these findings regarding SDR, changes to voter registration laws offer some promise to improving low rates of voter turnout in the United States. However, scholars and civic organizations who hold this goal must focus their efforts on other areas too if they are to be successful. I now continue with an examination of Iowa, the second of the four state case studies.

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CHAPTER 7: IOWA AND ELECTION DAY REGISTRATION COMBINED WITH SAME DAY REGISTRATION AND EARLY VOTING

Introduction

Overview of Voter Registration Laws in Iowa

While North Carolina now permits both SDR and early voting, Iowa allows EDR in addition to these two practices. Consequently, Iowans may register at any time up to and including on election day and vote.70 Therefore, Iowa, along with a few other states, arguably has the most facilitative voter registration laws in the country. This fact makes

Iowa an excellent state in which to examine the longer term effects of liberalized voter registration laws. If the laws successfully introduce new people into the electorate and retain them in future years, such effects should be most apparent in Iowa.

These policies have been in place for all elections held after January 1, 2008.

Previously, state law required anyone wishing to vote in state elections to complete voter registration at least 10 days before election day, i.e. no later than the second Friday before elections occurring on Tuesdays. This deadline remains in effect for mail registration, which must be postmarked at least 15 days before election day and/or received by the deadline. However, the new laws allow both EDR and SDR (known as “in-person

70 Note that many states with SDR but not EDR, e.g. North Carolina, have “dead” periods during which no one may register or vote. Iowa has no such period. 166

absentee registration”) because unregistered citizens may now visit the county Board of

Elections offices, complete voter registration and cast a ballot (see Table 7.1 below).

This chapter proceeds as follows. I begin with a review of voter turnout and registration in recent Iowa elections. Then, I briefly describe the Iowa voter file and its contents. Before presenting my results, I display characteristics of persons who registered to vote in Iowa prior to the 2008 primary and general elections and the 2010 primary broken down by the timing of registration, i.e. “traditional” registration, SDR and EDR. I then show and explain the results. Finally, I conclude with a more general discussion of my results’ implications.

______

2008 2010

Primaries71 General Election Primaries General Election

Closing date May 23 October 24 May 21 October 22 SDR begins May 24 October 25 May 22 October 23 SDR ends June 2 November 3 June 7 November 1 Election Day June 3 November 4 June 8 November 2 ______Table 7.1. EDR, SDR and Early Voting in Iowa

Like many states Iowa holds it gubernatorial elections at the same time as congressional midterm elections. In 2010, Republican Terry Branstad easily defeated the

Democratic incumbent Chet Culver. That same year, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley convincingly defeated his Democratic challenger to earn a sixth term. Meanwhile, because of the state’s nonpartisan redistricting procedures, elections in Iowa’s five

71 The Iowa primaries are for congressional races and not to be confused with the Iowa caucuses that select each party’s presidential nominees. 167

congressional districts are generally more competitive than in most states. In 2010, competition was toughest in the First District, which includes much of northeastern Iowa and a portion of the Quad Cities. Democratic incumbent Bruce Braley beat an aggressive challenger 50-48 percent (Barone and McCutcheon 2011).

Overview of Analyses

To a large extent, the analyses presented in this chapter follow those of

Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, only I now can compare same day and election day registrants with traditional registrants. I use Iowa’s statewide voter registration and history file which I purchased from the Secretary of State’s office as my data source. Like

Mecklenburg County, the file contains registered voters’ dates of registration, age, congressional district and political party affiliation. However, unlike in North Carolina,

Iowa does not record registered voters’ race.72

However, the Iowa voter file offers a key advantage over that of other states. In most states, including North Carolina, when a registered voter moves to a new address, he or she must reregister at the new address. If the old and new addresses are in different counties, election officials expunge the old registration and the person’s voting history at the old address. Iowans who move from one Iowa county to another must also reregister, but the voter file retains their history under the old registration. The date listed as “date of registration” is the date on which county elections officials processed the person’s voter registration application. However, if the voter history file states that someone had voted before this date, then that person is merely updating his or her registration following a

72 Iowa lacks a history of racial discrimination, so the Justice Department does not require the state to collect and make this information available. 168

move. 73 Thus, I am able to control for prior history to determine more conclusively the extent to which first time registrants use the new procedures and whether such persons are less likely to vote in future elections than persons using EDR to reregister in their new counties. Consequently, in this chapter, I analyze voters of all ages simultaneously without undertaking separate analyses for young persons.

Results

Overview

Before testing Hypothesis 6 – that people who register with EDR or SDR are as likely to vote in a future election as people who had registered prior to traditional deadlines - I present data on the numbers of Iowans registering to vote before the 2008 primary and general elections and the 2010 primaries, broken down by method of registration.74 When testing Hypothesis 6, I include all voters registering before each of the above contests. I control for age, whether the registrant has a prior voting history and political party affiliation. As in the previous chapter, I estimate logit models and provide predicted probabilities to show the magnitude of the observed changes.

Table 7.2 depicts the numbers of new voter registrations processed in Iowa before the 2008 and 2010 primaries and the 2008 general election.75 I break these figures down

73 For example if a 44-year-old’s date of registration is listed as November 4, 2008, but he or she also voted on November 2, 2004, then this person is not a newly registered voter. 74 The Iowa primaries, held on the first Tuesday in June, are not to be confused with the presidential caucuses. Iowa holds these primaries for congressional and statewide offices. 75 Because this voter file contains the last five elections of each type (general, primary, school, city and special), I can be sure that the primary or general election in question is indeed the first election in which someone could have voted. Thus, I obtained the dates depicted at the top of Table 7.2 in this manner. 169

2008 Primary 2008 General Election 2010 Primary

New Registrants May 7 – June 3, 2008 Oct. 8 – Nov. 4, 2008 May 12 – June 8, 2010

Trad. Registration 32 (3.30%) 28,222 (38.43%) 692 (23.67%) SDR 166 (17.13%) 7,041 (9.59%) 315 (10.77%) EDR 771 (79.57%) 38,178 (51.98%) 1,917 (65.56%)

Totals 969 73,441 2,924

Traditional Registrants SDR EDR Traditional Registrants - EDR

Prior History

170 Yes 16 percent 28 percent 30 percent -14 percent No 84 72 70 +14

Partisanship

Democrat 72 percent 60 percent 53 percent +19 percent Republican 25 33 41 -16

Age (mean) 28.03 44.72 37.13 +8.08 Age (std. dev.) 15.11 20.36 17.07

B Continued

Table 7.2. Newly Registered Voters in Iowa: A Voter Registration before Recent State Elections in Iowa, B Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Iowa, May 7 - June 3, 2008, C Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Iowa, Oct. 8 – Nov. 4, 2008, D Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Iowa, May 12 - June 8, 2010

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Table 7.2 continued

Traditional Registrants SDR EDR Traditional Registrants - EDR

Prior History

Yes 28 percent 32 percent 26 percent +2 percent No 72 68 74 -2

Partisanship

Democrat 34 percent 31 percent 29 percent +5 percent Republican 21 22 22 -1

Age (mean) 33.52 35.57 31.68 +1.49 Age (std. dev.) 16.39 15.94 13.00

171 C continued

171

Table 7.2 continued

Traditional Registrants SDR EDR Traditional Registrants - EDR

Prior History

Yes 42 percent 50 percent 48 percent -6 percent No 58 50 52 +6

Democrat 27 percent 31 percent 19 percent +8 percent Republican 72 65 78 -6

Age (mean) 45.76 44.20 36.39 +7.46 Age (std. dev.) 23.88 22.88 19.17

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by method of registration: EDR, SDR and “traditional registration.” Unlike in North

Carolina, “traditional registration” is defined here as any voter registration processed after the most recent previous election and at least 10 days before election day since that remains the “traditional” closing date for all voter registration applications received by mail. This table also presents much information about the voters with respect to their partisanship and age and whether they are reregistering in a new county.

Which voter registration method is most popular among Iowans? Interestingly, solid majorities of new registrants who wanted to vote in either primary used EDR to register, while far fewer registered at least 10 days before election day. Very few Iowans used SDR to register in any of the three elections – between 10 and 20 percent.

Therefore, many citizens appear to procrastinate, even until election day.

The picture is somewhat different before the 2008 presidential election. Here, about 38 percent of the newly registered Iowans registered traditionally – before October

24. Approximately 52 percent (38,178) completed EDR while only about 7,000 used

SDR. A total of 73,441 Iowans cast their first vote in the 2008 presidential election.

How do election and same day registrants compare to traditional registrants? The voter file contains much helpful demographic information about all registered Iowans.

Beginning with primary voters in 2008, I see that no more than 30 percent had a prior history. Democrats outnumber Republicans in all three groups, especially among

“traditional” registrants. However, they enjoy only an 8-point advantage over

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Republicans among those who registered on election day.76 Election day registrants were on average about 37, while “traditional” registrants were much younger and same day registrants were older.

To a large extent, these figures are similar for presidential election voters. The

Democratic advantage is greatest for traditional registrants and smallest for election day registrants. Interestingly, many people do not declare a partisan affiliation. These voters are all in their early to mid-thirties, with election day registrants slightly younger than the other two groups. Individuals registering before the 2010 primaries were more likely to have a prior history (nearly 50 percent did so) than in the other two elections. In addition, reflecting the anti-incumbent sentiment in 2010, between two-thirds and four-fifths of these citizens registered as Republicans. As in the 2008 primaries, election day registrants were, on average, about seven or eight years younger than the other two groups.

Findings

Tables 7.3, 7.4 and 7.5 depict the estimations of logistic regression models for people registering before the 2008 presidential election, 2008 primaries and 2010 primaries, respectively. The dependent variable in all three models is whether the registered voters, all of whom voted for the first time in one of these three elections, also voted in the general midterm elections on November 2, 2010. For each election I begin with only the two main independent variables. Next, I introduce the following controls,

76 Primaries in Iowa are semi-open, meaning that voters may request a ballot for the party of their choice. However, if this party is different from the one they had declared upon registration, the elections officials will change their affiliation. 174

one at a time: prior registration in Iowa, age and partisanship. The full models appear last.

Each election contains findings that differ somewhat from the other two. Taken together

these estimates offer interesting insights into the longer term effects of easier voter

registration methods on turnout.

I begin with persons who had registered to vote in the 2008 general election

(Table 7.3). People using either SDR or EDR were indeed less likely to vote in the 2010

general election than others who had registered earlier (the excluded category). This

relationship for EDR holds up in all five models; for SDR, it fails to attain statistical

significance only in the absence of all controls and when controlling for partisanship.

Among the controls persons who had previously registered, older people and registered

Republicans were more likely to vote in 2010 than others.

Table 7.4 contains for all five models predicted probabilities of the change in the

likelihood of voting in 2010 relative to “traditional” registrants as the EDR and SDR

dummy variables shift from 0 to 1. I hold the remaining variables at their modal values.77

The predicted probabilities displayed next to each of the control variables show their

impact. For example the Republican figure is the predicted probability for a Republican

election day registrant minus that of an unaffiliated election day registrant. Even with all

the control variables (Model 5), persons who registered on November 4, 2008 were about

7.4 percent less likely to vote two years later than persons who had registered at least 10

77 As shown in Table 7.2, these values are no prior history, no political affiliation and 42 years old. In the case of age, however, the figures are the difference in predicted probabilities of the oldest persons minus the youngest persons in the sample. 175

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Variables

2008 EDR -.405** -.398** -.360** -.425** -.376** (.017) (.017) (.017) (.017) (.018) 2008 SDR -.040 -.082** -.099** -.051 -.141** (.028) (.029) (.029) (.028) (.030) Prior registration 1.027** .909** (.017) (.018) Age .028** .026** (.001) (.001) Democrat .001 -.024 (.019) (.020)

176 Republican .822** .778** (.020) (.021)

Constant -.572** -.888** -1.534** -.755** -1.891** (.012) (.014) (.023) (.016) (.026)

*p<.05, **p<.01

N 73,441 73,441 73,441 73,441 73,441 Pseudo R .0068 .0451 .0374 .0277 .0858

Table 7.3. Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year Voter Turnout

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______

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Variables

2008 EDR -.087** -.075** -.084** -.085** - .074** 2008 SDR -.009** -.017** -.024** -.011** - .029** Prior registration .219** .197** Age .388** .303** Democrat .0002** -.004* Republican .176** .165** ______Table 7.4. Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year Voter Turnout: Predicted Probabilities

days sooner. Same day registrants were about 3 percent less likely to vote than traditional registrants. All of these effects are statistically significant, the controls exhibit a stronger ability to predict turnout than the timing of registration. Persons who had been previously registered in Iowa were about 20 percent more likely to vote than those without an in- state history as a registered voter. Age has the greatest effect at 30 percent from the youngest (age 18) to older voters (age 80). Registered Republicans were about 17 percent more likely to vote again in 2010 than unregistered citizens and Democrats.

What about people who had registered to vote in the 2008 primaries? Statewide, only about 1,000 people registered during this period. Table 7.5 reveals that the situation is considerably different than among those who registered to vote in that year’s general election, while Table 7.6 depicts predicted probabilities obtained in the same manner as

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(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Variables

2008 EDR 1.014* .864* .797 .972* .677 (.429) (.443) (.437) (.435) (.462) 2008 SDR .850 .694 .455 .858 .423 (.455) (.470) (.468) (.461) (.494) Prior registration 1.249** 1.128** (.161) (.166) Age .025** .019** (.004) (.005) Democrat .020 -.018 (.305) (.322) Republican .736* .679* (.314) (.331)

178 Constant -.865* -1.134** -1.573** -1.117* -1.874**

(.421) (.436) (.447) (.521) (.566)

*p<.05, **p<.01 N 793 793 793 793 793 Pseudo R .006 .0647 .0372 .0271 .1001

Table 7.5. Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year Primary Voter Turnout

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______

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Variables

2008 EDR .241 .189 .196 .217 .147 2008 SDR .200 .148 .110 .189 .088 Prior registration .294** .273** Age .350** .282** Democrat .005 .004 Republican .180** .168* ______Table 7.6. Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year Voter Turnout: Predicted Probabilities

those for the previous model. Here, neither of the main independent variables attains statistical significance, meaning that there is no discernible turnout decline among election and same day registrants relative to those who registered traditionally. Instead, only the controls predict whether people voted subsequently, and they maintain about the same substantive significance as among the 2008 general election registrants. They behave in the same manner as before, though Democrat fails to reach statistical significance. The likely reason, of course, is that the political parties experienced an

“enthusiasm gap” in 2010, with Democratic turnout suffering nationwide, while

Republicans felt energized.

Lastly, I follow newly registered voters from the 2010 primaries to the general election some five months later. Table 7.7 depicts my findings, which also deviate from the two previous groups of voters. Consistent with the 2008 general election, the coefficients for the two main independent variables are negative, though only SDR is

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(1) (2) (3) (4)

Variables

2010 EDR -.333 -.111 -.111 -.110 (.209) (.217) (.217) (.217) 2010 SDR -.877** -.784** -.784** -.747** (.277) (.280) (.280) (.282) Age .016** .016** .017** (.004) (.004) (.004) Democrat -.372 (.478) Republican -.005 (.462) Constant 1.923** 1.082** 1.114** 1.132* (.189) (.278) (.272) (.536)

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*p<.05, **p<.01

N 1,293 1,293 1,293 1,293 Pseudo R .0084 .0224

Table 7.7. Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Same Year Primary Voter Turnout

180

______

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Variables 2008 EDR -.042 -.015 -.039** -.014 2008 SDR -.132** -.128** -.118** -.115** Age .126** .124** Democrat -.053 -.054 Republican .009 -.001 ______Table 7.8. Effects of Registration Methods on Midterm vs. Previous Presidential Year Voter Turnout: Predicted Probabilities

statistically significant. In the full model, same day registrants are about 12 percent less likely to vote in the 2010 midterms than traditional registrants (see Table 7.8). Otherwise, neither control for political party registration predicts turnout in the 2010 general election among those who voted in the primaries. Indeed, persons who registered specifically to vote in such an election appear to be quite concerned about political participation, especially relative to the rest of the general population.

Discussion

To some extent my findings in Iowa are similar to those for Mecklenburg County,

North Carolina. Once again I have uncovered evidence that persons who use same or election day registration to participate in presidential elections are less likely than others to vote again in the midterm election two years later. This finding indeed suggests an unintended consequence: that laws intended to boost voter turnout have introduced into the electorate citizens with less interest in politics than people who register much earlier,

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particularly in presidential elections. Therefore, many such persons who register to vote in elections with unusually high publicity stay home in subsequent elections lacking this limelight.

Interestingly, however, the magnitude of the turnout differences between same day and traditional registrants is greater in Iowa than in Mecklenburg County. Despite the availability of SDR in both jurisdictions, the decline is greater in Iowa (about 7 percent as opposed to around 3 percent in Mecklenburg County). The reason for this discrepancy is unclear, though it could stem from socioeconomic differences between a single county in

North Carolina and the entire state of Iowa. In addition Iowa is the first case study state that allows EDR. After controlling for prior history, age and partisanship, those registering on November 4, 2008 were about 7 percent less likely to vote two years later than persons who registered at least 10 days earlier. This difference is greater than any other difference observed previously, and it is about twice that of SDR.

The Iowa analyses contain other insights as well. The most important is my ability to control for prior history as a registered Iowa voter, something I lack both in

Mecklenburg County and the remaining case studies. Regardless of one’s first election after registering, previously-registered persons are 20-25 percent more likely to vote in the subsequent midterm election than others. Thus, people using EDR or SDR to reregister after moving to a new county are, not surprisingly, more likely to keep voting than persons for whom a given election piqued their interest. Furthermore, Republicans were more likely to vote again in 2010 than Democrats. Yet because of the widely known

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momentum they experienced in 2010, it is conceivable that this finding could be reversed in another year.

So far the Mecklenburg County and Iowa case studies show that later registrants are indeed less likely to keep voting than persons who registered before traditional deadlines. However, both case studies track persons registering in 2008 to see whether they vote in the midterm elections. The principal model, of course, examines those whose first election was the presidential election. Given that turnout in midterm elections is consistently lower than in presidential contests, this test is stringent. But because these two states changed their laws in 2007, I am unable to track persons from one presidential or midterm election to the next. Therefore, the next chapter contains two additional state case studies – Minnesota and Idaho – to examine the turnout effects of registration methods across two presidential elections since these two states enacted EDR much earlier. Although both allow EDR, Minnesota reserves absentee and early voting for persons with excuses while all previously registered Idahoans are allowed to use either procedure.

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CHAPTER 8: MINNESOTA AND IDAHO STATE CASE STUDIES

Introduction

I now continue with the two remaining case studies that comprise Study 2 –

Minnesota and Idaho. Because North Carolina and Iowa enacted SDR and EDR, respectively, in 2007, I cannot use them to examine four year election cycles. However,

Minnesota and Idaho both established EDR much earlier and make available the necessary data. In this chapter, then, I begin with Minnesota which permits EDR but without early or no excuse absentee voting. Next, I study Idaho which allows EDR while also offering early and no excuse absentee voting to its registered voters. In doing so I follow the same format as in the two previous chapters; I start with background information, provide characteristics of new registrants by registration method and present the results themselves for presidential and midterm elections followed by 2008 to 2010 findings.

Election Day Registration in Minnesota

Overview of Minnesota Election Laws

Recall from Chapter 3 that Hanmer’s (2009) archival research reviewing the debates the Minnesota legislature held in 1973 regarding whether to adopt EDR finds an

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abiding concern about the harm of low voter turnout on the overall effectiveness of government. Many legislators worried that the state’s three week closing date lessened voter turnout. With EDR citizens who may not have registered previously could still have their voices heard. Following implementation Hanmer finds modest turnout increases.

Interestingly, however, during the last three weeks before election day, county registrars do not process any new registrations. Thus, Minnesota does not offer early voting. Absentee voting is reserved for persons planning to be out of town on election day or who are ill or have permanent disabilities that would prevent them from voting in person. Consequently, if a Minnesotan misses the closing date and is out of town on election day, he or she cannot register and vote. In addition, because registered voters without one of the above excuses must vote at their polling place on election day, this law could mean that fewer previously-registered Minnesotans can continue voting relative to their counterparts residing in states that offer early and no excuse absentee voting.

Voter Registration and Turnout in Minnesota

Voter registration and turnout rates in Minnesota are typically among the top two or three states nationwide. Table 8.1 compares state and national figures for presidential and midterm elections between 2004 and 2010.78 In all four elections, Minnesota turnout is between 14 and 18 percent higher than nationwide turnout. Likewise, state voter registration is about 7 to 8 percent higher than nationwide registration. Interestingly,

78 Minnesota holds its gubernatorial elections on the same day as congressional elections. In 2006 Minnesotans reelected Republican Tim Pawlenty to a second term by a margin of only 1 percent over his Democratic challenger. Four years later Democrat Mark Dayton defeated Republican Tom Emmer by fewer than 9,000 votes. In the Senate Democrat Amy Klobuchar won a first term handily in 2006. During the summer of 2009, the Minnesota Supreme Court declared Democrat Al Franken the winner of the 2008 Senate election against incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. Thus, the state did not have a Senate race in 2010 (Barone and McCutcheon 2011). 185

______

Year Minnesota United States MN - US

2004 78.4 percent 60.1 percent 18.3 percent 2008 77.8 61.6 16.2

2008-2004 -0.6 1.5

2006 60.1 40.4 19.7 2010 55.4 41.0 14.4

2010-2006 -4.7 0.6

2004 90.6 82.0 8.6 2008 91.1 83.1 8.0

2008-2004 0.5 1.1

2006 85.7 78.1 7.6 2010 85.9 78.8 7.1

2010-2006 0.2 0.7

whereas turnout increases nationwide for both presidential and midterm elections,

Minnesota turnout declines somewhat, especially for the midterm elections. Meanwhile,

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registration rates rise marginally during this time for both Minnesota and the United

States as a whole, though slightly more in the former.

Overview of Analyses

As with the previous state case studies, I use the state voter registration and history file to test the relevant hypotheses. The Minnesota study is statewide since the

Secretary of State maintains a single file for the entire state; county officials submit data to this file. I perform three related analyses: presidential elections, midterm elections and turnout decline from 2008 to 2010 (as in North Carolina and Iowa). Each analysis tracks persons who registered to vote anytime between the day after the state primaries and election day itself; the state primaries generally occur on the second Tuesday of

September.79 Therefore, I have three sets of logit estimates for voters registering prior to the 2004, 2006 and 2008 general elections. The dependent variable for the first two models is whether the person voted in the next election of the same type (presidential or midterm), while the last dependent variable is whether someone who registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election also voted in the 2010 midterms.

However, unlike in North Carolina and Iowa, I do not control for partisan registration because Minnesota does not have it. In the last model (tracking turnout from

2008 to 2010), I include a control for residence in the 8th Congressional District. This district, which comprises Duluth and a significant portion of northeastern Minnesota, was intensely competitive in 2010, when Republican Chip Cravaack defeated longtime incumbent James Oberstar by just over 4,000 votes. Initially, few anticipated a close

79 Because of the file’s structure, I am unable to determine whether any special elections occurred during the time periods of interest. 187

contest; however, the Tea Party-backed Cravaack managed a narrow upset. I control for residence in this district to the unusually close election that year. Age is the only remaining control, and it appears in each model.

Before turning my attention to the results of the three logit models, Table 8.2 displays basic information like the number of people using each registration method and differences between election day and “traditional” registrants. It shows that hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans used EDR. Between the 2004 primary and general elections, the state processed almost 219,000 new voter registrations.80 Of those nearly 85 percent utilized EDR. Interestingly, during the corresponding period in 2008, nearly 495,000

Minnesotans registered for the first time; about 81 percent used EDR to do so.

Meanwhile, prior to the 2006 midterm elections, about 144,000 people registered, nearly

93 percent of whom used EDR.

Do election day registrants differ from “traditional” registrants? In both 2004 and

2006, election day registrants were, on average, three to five years younger than those who registered sooner. Both groups’ average ages were in their early to middle forties. In

2008, however, the average age for both groups was around 35 with a difference of only six months between the two groups.

Findings

Are persons who registered with EDR disproportionately less likely to vote in a subsequent election than those who registered before the closing date? Tables 8.3, 8.4 and

80 Note that this figure includes recent movers, though I am unable to distinguish them from everyone else. 188

2004 General Election 2006 General Election 2008 General Election

New Registrants Sept. 15 – Nov. 2, 2004 Sept. 13 – Nov. 7, 2006 Sept. 15 – Nov. 4, 2008

Trad. Registration 33,051 (15.11%) 10,490 (7.31%) 92,832 (18.77%) EDR 185,673 (84.89%) 133,056 (92.69%) 401,683 (81.23%)

Totals 218,724 143,546 494,515

Traditional Registrants EDR Traditional Registrants - EDR

Age (mean) 42.51 39.84 +2.67 Age (std. dev.) 16.37 13.86

189 B

Age (mean) 45.42 40.08 +5.34 Age (std. dev.) 17.89 15.54

C Continued

Table 8.2. Newly Registered Voters in Minnesota; ALL Voters: A Voter Registration before Recent State Elections in Minnesota, B Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Minnesota, Sept. 15 – Nov. 2, 2004, C Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Minnesota, Sept. 13 – Nov. 7, 2006, D Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Minnesota, Sept. 15 – Nov. 4, 2008

189

Table 8.2 continued

Traditional Registrants EDR Traditional Registrants - EDR

Age (mean) 34.76 35.31 -0.55 Age (std. dev.) 17.36 14.96

190

______

(1) Predicted Probability (2) Predicted Probability

Variables 2004 EDR -.325** -.006 -.330** -.006 (.047) (.048) Age -.002 -.002 (.001) Constant 4.154** 4.227** (.045) (.067)

N 218,724 218,716 Pseudo R .0012 .0012

*p<.05, **p<.01 ______Table 8.3. Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008 Presidential Election; ALL Minnesota Voters

8.5, respectively, depict the actual analyses, along with predicted probabilities to show the variables’ magnitudes. I begin with Table 8.3, in which I examine whether persons who registered to vote in 2004 also voted in 2008. The first model contains no controls while I control for age in the second. Both models reveal that election day registrants in

2004 were less likely to vote in 2008 than those persons who registered sooner. This finding holds when controlling for age. However, predicted probabilities reveal only a small decline – not even 1 percent in either model; i.e. 2004 election day registrants are

0.006 percent less likely to vote in 2008 than “traditional” registrants. Likewise, age lacks substantive significance (in addition to statistical significance. The pseudo R² value for both models is .0012, suggesting that many other factors besides use of EDR in 2004 exhibit greater predictive power for turnout in 2008.

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As in North Carolina and Iowa, in interpreting my findings, I must consider the unique circumstances surrounding the last two presidential elections. While the

Democratic candidates carried Minnesota in both contests, the 2004 election was closer

(51 percent to 48 percent) than the 2008 election (54 percent to 44 percent). Yet the 2008 election featured Barack Obama and his ability to attract first-time voters nationwide

(Barone and McCutcheon 2011). Thus, even though the 2008 election was nowhere near as close as the previous presidential election (either in Minnesota or nationwide), many people who had registered in 2004 nevertheless were highly motivated to vote four years later.

Table 8.4 shows my findings for the 2006 and 2010 midterm elections (presented in the same format as before). These results tell a different story from the presidential elections. Now, the EDR coefficient remains statistically significant and negative, both each time I introduce a control and in the full model. Each control is also statistically significant and appears in the hypothesized direction.

However, the magnitude of the turnout declines among election day registrants is greater from one midterm election to the next than from one presidential election to the next. Without controls Minnesotans who registered on November 7, 2006 were about 8.2 percent less likely to vote in 2010 than their counterparts who registered at least three weeks earlier. In the full model, when controlling for age and residence in the 8th

Congressional District, this figure decreases to 6.3 percent. Instead, age is much stronger predictor of whether people vote in the subsequent midterm election; 80-year-old election day registrants are about 28 percent more likely to vote than 18-year-olds. Finally, in the

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(1) Pred. Probability (2) Pred. Prob. (3) Pred. Prob. (4) Pred. Prob. Variables 2006 EDR -.429** -.082 -.322** -.062 -.430** -.083 -.323** -.063

(.024) (.025) (.024) (.025) Age .024** .280 .024** .280 (.000) (.000) 8th District? .123** .025 .063** .013 (.018) (.018) Constant 1.278** .225** 1.265** .221** (.024) (.029) (.024) (.029)

N 143,546 143,546 143,546 143,546 Pseudo R .0019 .0241 .0022 .0242

*p<.05, **p<.01 193

Table 8.4. Effects of 2006 Midterm Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Election Voter Turnout; ALL Minnesota Voters

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full model, residents of the 8th Congressional District are only about 1.3 percent more likely to vote than those living in another congressional district.

Lastly, as in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and Iowa, I track declines in turnout from 2008 to 2010. Results, shown in Table 8.5, are quite comparable to the results for midterm elections. The EDR dummy variable retains statistical significance in the presence of both controls. Election day registrants in 2008 are about 5.3 percent less likely to vote again two years later. The range of the predicted probability of voting with respect to age is 43.6 percent. Meanwhile, residence in a competitive congressional district again makes a difference of only 2 percent. Thus, without a close or highly publicized election, EDR appears to have the unintended consequence of somewhat lowering subsequent turnout relative to those who took the initiative to register prior to traditional closing dates especially in the absence of high publicity or unusual circumstances surrounding subsequent elections.

Young Voters in Minnesota

As in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, without access to voter registration records when individuals previously resided in other Minnesota counties, I cannot learn the extent to which the above findings are distorted by the presence of many persons who already have voting histories. To what extent does EDR introduce persons into the electorate for the first time rather than merely ease the process of remaining in it? To this end I repeat the same analyses while restricting them to young persons between the ages

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(1) Pred. Probability (2) Pred. Prob. (3) Pred. Prob. (4) Pred. Prob. Variables 2008 EDR -.205** -.048 -.230** -.053 -.206** -.048 -.230** -.053

(.007) (.008) (.007) (.008) Age .031** .485 .030** .436 (.000) (.000) 8th District? .142** .033 .087** .020 (.009) (.009) Constant -.424** -1.502** -.440** -1.509** (.007) (.010) (.007) (.010)

N 494,515 494,515 494,515 494,515 Pseudo R .0011 .0401 .0015 .0403

195

*p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.5. Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Voter Turnout; ALL Minnesota Voters

195

2004 General Election 2006 General Election 2008 General Election

New Registrants Sept. 15 – Nov. 2, 2004 Sept. 13 – Nov. 7, 2006 Sept. 15 – Nov. 4, 2008

Trad. Registration 3,416 (20.08%) 1,083 (7.83%) 27,312 (28.03%) EDR 13,593 (79.92%) 12,746 (92.17%) 70,135 (71.97%)

Totals 17,009 13,829 97,447

Table 8.6. Newly Registered Minnesota Voters before Recent State Elections; Young Voters ONLY

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of 18 and 21 when they first registered. Table 8.6, paralleling Table 8.2, breaks down young persons by registration method for the general elections in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

In all three years, majorities of young persons use EDR to register; about 80 percent did so in 2004, and 92 percent did so two years later. However, this figure drops to about 72 percent in 2008. Interestingly, in the first two general elections, young persons comprise fewer than 10 percent of all new registrants. This figure doubles in 2008.

Beginning with people whose first presidential election was in 2004, Table 8.7 reveals that election day registrants were marginally less likely to vote again in 2008, according to the predicted probability provided in the table. This effect is slightly higher than the corresponding effect for persons of all ages, but both figures clearly lack substantive significance. From the standpoint of improving voter turnout and producing regular voters, this information is certainly encouraging. However, the news concerning midterm turnout is not as good. Findings here, shown in Table 8.8, reveal a subsequent turnout decline of about 6 percent, consistent with the figures for all voters. Meanwhile, a control for residence in the state’s competitive 8th District fails to attain statistical significance. Lastly, I follow those who registered in 2008 into the 2010 midterm elections (Table 8.9). Election day registrants were about 2.3 percent less likely than

“traditional” registrants to vote again in 2010; this difference is much smaller than when examining everyone.

Again, the control for the Eighth District is inconsequential. Thus, in several cases, young election day registrants are no more likely to miss the next election than 197

Coefficients Predicted Probability

Variables

2004 EDR -.433** -.012 (.124) Constant 3.756** (.115)

N 17,009 Pseudo R .0028

*p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.7. Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008 Presidential Election Voter Turnout; Young Minnesota Voters ONLY

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(1) Pred. Probability (2) Pred. Probability Variables 2006 EDR -.245** -.062 -.245** -.062 (.059) (.059) 8th District? -.003 -.001 (.047) Constant -.022 -.023 (.057) (.057)

N 13,829 13 ,829 Pseudo R .0008 .0008

*p<.05, **p<.01

199 Table 8.8. Effects of 2006 Midterm Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Voter Turnout; Young Minnesota

Voters ONLY

199

(1) Pred. Probability (2) Pred. Probability Variables 2008 EDR -.102** -.016 -.103** -.016 (.014) (.014) 8th District? -.051 -.008 (.020) Constant -1.346** -1.339** (.013) (.013)

N 97,447 97,447 Pseudo R .0008 .0008

*p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.9. Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Election Voter Turnout; Young Minnesota Voters ONLY 200

200

their older counterparts, suggesting that previously registered regular voters are not distorting my findings in the full models.

Discussion

In Minnesota, much like in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, and Iowa, there is a noticeably smaller chance that election day registrants return to the polls in a subsequent election than “traditional” registrants. This effect appears for both young persons and in the full models. It varies depending on the election in question, ranging from under 1 percent for presidential elections to about 6 percent for midterm elections.

Clearly, Minnesota’s election day registration law, the first in the nation, enacted in hopes of improving turnout, nevertheless has unintended consequences because some people using EDR do not vote in future elections. Advocates of the reforms and greater civic involvement must acknowledge this fact and act to address it, perhaps by canvassing past election day registrants during future elections.

Election Day Registration in Idaho

Whereas Minnesota’s establishment of EDR was based largely on a desire to increase voter turnout, Idaho began the practice during the mid-1990s for a much different reason. According to Hanmer (2009), the largely Republican state legislature was concerned, not about low voter turnout, but about the cost of implementing federal motor voter provisions in the state. Because the motor voter law exempts states with EDR from implementing its provisions, Idaho lawmakers opted for EDR because they believed

201

EDR would be cheaper to adopt than motor voter.81 Therefore, since 1996, all Idahoans have had the option of registering on election day. The state still maintains a 24 day closing date. Voter registration applications received between the closing date and election day do not become effective until after the election. Unlike Minnesota, Idaho permits anyone to use either early or no excuse absentee voting. Although these practices do not aid people in completing registration requirements, they provide assistance to persons who vote subsequently. This way previously-registered persons may use early voting in the future.

Voter Registration and Turnout in Idaho

Since 2006 voter turnout in Idaho has been between 2 and 5 percent higher than national averages, though nowhere near as high as in Minnesota, as shown in Table 8.10 below. During this time the state’s lead over the national average declines somewhat.

Interestingly, however, even with EDR, Idaho lags behind the rest of the nation in terms of the percentage of its citizens saying that they are registered voters. Each year the difference is between 6 and 7 percent.

Overview of Analyses

The Idaho voter file is similar to the Minnesota file in terms of the information it contains. It provides each person’s registration date, age, congressional district and voting history, though only for biannual state primaries and general elections. It does not include local and special elections. Method of registration is the main independent variable, while

81 Interestingly, Hanmer finds that voter turnout improves modestly in states adopting EDR in hopes of improving turnout (Maine, Minnesota and Wisconsin). However, turnout does not improve in states that enacted it to avoid compliance with motor voter requirements (Idaho, New Hampshire and Wyoming). 202

______

Year Idaho United States ID - US

2004 63.2 percent 60.1 percent 3.1 percent 2008 63.6 61.6 2.0

2008-2004 -0.4 1.5

2006 45.4 40.4 5.0 2010 42.2 41.0 1.2

2010-2006 -0.2 0.6

2004 75.7 82.0 -6.3 2008 76.4 83.1 -6.7

2008-2004 0.7 1.1

2006 71.4 78.1 -6.7 2010 71.4 78.8 -7.4

2010-2006 0.0 0.7

age and congressional district are the two controls. In 2008 Idaho’s 1st Congressional

District was highly competitive; Democrat Walt Minnick defeated a GOP incumbent by

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only 1.2 percent of the vote. Two years later, however, Republican challenger Raul

Labrador defeated him handily (Barone and McCutcheon 2011).

Therefore, when examining whether 2004 registrants voted again in 2008, I include a dummy variable to capture any effects of competition. As in Minnesota, Idaho lacks political party registration, so I cannot control for partisanship. The analyses follow the same format as for Minnesota; again, the main reason for selecting this state as a case is that it allows early voting. Early voting could facilitate greater retention of registered citizens from one election to the next.

Table 8.11 below depicts the numbers of new voter registrations and the average of ages of election day and “traditional” registrants who completed voter registration between the day after the state primaries and the general election days in 2004, 2006 and

2008, respectively. Much like Minnesota a majority of new registrants complete EDR; this figure is 61 percent in 2004 and 67 percent four years later. In the 2006 midterms, it is 78 percent. The state processed nearly 53,000 new registrations in 2004; during the corresponding period in 2008, almost 138,000 people registered. This fact suggests that, although John McCain carried the state with 62 percent of the vote, many more Idahoans became interested in this presidential election than the previous one. Perhaps Obama was an especially unpopular candidate in this state.82 About 39,000 people registered in 2006.

Before all three elections, “traditional” registrants were older than election day registrants. The average age of the former group was between 43 and 49, while

82 John McCain’s margin of victory over Barack Obama was 25.43 percent, fourth only to Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. 204

2004 General Election 2006 General Election 2008 General Election

New Registrants May 26 – Nov. 2, 2004 May 24 – Nov. 7, 2006 May 28 – Nov. 4, 2008

Trad. Registration 20,441 (38.66%) 8,515 (21.59%) 45,356 (32.90%) EDR 32,431 (61.34%) 30,921 (78.41%) 92,495 (67.10%)

Totals 52,872 39,436 137,851

Traditional Registrants EDR Traditional Registrants - EDR

Age (mean) 45.70 40.68 +5.02 Age (std. dev.) 15.89 13.85

205 B

Age (mean) 48.79 40.37 +8.42 Age (std. dev.) 17.79 15.43

C Continued

Table 8.11. Newly Registered Voters in Idaho; ALL Voters: A Newly Registered Voters in Idaho, B Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Idaho, May 26 – Nov. 2, 2004, C Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Idaho, May 24 – Nov. 7, 2006, D Characteristics of Newly Registered Voters in Idaho, May 28 – Nov. 4, 2008

205

Table 8.11 continued

Traditional Registrants EDR Traditional Registrants - EDR

Age (mean) 42.50 35.13 +7.37 Age (std. dev.) 17.84 13.55

206

election day registrants averaged around 40 in 2004 and 2006. Their average age fell to

35 in 2008.

Findings

I begin with the presidential election models. Among citizens who registered to vote in 2004, were election day registrants less likely to vote in 2008 than those who had registered earlier? Table 8.12 reveals that, contrary to my hypothesis that people are equally likely to vote continually regardless of how they first registered, election day registrants in 2004 were actually more likely to vote again in 2008 than others. While this finding is statistically significant, the predicted probabilities show that, even with control variables, the increase is only about 1 percent. As in Minnesota, the historic nature of the

2008 election appears to be the best explanation. In other words even if EDR introduced to the electorate persons without much interest in politics, the Obama candidacy and the economic downturn were sufficient to pique everyone’s interest in the 2008 contest. If someone had a modest interest in the 2004 contest, he or she almost certainly had additional interest in the 2008 election. Likewise, older persons were more likely to vote in 2008; 80-year-olds were about 6 percent more likely to vote than the youngest persons.

Residents of the 1st Congressional District were about 1 percent more likely to vote in

2008 than residents of the 2nd District.

What about midterm elections? Perhaps without the fanfare surrounding presidential elections, election day registrants would be less likely than earlier registrants to continue to vote. Table 8.13 shows two logit models. The first (without controls) reveals a negative, statistically significant coefficient. As it turns out, individuals who

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(1) Pred. Probability (2) Pred. Prob. (3) Pred. Prob. (4) Pred. Prob. Variables

2004 EDR .107** .006 .195** .011 .107** .007 .192** .012

(.038) (.038) (.038) (.038) Age .020** .057 .032** .063 (.001) (.001) 1st District? .247** .014 .202** .011 (.038) (.038) Constant 2.706** 1.850** 2.550** -1.191** (.029) (.063) (.037) (.066)

N 52,872 52,872 52,872 52,872 Pseudo R .0003 .0098 .0021 .0110

208

*p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.12. Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008 Presidential Election Voter Turnout; ALL Idaho Voters

208

(1) Predicted Probability (2) Predicted Probability Variables 2006 EDR -.542** -.130 -.280** -.068 (.026) (.027) Age .037** .494 (.001) Constant .668** -1.054** (.023) (.040)

N 39,436 39,436 Pseudo R .0086 .0621

*p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.13. Effects of 2006 Midterm Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Voter Turnout; ALL Idaho Voters

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had registered to vote on election day in 2006 were about 13 percent less likely to vote in

2010 than their counterparts who had registered earlier. When controlling for age, however, this figure drops to about 6.8 percent. The oldest 2006 registrants were about 49 percent more likely to vote in 2010 than the youngest. In addition the pseudo R² value increases from less than .01 to .06 with the age control. Clearly, despite a lower likelihood of subsequent voting among election day registrants, age is a far more powerful predictor than registration method.

Finally, I examine the turnout dropoff from 2008 to 2010. As shown in Table

8.14, the story remains much the same as for tracking persons from one midterm election to the next. Again, after controlling for age, election day registrants are about 7.9 percent less likely to vote in 2010 than those who had registered earlier. Thus, in two different state elections, I have found that individuals using easier voter registration procedures are less likely than other persons to vote again.

Young Voters in Idaho

As in both Mecklenburg County and Minnesota, I reestimate these models with only young persons to test whether the previous findings actually depict persons who had reregistered after having already established a history of electoral participation in another county. Table 8.15, which shows that in the 2004, 2006 and 2008 general elections, anywhere from 58 percent (in 2004) to 79 percent of newly registered young persons used EDR (in 2006). The corresponding figure in 2008 was 69 percent. During the first two elections, young persons comprised no more than 9 percent of all new registrants; however, this figure climbed to 13.7 percent in 2008.

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(1) Predicted Probability (2) Predicted Probability Variables 2008 EDR -.620** -.136 -.369** -.079 (.012) (.013) Age .037** .484 (.000) Constant -.414** -2.005** (.010) (.020)

N 137,851 137,851 Pseudo R .0152 .0676

*p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.14. Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Voter Turnout; ALL Idaho Voters

211

2004 General Election 2006 General Election 2008 General Election

New Registrants May 26 – Nov. 2, 2004 May 24 – Nov. 7, 2006 May 28 – Nov. 4, 2008

Trad. Registration 1,476 (42.32%) 718 (21.15%) 5,878 (31.11%) EDR 2,012 (57.68%) 2,676 (78.85%) 13,016 (68.89%)

Totals 3,488 3,394 18,894

Table 8.15. Newly Registered Idaho Voters before Recent State Elections; Young Idaho Voters ONLY

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Starting with turnout in presidential elections, Table 8.16 shows that young, election day registrants in 2004 were actually about 2.5 percent more likely to vote in

2008 than persons who had registered earlier. This magnitude of this finding – which is contrary to my hypothesis – is greater for younger persons than for everyone else.

However, when examining those who had registered for the first time in 2006, I observe a decline of about 7.4 percent for election day registrants relative to “traditional” registrants; this difference is slightly less than when examining people of all ages. This finding appears in Table 8.17. Lastly, an examination of young registrants in 2008 (see

Table 8.18) reveals that persons registering on election day were about 6 percent less likely to vote in 2010 than persons who had registered at least three weeks earlier; the corresponding figure in the full model is about 8 percent.

Discussion

To a large extent, my findings in Idaho resemble those from Minnesota. One interesting exception, however, involves presidential elections. Here, I found positive, albeit negligible turnout effects for election day registrants voting in 2008 relative to

“traditional” registrants. The reason for this finding is unclear, though it is certainly unexpected. Otherwise, the findings are much like those from Minnesota. The key difference is that the declines among election day registrants in 2006 and 2008 are somewhat greater in Idaho. This result holds even though Idaho – and not Minnesota – allows both early and no excuse absentee voting, two practices generally believed to assist persons who have already registered to vote.

213

(1) Predicted Probability (2) Pred. Probability

Variables

2004 EDR .219* .024 .219* .025

(.103) (.103) 1st District? .088 .009 (.103) Constant 1.819** 1.769** (.075) (.094)

N 3,488 3,488 Pseudo R .0017 .002

214 *p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.16. Effects of 2004 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2008 Midterm Voter Turnout; Young Idaho Voters ONLY

214

(1) Predicted Probability (2) Pred. Probability

Variables

2006 EDR -.302** -.056 -.406** -.074

(.086) (.096) 1st District? -.290** -.050 (.083) Constant -.964** -.804** (.077) (.093)

N 3,394 3,394 Pseudo R .0048 .0082

215 *p<.05, **p<.01

Table 8.17. Effects of 2006 Midterm Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Voter Turnout (Young Idaho Voters ONLY)

215

______

Coefficients Predicted Probability

Variables 2008 EDR -.408** -.049 (.034) Constant -1.614** (.027)

N 18,894

Pseudo R .0104

*p<.05, **p<.01 ______Table 8.18. Effects of 2008 Presidential Election Day Registration (EDR) on 2010 Midterm Voter Turnout; Young Idaho Voters ONLY

Discussion

Having concluded this dissertation’s Study 2, I now consider the broader lessons of this research. Presently, 18 states offer EDR and/or SDR, often with early voting.

Supporters of these relaxed registration requirements have worked tirelessly to pass them because they believe that the reduction or elimination of closing dates would promote higher voter turnout. This idea, of course, received considerable support from researchers like Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980) who had argued that EDR would boost voter turnout by about 9 percent if implemented nationwide. Because turnout is generally lower in the United States than in other industrialized nations and the United States is the only nation that requires citizens themselves to register (rather than placing the burden on the government), voter registration requirements have long interested researchers (Powell

216

1986 and Jackman 1987). More recently scholars like Hanmer (2009) have found that much-anticipated improvements in voter turnout have not materialized.

Study 2, however, addresses a different question: what happens to those who use

EDR or SDR to register in subsequent elections (held after the election in which they originally registered)? Are they as likely to return to the polls in future years as persons who registered before the earlier deadlines? Answering this question is every bit as important as the more common question of whether overall turnout improves once a state enacts one of the reforms. The question is necessary because if the reforms are facilitating voting for citizens who had previously been nonvoters, one can reasonably assume that the expanded electorate includes persons with relatively little interest in politics. These people may then become intermittent voters who return to the polls only when an election piques their interest. Persons seeking to improve voter turnout clearly would be disappointed they do not witness these modest turnout improvements again in the future.

This study shows that, in many cases, election day registrants indeed have a lower chance of returning to the polls than people who had registered sooner. These differences appear in all four states both for younger voters and everyone else. They also manifest themselves in presidential and midterm elections as well as among persons who registered to vote in presidential elections when the next midterm election occurs.

At the same time, the magnitudes of these disparities also vary, enabling me to understand more about the reforms. The smallest disparities appear in the 2008 presidential election among those who had first registered in 2004. Here, of course, they

217

are virtually nonexistent in Minnesota while the results in Idaho actually go against my hypothesis.

Likewise, the election before which someone registers to vote is also important.

Persons who registered to vote in the 2008 presidential election are by far the least likely to vote again, particularly if they used either EDR or SDR to register. Alternatively, these disparities are noticeably smaller for midterm and gubernatorial contests and smaller still for local contests, as in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. This discovery buttresses the notion that the new registration procedures also draw in people whose interest in politics is fleeting. While this occurrence is not unintended, candidates, Boards of

Elections officials and civic organizations working for higher voter turnout must recognize and respond to it accordingly. Only then may states’ electorates permanently expand.

Taken together findings from these two states indeed offer several key lessons to political scientists. First, they reveal that, depending on the election in question, people using EDR to register are somewhat less likely to vote in a subsequent election than those who had completed voter registration earlier. As noted previously I selected Minnesota and Idaho in part because this combination of states would provide the opportunity to examine whether no excuse absentee and early voting in Idaho facilitate the retention of voters more than Minnesota, which prohibits both practices. In other words one would reasonably expect retention rates to be higher in Idaho. Yet I find no such evidence.

Election day registrants in Minnesota are always at least slightly more likely than their

Idaho counterparts to return to the polls.

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Second, my findings (among all four states) are conditional upon the elections in question. When I look at whether people who had registered to vote in a midterm election also voted in the midterm contest four years later, election day registrants are between 6 and 7 percent less likely than “traditional” registrants to vote in the second midterm election. Similarly, when following voters from 2008 to 2010, the declines were about 5 to 8 percent relative to “traditional” registrants. However, the same analyses conducted between 2004 and 2008 fail to detect substantively significant declines among election day registrants relative to everyone else. Of course if someone cared enough about politics to vote in 2004, then they were almost certainly interested in voting in the historic election four years later.

More generally the conditional nature of these effects is strong evidence that contextual factors affect the magnitude of the drop-offs I observe. Specifically, motivation appears to be crucial, so much so that reformers may have overlooked it.

Simply put persons registering to vote in a mayoral election must be quite concerned about politics and motivated to participate. These persons will almost certainly vote in future elections. Such motivation is far less necessary in a presidential election, particularly one with a charismatic, yet polarizing figure like Obama. Thus, future participation is likely only when another election manifests some such factor.83

The next chapter concludes my dissertation. In it I speak about the broader implications of both studies for voter registration and turnout scholarship and for

83 The importance of motivation again underscores the benefits of additional data, especially the attitudinal political characteristics that I acknowledged in my literature review like partisanship, political efficacy and sense of civic duty. Ideally, future work on this topic would be based on survey research that includes this information. 219

electoral participation more broadly. I also briefly describe my research’s limitations and offer a future research agenda.

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CHAPTER 9: CONCLUSION

Overview

Having completed Studies 1 and 2, I now turn my attention to the broader lessons from both studies taken together that this dissertation offers. These lessons speak to both academics and policymakers alike. I begin with broad conclusions. From there I speak more broadly about the implications this research has concerning the costs of voting, particularly regarding registration. A thorough discussion of these matters enables me to offer lessons for lawmakers and civic organizations interested in seeing higher turnout in

American elections. I also consider the implications my research has on efforts by states to pass laws that critics charge will lower voter turnout. Lastly I identify some limitations of this dissertation and segue into a future research agenda.

Overall Conclusions from the Two Studies

Are voter registration laws like EDR and SDR a good idea in terms of boosting voter turnout? Voter registration requirements initially emerged during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and have long been known to be detrimental to voter turnout. Since the 1960s many states have begun to ease this requirement along with the elimination and/or reduction of other legal barriers to voting like literacy tests and poll taxes. Following the removal of such burdens, turnout among African Americans (who

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had been disproportionately affected) rose considerably. For these reasons, then, scholars like Wolfinger and Rosenstone (1980) expressed optimism that streamlining voter registration procedures would engender much higher turnout levels. Although the present research contains some encouraging news, it also convincingly demonstrates that this initial optimism was overblown, especially given that Wolfinger and Rosenstone estimated the nationwide increases at 9 percent.

First, there appears to be little demand for the new laws. The Current Population

Survey’s Voting and Registration Supplement asks hundreds of persons in each state whether they had been registered to vote in the federal elections held just weeks earlier in

November. Those answering “no” received the question: “Which of the following is the

MAIN reason (you/name) (were/was) not registered to vote?” and were offered 11 different answer choices.84 In any given year or state, no more than 15 percent of respondents select the answer “Did not meet registration deadlines.” Instead, however, the most popular answer choices are “Not interested in the election or not involved in politics” and “My vote would not make a difference.” This fact alone suggests that, for the vast majority of unregistered people, the registration requirement is not the factor keeping them away from the polls. For these people, EDR and SDR are solutions to a nonexistent problem.

Second, the multilevel models in Study 1 reveal that during the 2008 presidential election, turnout and registration rates in states allowing EDR or SDR were not statistically significantly different from the remaining states. This finding is strong

84 The Voting and Registration Supplement has included this question since 1996. 222

evidence that the new laws do not boost turnout by a noticeable amount. Instead, socioeconomic and demographic controls continue to exhibit greater predictive power in accounting for turnout.

Third, researchers had initially heralded EDR and SDR not only for its ability to boost overall turnout, but also because they thought it would be particularly beneficial for young persons registering for the first time, recent movers, the less educated, and racial minorities. Yet the Chapter 5 analyses reveal that from 2004 to 2008 when Iowa and

North Carolina changed their laws, these turnout and registration disparities largely persisted.

Finally, Study 2 also contains troubling findings about the lasting effects of eased registration requirements. In many cases persons who registered with EDR or SDR are about 5 to 10 percent less likely to return to the polls for the next election than citizens who had completed voter registration before their state’s traditional closing date. This dropoff is particularly noticeable when the next election is “smaller” than the person’s first election, e.g. the midterm election following the presidential election during which one had initially registered. Under the opposite scenario (perhaps registering to vote in a local election with the presidential election as the first subsequent contest), I observe no such declines. Taken together, then, the reforms appear to facilitate new people entering the electorate when an event like a presidential election piques their interest. However, such persons are less likely to continue to vote. Although I cannot definitively explain why I have found these disparities, the answer is clearly not registration, given that these persons have already completed that requirement.

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Despite these unsettling results, my dissertation also contains several instances in which these new laws have had meaningful effects even if they ultimately fall short of these high expectations or fail to attain statistical significance. Before discussing these observations, it is worth remembering that during recent presidential elections

(particularly in 2008), states allowing EDR or SDR processed thousands of new voter registrations on or immediately before election day. People do take advantage of these new laws. Previously registered citizens also use these occasions to update their voter registration information, especially if they have recently moved within the same local jurisdiction. This event alone means that thousands of citizens who might not have voted otherwise are now doing so for at least a single election.

Furthermore, while some people would regard the dropoffs in turnout from presidential to midterm elections as a problem, one could also interpret these findings in a more positive light. After all the fact that new people voted in any election in the first place is good news. Researchers have noted that closing dates of 30 days or more before an election are problematic because many people only gain an interest in elections once election day is imminent. Therefore, in states like Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota and North

Carolina, such persons may still register and vote. Had North Carolina not established

SDR, then thousands of residents there would almost certainly have never been able to vote. While it might be disappointing that they never returned to the polls subsequently, the fact remains that they voted in a previous election in which they became interested at the last minute.

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In addition among Americans unregistered in 2008, fewer are citing registration deadlines as the reason they never registered if they live in states with EDR. Thus, EDR addresses one of the many reasons millions of Americans are not registered to vote. Voter registration and eligibility requirements have indeed disenfranchised countless Americans during the twentieth century. Allowing people to register on election day means that this once burdensome requirement is no longer a cause of nonvoting. Therefore, EDR is one of numerous election laws that have enabled more Americans to have a say in selecting a government that affects them. Even though it has not lived up to the hype that surrounds it, this fact remains. Furthermore, as shown in Chapters 6-8, in some circumstances, election and same day registrants are no less likely to vote in a subsequent election than citizens who had registered without the help of these procedures. Perhaps they have moved recently to a new county or state. For such persons EDR and SDR are enabling them to avoid unnecessary interruptions in electoral participation. Presumably, if their state did not permit these practices, they would have been unable to vote unless they made a point of registering sooner.

One last observation is that even if registration laws’ effects on turnout are only marginal, they can still exhibit unintended consequences that are no less noteworthy.

They can offer one candidate enough of an advantage to win an election if neither one enjoys substantially greater support over the other. As both studies’ examinations of

North Carolina demonstrate, Obama carried the state by only 14,000 votes. Because the state processed more than 90,000 new registrations during the SDR/early voting window and Obama campaigned aggressively there, SDR clearly played a major role in the

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outcome.85 Of course, had a non-battleground state adopted the same law, there is reason to believe that that state’s outcome would not have changed since neither presidential campaign would have incentives to invest scarce resources in such a state. Although this finding is not directly related to the dissertation’s main research questions, it is still important to acknowledge it because it reveals how the effects of new laws do not occur in a vacuum. Instead, researchers must take care to recognize the broader contexts within which new registration laws take effect.86

Voter Registration and the Cost of Voting

More broadly this research raises questions regarding the specific ways in which voter registration requirements constitute one of the costs of voting. Certainly, researchers have long assumed that registration, like other legal obligations, is a “cost” of voting, particularly given that only 50 years ago, it was literally a cost that many

Americans, even if they really wanted to vote, simply could not afford. Today, however, the registration requirement and other legal “burdens” have grown much smaller. States with 30-day closing dates that reserve early and absentee voting only for those with excuses would be considered especially “high cost” states. However, the same states would have appeared quite lenient during the mid-twentieth century.

85 Generally, Republicans oppose measures like EDR and SDR because they believe that these measures are more likely to turn out persons supporting Democrats. Presumably, however, John McCain and his campaign could also have utilized SDR to turn out their core supporters, particularly evangelicals who form a significant voting bloc in that state. The same is true of other states that enact these laws. 86 A related point is that competitive congressional elections never seem to engender higher turnout in the same way that competitive presidential elections can do. The most plausible explanation for this difference is that congressional elections, even when they are competitive, remain far less visible than presidential elections. In other words competition is inconsequential if people are not aware of it in a particular election. 226

Given how difficult it once was to register to vote, researchers rightly believed that reducing or eliminating these requirements would expand the nation’s electorate. Yet as these burdens become smaller and smaller, one would reasonably expect that the turnout increases following their reduction or removal would also dwindle and become more difficult to detect, something Aldrich (1993) implies when he argues that voting is really a low-cost action.

But Aldrich also contends that voting does not provide large benefits and that earlier researchers had overestimated them. Indeed, many times when people advocate

EDR and SDR, they merely argue that these registration options will enable more people to vote, as they are assuming that millions of nonvoting Americans are motivated to vote and would begin to do so regularly if only they did not need to register so far in advance of an election. To these Americans, however, the benefits of voting are unlikely to be self-evident.

If these benefits are not clear to prospective voters, they will not register because they are not motivated to register. Fifty years ago many African Americans were so motivated that they were willing to go to jail and even die for suffrage. For various reasons motivation seems to be much lower today for all Americans, regardless of race.

While EDR and SDR can facilitate voting, these two practices do nothing to address a lack of motivation to vote. The assumption that Americans would vote if and only if registration were made easier is not tenable. Instead, this research suggests that EDR and

SDR would be more likely to expand the nation’s electorate only if accompanied by efforts to emphasize the importance of voting.

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Underscoring this idea is the research in this dissertation. My findings, especially in Study 2, are often dependent on contextual variables. For example persons who used

EDR or SDR to register prior to a local contest or primary election were more likely to vote in the 2010 midterms than those who had registered to vote just before the 2008 general elections. Likewise, when more elections were on the ballot, turnout improved. In both scenarios people may have been more likely to vote in the future because of the degree to which they were initially motivated. For instance the historic 2008 presidential election likely brought in millions of Americans who had never before cared about an election enough to vote in it. Consequently, they would be less likely to vote again than someone who registered to vote only for state and local offices.

The importance of contextual variables in determining outcomes points toward the issue of whether someone is motivated to vote. People who are truly motivated to vote, whether because they see voting as a civic duty or they have strong preferences for one candidate over the other, will make every effort to insure that they are able to vote and have their vote counted. As such they will inform themselves of logistical issues like which polling place to visit and when and how they must register. Even if they must register 30 days before the election, if they are motivated, they will have no problems complying with this law.

Other Americans, however, are less motivated to vote. Nevertheless, the unique circumstances surrounding particular elections may sometimes provide to these persons the necessary motivation to vote. In 2008 Obama’s presence on the ballot provided this motivation to millions of Americans many of whom had never felt that enthusiastic about

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any election or politician. For example Martin Luther King acknowledged in his “I Have a Dream” speech that blacks in states without racial discrimination in voting often did not vote. He declared, “We cannot be satisfied as long as…a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote.” Generations of African Americans, even after the successes of the civil rights movement, still lacked high levels of political efficacy. Now,

45 years later, one of their own appeared on the ballot for President. Furthermore, especially in places like North Carolina, campaign volunteers worked to persuade their friends, colleagues and fellow worshippers that even if they had never previously believed that they had a reason to vote, they did now. A similar story unfolded among young Americans.

Implications of this Research

In addition to political science research, this dissertation has important implications for the “real world,” specifically, state legislators and civic organizations interested in engendering greater electoral participation. First, as in clear from this chapter’s first section, their efforts have enabled some people to vote who almost certainly would not have done so otherwise. Such news is clearly encouraging.

Second, such persons likely had help with the registration process, particularly in

North Carolina during the 2008 presidential election. As stated previously then-candidate

Obama mounted an aggressive campaign there. With the state’s new SDR window, his team had the ability not only to register citizens closer to election day but also to have them vote immediately. From a logistical standpoint, this law almost certainly facilitated

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their GOTV efforts by allowing them to register more people and insure that they voted.

Likewise, because North Carolinians could now register and vote simultaneously, GOTV organizers did not have to reconnect with new registrants on election day and transport them to their polling places.

Although North Carolina experienced a unique situation due to Obama’s efforts, this research demonstrates that citizens in less competitive states can still benefit from more effective GOTV activities. When nonpartisan civic organizations engage in these activities, they could devote special attention to those who had registered on election day or at an early voting location during a previous election treating them as intermittent voters whom Niven (2002, 2004) argues are most likely to respond to canvassers. After all one can safely assume that these registered voters hold at least a passing interest in politics. Given that many states make their voter registration and history files easily available, canvassers who obtain these files would be able to learn when people first registered. They could then visit or send direct mailings to late registrants reminding them of the upcoming election, that they are already registered to vote and the location of their polling places. These kinds of targeted canvassing efforts could insure that higher percentages of recently registered citizens continue to vote in the future.

Nevertheless, words of caution are in order. My analyses demonstrate that while voter registration requirements clearly keep some people away from the polls, many other factors have a similar effect, often to a greater extent than requiring interested citizens to register to vote at least 30 days before a given election. Instead, demographic and socioeconomic factors have much greater predictive power than registration reforms.

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Consistent with much previous research, education is the single most powerful independent variable. Thus, large scale efforts to insure that more Americans graduate from high school and college would likely have the welcome side effect of higher voter turnout, regardless of whether more states adopt EDR or SDR.87

Implications of This Research for Photo Identification Laws

As mentioned in Chapter 2, numerous states have enacted (or considered) laws requiring voters to present some form of government-issued photo identification when they arrive at polling places. Republicans ostensibly support such measures as a means to prevent voter fraud, while Democrats oppose them, often vehemently, because they fear that the requirements would disenfranchise poorer people, especially minorities, who are unable to obtain the necessary IDs.88 Yet the issue boils down to questions of electoral strategies. Democrats fear that they could lose close elections without receiving such persons’ votes. Believing that most such individuals would support Democrats,

Republicans think the requirements would give them an edge over Democrats.89

Based on my research of legal efforts to streamline voter registration, I would expect that any turnout declines resulting from these laws are negligible. Most people who are extremely interested in voting will still be able to do so, especially if they already have drivers’ licenses. Such persons might disagree with the laws (or find them

87 Interestingly, even though Americans are now better educated than ever before, turnout has not improved as much as researchers would have anticipated. 88 Some critics have argued that the laws violate the Twenty-fourth amendment’s ban on poll taxes. They contend that the requirements amount to a poll tax when, for example, elderly individuals who were born at home must purchase a certified copy of their birth certificates. 89 In a June 2012 address enumerating legislative accomplishments, the majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Mike Turzai told his Republican audience: “‘Voter ID – which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania – done,’” (Bronner 2012). 231

inconvenient) but will be able to comply without much difficulty. Likewise, many persons without any prior interest in voting will not encounter problems, regardless of whether they are able to procure the necessary identification. However, there is likely a small group of citizens who may be interested in voting but lack photo IDs or the means necessary to obtain them (e.g. money and/or documents to obtain a certified copy of a birth certificate). Assuming that very few citizens meet both of these characteristics, these new laws would be highly unlikely to lower voter turnout; furthermore, even if their effects are deleterious, researchers might well be unable to detect them.

Nevertheless, just as SDR in North Carolina had a role in Obama being the first

Democrat to carry the state since President Carter nearly 30 years earlier, photo ID laws could decide an extremely close election. In such an election, the removal from a state of electorate of a relatively small numbers of voters could well change the outcome even if it does not alter the overall percentage of the voting eligible population that voted. In light of several recent presidential and congressional elections that have been intensely competitive, it comes as no surprise that the debates surrounding these laws are deeply bitter and partisan – in a close election, the removal or addition of small numbers of voters can affect who wins. The laws are about far more than the laudable goals of preventing voter fraud and insuring that no Americans are wrongly disenfranchised.

Limitations of This Dissertation

Like any research this dissertation is not without weaknesses. I acknowledge them here in part because a discussion of them motivates ideas for future research, which I

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present in the dissertation’s last section. Perhaps the most serious is the ability to which I am able to establish causal relationships between voter registration laws and voter turnout. This difficulty arises for several reasons. First, quite simply, every election is different. The 2008 presidential election was historic partly because it was the first time an African American appeared on a major party ballot (and won). Yet not all Americans experienced this election (or any other election) in the same manner. For example North

Carolina, in addition to the debut of new registration laws was also “in play” competitively for the first time in decades. It is not easy to ascertain whether the state’s heightened voter turnout was due to the new laws or the unique circumstances in the state

(or some combination thereof). That voting has become a low cost-low benefit activity

(Aldrich 1993) serves to magnify the difficulty of this task.

I have made efforts in several key aspects of the research design to address this concern. In Study 1 after examining all 50 states simultaneously, I zeroed in on Iowa and

North Carolina for before and after comparisons of only those states individually. These analyses focus much more specifically on the time period in question and reduce concerns about unaccounted for variables like political culture wielding influence. For

North Carolina I also introduce additional tests to determine what effects the Obama campaign’s aggressive canvassing efforts in that state might have had on turnout. This evidence includes parallel analyses for the two most recent midterm elections and PRE and PCP tests for goodness of fit. Likewise, Study 2 examines four different states, each with differences in the degree of competition in 2008 and voter registration procedures.

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Still, however, the high likelihood that any observed differences are fairly small makes finding such effects (assuming that they are present) all the more difficult. In the future I hope to use new methods and more elections to study these important research questions. This way I will be able to produce more effective analyses. I will present a few ideas related to this endeavor in the next section.

My other concern involves the use of voter registration and history files to complete Study 2. Following the passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in

2002, each state was required to establish statewide files of registered voters with counties being responsible for updating files as they process new voter registrations and updates to existing records. Yet the counties and states vary widely in terms of how well they maintain these records and what specific information they record. Consequently, researchers interested in working with these data must be aware that these records often contain discrepancies, e.g. deceased persons who are still officially registered. Similarly, most states do not record whether a newly registered voter actually has a prior voting history in another county or state. A related concern is that because federal law restricts the ability of states to purge registered voters for nonvoting, the files likely contain people who voted in only one or two elections before moving outside of that particular county (where they may well reregister and continue to vote). If so Study 2 risks mistaking people who moved away for subsequent nonvoters. Finally, neither Minnesota nor Idaho has partisan registration. Because these states hold open primaries, they do not allow voters the option of registering with one of the political parties. Nor do they record this information. However, the Mecklenburg County and Iowa studies both uncover

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evidence that partisanship has consequences for predicting subsequent voter turnout.

More generally although these voter files are the only way to track voter turnout by the same people over time, they contain relatively little additional relevant data. For instance they contain no information about attitudes toward government and candidates; these matters are long known to affect turnout.

As I have already mentioned previously, a more general concern related to both studies is that the data sources, whether the surveys from the Voting and Registration

Supplement or the statewide voter registration and history files, do not contain much relevant information like attitudes toward the political process and elected officials, whether people care strongly about whether one of the candidates wins and whether they hold a strong partisan identification (as distinct from declaring a party on a voter registration form). Of course anyone who exhibits high levels of political efficacy, strongly favors one candidate over the other or who strongly identifies as a Democrat or

Republican is far more likely to vote than someone who does not exhibit these attitudes.

The same is true when persons view voting as a civic duty. Inevitably, my choices for data sources prevent me from performing more complete, thorough analyses.90

Therefore, in Study 2, I took several actions to account for these concerns whenever possible. First, the Mecklenburg County and Iowa studies only track registered voters from 2007 to 2010. Because this time range is shorter than in Idaho and Minnesota

90 The American National Election Study contains the richest collection of survey data examining Americans’ political attitudes. However, because it consists of a nationally representative sample, it is not suitable for research into state election laws. Instead, the Voting and Registration Supplement contains samples that are representative of states. Unfortunately, because the federal government funds it directly, it cannot include any questions of a partisan nature. Likewise, state and local election officials have no need for this information. 235

(six years), the chance that large numbers of people have moved to other jurisdictions is smaller. In addition, to account for the possible impact of prior history, I estimated separate models consisting of only young persons who would not have had any prior history as registered voters (except in Iowa, which updates previous registrations within its borders). Unfortunately, I still cannot know for sure whether someone moved to another county.

Future Research

I end my dissertation with an eye toward future research. This discussion consists of two main sections. The first builds on the topic of voter registration laws, seeking to address some of the limitations mentioned in the last section. Meanwhile, the second section moves beyond the specific issue of voter registration and toward turnout more generally, with special emphasis on civic education.

Future Directions in Registration Research

In order to establish causal relationships more fully, both studies need additional elections, both before and after new registration laws take effect. Because every election is different from every other election, both across and even within states, a study based on multiple elections is far more plausible than the same study comprising fewer elections. This way the presence or absence of causal relationships cannot be written off as a function of the unique characteristics surrounding the election(s) in question. While my study was unique in examining the effects of reform on continued turnout, it was based only on a pair of elections and not on successive high profile presidential contests.

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Another avenue for establishing causal relationships more definitively is to match individuals and counties with EDR or SDR to counterparts without these registration options. As acknowledged earlier in this chapter, different states have different political cultures; yet these political cultures, which are notoriously difficult to detect and operationalize, could easily affect whether a new policy succeeds or fails at engendering some type of change (Hanmer 2009). With respect to the present research questions, one approach is to match individuals living in selected counties within a state to those residing in neighboring counties in another state. In Study 1 I could use this procedure to match compare residents of North Carolina with people in neighboring Virginia counties.

Both states were battlegrounds that Obama narrowly carried, despite long histories of

GOP success. The similarities among these counties (despite their location in different states) would serve to isolate further the effects of SDR in North Carolina. This option also exists for Study 2 though with different states than Study 1. Comparing Iowa with one or more of its neighbors would be enormously valuable, especially since the voter files in Missouri and Nebraska are relatively easy to obtain.

Secondly, while the state voter registration and history files are an excellent data source for tracking voters over time, as shown in Study 2, they lack much highly relevant information about voters, especially their attitudes toward government and candidates and whether they view voting as fulfilling one’s civic duty. Given that these reforms are increasing in popularity, one idea for obtaining this knowledge is to develop and administer a survey to voters in a state with EDR or SDR (especially if it has just enacted it). Such a survey could be completed through the mail with both “traditional” and

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election day registrants participating. While admittedly expensive such research would be enormously useful given that the voter files alone do not allow me to know more fully whether EDR and SDR have the unintended consequence of introducing intermittent voters into state electorates. The findings presented in Study 2 are suggestive, but the survey research proposed here would be more definitive.

Future Directions in Turnout Research

Voter registration requirements are, of course, merely one of many factors known to impact turnout. As this burden has grown smaller in recent decades, so has the chance declined of a new registration law dramatically improving turnout. While this research is still needed to learn when and how the laws impact turnout, those interested in promoting higher turnout would want to shift their attention elsewhere.

Given that education is arguably the most important factor in predicting whether an individual votes, this avenue is more promising. Indeed, Hanmer (2009) concludes by explaining that one reason that EDR does not have stronger effects stems from what states choose to enact it. Those choosing to enact it often already have high turnout which results in ceiling effects. Yet if low turnout states – where there exists a need for it - enacted it, success would also be unlikely, simply because those states have little demand for it. Many citizens in such states simply are not interested in voting.

Campbell (2006) makes a similar point when he argues persuasively that whether one votes as an adult depends on both the communities in which they live as adults and the communities in which they grew up. If the latter communities emphasized civic engagement and turnout, young people inculcated with these values are more likely to be

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involved in their communities and, consequently, to vote than if they are from places that did not emphasize such values. Indeed, he notes that researchers have worked diligently to explore the effects of costs, benefits, and the probability of casting the deciding vote on turnout. However, researchers have spilt much less ink on beliefs about whether people see voting as a civic duty and/or responsibility.

Taken together these two works suggest a demand to gain more specific knowledge about how education works to instill these values and ultimately increase the chances of voting. Such research could involve collaborating with education researchers interested in the effectiveness of different curricula. Much like Campbell (2006), this research would need to begin by examining what students learn with respect to civics as well as their involvement in relevant extracurricular activities. It could then follow young persons for some time throughout adulthood to track voting behavior.

Another avenue for future research is to investigate further the effects of partisan identification on voter turnout. Research has consistently demonstrated that Americans who strongly identify as Democrats or Republicans are more likely to vote than their counterparts lacking such psychological attachments (Lewis-Beck et al. 2008).

Furthermore, Rosenstone and Hansen (1993) note that strong partisans are much more likely to be the targets of GOTV efforts than other Americans. Because elections and politics have grown increasingly partisan and polarizing in recent years, a renewed focus on how partisanship affects turnout would be beneficial. Such research could also explore whether this increased political polarization causes nonpartisans to experience lower

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levels of political efficacy and to lose interest in politics. Should polarization have these effects, it might also drive nonpartisans and political moderates away from the polls.

A final idea for future research concerns the extent to which informal political discussions among friends and family increase the likelihood of voting. As noted in

Chapter 2, research in comparative politics is uncovering evidence that such discussions can trump the effects of partisan mobilization and canvassing efforts, especially if one believes that his or her spouse will vote. Although scholars have recently worked to study how political discussions affect behavior, they have paid relatively little attention to turnout, even at a time when political parties and campaigns urge supporters to encourage family members, friends and coworkers to vote.

Conclusion

Overall, then, voter registration laws continue to exert influence over voter turnout. Nevertheless, over the last few decades, as laws have made this requirement easier to complete, this influence has become smaller and more difficult to detect.

Likewise, it only appears in some circumstances and not others. In particular easier registration procedures are especially likely to increase voter turnout when political parties and other organizations engage in GOTV activities that take advantage of the new laws. The same is also likely true of laws requiring voters to present photo identification when they arrive at their polling places; such an impact on turnout is likely to be marginal, though it could still be consequential in determining who wins close elections.

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At the same time, this dissertation offers important words of caution about voter registration. It demonstrates that initial optimism about the potential for new laws to improve turnout were overblown. While some unregistered Americans ascribe their status to the voter registration requirements few of them are unregistered only for this reason.

As such, students of voter turnout should look beyond voter registration laws (in addition to them) to account for why only some Americans vote and others do not. Similarly, advocates of high turnout interested in taking actions to increase electoral participation in the United States will be more successful when they pursue multiple avenues besides changing voter registration laws. More generally my research tells a cautionary tale about the effects of legal reforms. Sometimes they have expected consequences of a negative sort, but more often they prove less effective in realizing their goals than their advocates had expected them to be.

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APPENDIX A: SELECTING STATES FOR CASE STUDIES

Additional Information about States with Registration Reforms

Overview

Table A.1 is a matrix that parallels each of the categories discussed in the main text above. I include information about costs and election law statutes concerning whether the Secretary of State is permitted to sell the state voter files to researchers. The matrix also contains more specific details regarding how states have chosen to implement

EDR and SDR. Each of these factors played into my decisions concerning which states to select as cases.

Data Quality and Practical Matters

One key issue to consider regarding case selection concerns data quality and availability. Of course, I must work carefully to establish causal relationships and rule out possible alternative explanations. To that end, before-and-after comparisons would be particularly useful. In other words, states that make available voter registration and history data that extends back to before a state adopted EDR or SDR would be ideal because it would function as a natural experiment. This method would be most successful in terms of holding constant all possible confounding variables.

When using both the CPS and the statewide voter files, the ability to provide before-and-after comparisons increases with the recency of the changes to election laws. 250

State When Laws Changed Data Availability How Far Back? Special Note(s) (If applicable)

California $25 1994

Illinois not sold to researchers

New Mexico $4,000

North Carolina 2007 $25 2002

Ohio 2007 Free

Vermont

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Connecticut 1972 $300 up to 20 votes Applies only for presidential elections Minnesota 1973 $51 6 years

New Hampshire 1994 not sold to researchers n/a Continued

Table A.1. Matrix of Combinations of Voter Registration and Turnout Laws in States Offering EDR and/or SDR: A SDR and Early Voting, B EDR only, C EDR and Early Voting, D EDR, SDR and Early Voting

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Table A.1 continued

State When Laws Changed Data Availability How Far Back? Special Note(s) (If applicable)

Rhode Island 1990 $25 2004 Applies only for presidential elections

Alaska 1967 $21 2001 Applies only for presidential elections

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Idaho 1994 $20 2004

Iowa 2007 $1,045 2001

Maine 1977 $2,000

Continued

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Table A.1 continued

State When Laws Changed Data Availability How Far Back? Special Note(s) (If applicable)

Montana 2005 $1,000 8 elections

North Dakota no voter registration since 1951

Wisconsin 1975 $12,500

Wyoming 1993 not sold to researchers

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Questions on the Current Population Survey become far more detailed after 1996.

Performing analyses of changes occurring after this date will enable me to test whether a state’s citizens are more less likely to say that they were not registered because they thought that it was too difficult to do so. More significant, however, is the tracking of individual voting behavior across time. Although all states keep such records, the records only go back for a few years, typically no more than five to ten years, as shown in Table

A.1. Therefore, before-and-after comparisons are not possible in all states.

A second method is to compare newly registered voters within states. No state that has adopted EDR or SDR requires new voters to register through these procedures.

In most cases, the states merely changed their laws to offer these opportunities to citizens who missed earlier registration deadlines. Registering before these deadlines is preferable because it obviates standing in two lines on Election Day. As stated in the literature review, scholars believe that early closing dates are deleterious to voting because they force citizens to register to vote well before the campaign intensifies to the point that it piques their interest and causes them to want to vote. According to this logic, early closing dates prevent persons with only a passing interest in politics from voting.

Therefore, I would expect such persons, in addition to those turning 18 and recent movers, to be especially likely to take advantage of EDR and SDR. Subsequently, because they hold only a weak interest in politics, they would be less likely to continue to vote than someone who, on his or her own initiative, registered well in advance of the

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election in which he or she first wished to vote. Consequently, such a method could still offer important insights about the impact of EDR and SDR on registration and turnout.91

Methods of record keeping also merit close attention especially with respect to movers. In most states when a person moves within the same jurisdiction in which he or she has already registered to vote, he or she may update the previous registration automatically. The state retains the voting history prior to when the person moved.

Alternatively, when someone who is unable to know whether someone who registers, say, just prior to the 2008 presidential election is new to that county and had previously registered and voted in another state or county in that state.

However, whether a new registrant has a prior voting history would almost certainly impact whether they continue to vote. Persons who have already established a long voting history will be especially likely to continue voting. Not knowing whether a previous history exists is clearly problematic. Fortunately, however, some states update a person’s registration if they moved from one county to another within the same state.

Any estimated models control for whether a previous voting history exists. When this information cannot be obtained or is nonexistent, I limit my analyses to young voters who were 21 years old or younger when they registered. This way, I can be sure that they have no prior history. Such a restriction is not a problem. After all, persons need only register a second time if they move or if they are purged for nonvoting. Thus, very few citizens will ever have to register more than once. Conversely, all young people must register, and they are one of the key groups that the reforms are intended to assist.

91 This approach would also be a part of before-and-after comparisons when it is possible to make them since many people would still comply with closing dates in any state that allows EDR and SDR. 255

One final consideration is the length of time by which I would be able to follow citizens who use EDR and SDR. As is widely known, turnout is highest for presidential elections due to the very high visibility that those contests enjoy. Thousands of

Americans who vote in all presidential elections seldom vote in midterm, state and local elections. Whenever possible, I need to follow EDR and SDR registrants for at least two presidential elections. Even if the data do not allow me to do so or the reforms have only been effective for a single presidential election, I can still assess differences in the degree to which these registrants drop out of the electorate relative to persons who registered prior to earlier closing dates. If members of the former group are significantly less likely to keep voting than the latter group, this finding would demonstrate that EDR and SDR have the unintended consequence of introducing intermittent voters to the electorate.

Such an outcome is clearly not what advocates of the reforms desire. I now examine each of the four categories of states, outlining the details that factored into my decisions.

Same Day Registration and Early Voting

As with the states in the subsequent classifications, the states that merge SDR with early voting implement registration and voting in different ways from one another.

These states usually “sell” the reforms as an option for persons who failed to register in person or by mail before the closing date. Now, if they appear in person, they may register and vote simultaneously, though only before Election Day. Six states appear in this category.

One notable exception to this procedure is Ohio. The state maintains a 30 day closing date, and there are no exceptions. However, SDR exists due to a loophole in the

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law because early voting begins 35 days before Election Day. Consequently, SDR exists solely as a five-day window that closes a month before an election. This arrangement is clearly not intended to facilitate voter registration. Furthermore, the data, though downloadable for free, do not allow anyone to distinguish between persons utilizing SDR and those who mailed in voter registration forms during the five-day window.92

The situation in New Mexico is similar. The closing date there is 28 days before the election, the same day on which early voting at the county clerk’s office begins. Thus, the SDR window lasts only a single day. New Mexico also charges $4,000 for its statewide voter file. For these two reasons, New Mexico is a poor choice for tracking the voting behavior of persons who use SDR.

Illinois offers a much longer window for SDR. Although the closing date is 28 days prior to an election, the state operates a voter registration “grace period” from the closing date to the seventh day prior to Election Day. In person early voting, available to all registered voters, begins 22 days prior to Election Day and ends five days before

Election Day; thus, the SDR window lasts a little over two weeks. This arrangement clearly encourages participation more than the SDR windows in New Mexico and Ohio.

Unfortunately, state law prohibits researchers from accessing the voter registration and history information.

92 For example, I registered to vote in Franklin County, Ohio, by mailing in a voter registration form during the SDR window. I voted early on the Friday before the 2008 election. Although the official record shows the date that my registration became effective and that I voted in that election, it does not specify when I voted. This limitation is severe enough to prohibit me from using the Ohio voter file to explore the questions posed in this dissertation. 257

North Carolina operates a similar SDR system that is an excellent opportunity for scholarly research. Beginning with the 2008 presidential election, citizens who missed the 25 day registration deadline could register and vote simultaneously in person during the early voting period that had previously been in place for all registered voters. SDR and early voting begin on the third Thursday before Election Day and end the last

Saturday prior to the election. Early voting occurs at the county Board of Elections, though counties may also establish satellite locations if they choose. The voter registration and history file costs only $25 and contains registrants’ party information and race, in addition to registration date, age, voting history and district information.

The two remaining states in this category are California and Vermont. California is quite unique because its state election law grants county elections boards considerable freedom to administer voting as they see fit. For instance, some northern counties conduct local elections entirely by mail. Per state law, persons must register at least 15 days before Election Day, and anyone may take advantage of early voting or VBM. The state even allows registered voters to go on permanent absentee status so that they do not have to request mail ballots for each election. Not surprisingly, counties vary in terms of the degree to which they encourage voting. For example, the website for the San

Francisco County Registrar of Voters states that persons may early vote in their offices no earlier than 29 days before an actual election. However, many other large counties around the state do not provide such an opportunity to residents. The ones that do vary in terms of starting dates and duration. Therefore, California would be difficult to implement effectively as a case.

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Lastly, Vermont election laws also facilitate participation. Anyone may vote as long as they register by the end of the last Wednesday before an election. Early voting and VBM are available beginning 45 days before Election Day. Any registered voter is allowed to use either method without being required to provide an excuse. Although the statewide voter file is freely available, it only specifies the most recent election in which someone voted. Voter history is only available from the towns themselves (not counties), and Vermont has 246 towns. Therefore, analyzing Vermont would be admittedly cumbersome, though restricting an analysis to the largest towns would be a reasonable way to test hypotheses in a place where good results would be especially likely to be found. However, North Carolina’s more facilitative SDR window terminates three days later (and closer to Election Day), so North Carolina is the first case.

Election Day Registration Only

Four states (Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Rhode Island) offer

EDR only. They retain closing dates of between seven and 30 days. Early voting is not permitted at all, and citizens are only allowed to vote absentee if they are unable to vote on Election Day due to absence from the jurisdiction in which they have registered, religious obligations or illnesses and disabilities that prevent them from visiting their polling places.

These states also vary in terms of when EDR is allowed. Connecticut and Rhode

Island offer it only for presidential elections. Even then persons who use EDR may vote only for President and Vice President and for no other offices or ballot initiatives that also appear on the ballot. Furthermore, the website for the Connecticut Secretary of State

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does not mention this law. When many towns’ websites contain information about elections, they simply provide links to the Secretary of State’s website. It is highly unlikely that many Connecticut residents are even aware that they may register at their polling places to vote for President and Vice President. The specific statute, 9-158b, that allows EDR appears in a chapter of the General Statutes of Connecticut that addresses absentee voting rather than registration. Similarly, Rhode Island’s EDR statute appears in a chapter regarding eligibility to vote, rather than registration. However, the Secretary of

State’s website in Rhode Island does inform people that EDR is available during presidential elections. Alternatively, in most states that enacted EDR for all elections, the legislatures did so by adding a subsection to the voter registration chapter that specifies how citizens could register through that method.

Minnesota and New Hampshire offer EDR in all elections. New Hampshire did so in 1994 after President Clinton signed motor voter into law. All states would be required by this federal mandate to offer the opportunity to register to citizens when applying for or renewing driver’s licenses and public assistance like welfare. The legislation allowed exemptions to any state that enacted EDR. Believing that EDR would be less expensive to implement than motor voter, the New Hampshire legislature (along with Idaho and

Wyoming) voted to enact EDR. However, in 1973, Minnesota became the first state to adopt EDR for all elections and did so for the explicit purpose of promoting higher voter turnout. As Hanmer (2009) explains, voter turnout is higher in states that enacted EDR for this reason (also Maine and Wisconsin), rather than because they did not want to be subject to motor voter mandates.

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Finally, neither state has the data necessary for before-and-after comparisons. Too much time has passed since these states enacted EDR. Furthermore, New Hampshire state law forbids the Secretary of State from giving or selling these data to scholars. For this reason and because of the nature of EDR in Connecticut and Rhode Island, Minnesota has the most facilitative laws of these four states. Therefore, I select Minnesota for close scrutiny of possible long term EDR effects.

Election Day Registration and Early Voting

Both Alaska and Idaho offer EDR and early voting. Like Connecticut and Rhode

Island, Alaska only allows EDR for persons who missed the 30 day closing date to vote only for President and Vice President. However, both states differ from the previous category because they offer absentee and early voting to all voters and do not require excuses. Alaskans wishing to vote by mail must submit requests for ballots no later than

10 days prior to Election Day. Early voting sites are open 15 days before an Election Day and remain open until the day before Election Day. Idahoans who fail to register by the

24 day closing date may use EDR. For elections subsequent to the one in which they first register, early voting is allowed at the county clerks’ offices through 5:00 pm on the last

Friday before Election Day. VBM is available as long as the local elections officials receive requests by the sixth day before Election Day.

Although both states permit EDR, they go a step beyond those listed in the previous category. Once someone in Alaska or Idaho has registered to vote, he or she may also take advantage of early or absentee voting. Ceteris paribus, I would expect these two states to retain registered voters more successfully than those like Minnesota

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without absentee and early voting. Because of a shorter closing date and the availability of EDR in all elections, Idaho is a bit more facilitative of electoral participation.

Therefore, I analyze Idaho’s voters and their long term history. Furthermore, this approach may also increase the number of voters in the analyses because more people will have used EDR than in Alaska.

Election Day Registration, Same Day Registration and Early Voting

The last category consists of the six states that encourage registration and turnout to a greater extent than any others. Whereas a state like Vermont permits SDR only until the last Wednesday before an election, these states make SDR available up until and on

Election Day. The states include Iowa, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin and

Wyoming.

Unfortunately, for the purposes of this research, the state voter files in some states are far too expensive. North Dakota charges $3,850 while Wisconsin’s file, at $12,500 is among the most expensive in the nation. Although Wyoming only charges $20 for its file, its Secretary of State does not sell it to researchers. Nor does Maine. Iowa and Montana remain as the only two viable options. Though the states are similar in terms of election laws and pricing, Iowa is the better choice. This state has many properties that make it suitable for rigorous testing.

Although Iowa does not permit no-excuse absentee voting, it differs from other states because its applications for ballots do not require voters to explain why they are requesting them. Early voting is available at the county clerks’ offices to anyone who wishes to participate, and state law requires these offices to stay open on the last two

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Saturdays before Election Day. County boards, if petitioned, will open satellite early voting sites. Its closing date of 10 days is only applicable to persons who register by mail.

In 2007, the governor signed a bill that created EDR, starting with the 2008 presidential election. Therefore, a before-and-after comparison is possible. Because citizens have so many different options available to them to register and vote, one would reasonably expect that if the reforms are effective at boosting turnout, that fact would be most clear in one of these states.

Iowa holds other advantages for analysis apart from its permissive election laws.

The statewide voter file, though costing approximately $1,045, contains voter history for persons who moved from one county to another within the state. Retention of this information obviates restricting the analyses only to young voters. In addition, Iowa is consistently regarded as a state whose citizens are quite civic-minded and more likely than people in other states to believe that voting is an important part of good citizenship.

Finally, in presidential elections, the state maintains its status as a battleground where the election’s outcome is often deemed as too close to call. Both major political parties exhibit strength, and these elections are quite competitive. Ceteris paribus competitive elections boost voter turnout. Therefore, considering both election laws and the characteristics mentioned in this paragraph, Iowa is the single best state in which to perform a case study. It represents the greatest likelihood of detecting improvements in voter turnout. However, if no such improvements are found, such a result would suggest that the great hope researchers and civic organizations have placed on registration reforms as a means of fostering higher turnout is unfounded.

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APPENDIX B: STUDY 1 SURVEY RESEARCH QUESTION WORDING

Dependent Variable Measurement

Dependent variable concerning reasons for not registering to vote:

“Which of the following was the MAIN reason (you/name) (were/was) not registered to vote?”

1 Did not meet registration deadlines 2 Did not know where or how to register 3 Did not meet residency requirements/did not live here long enough 4 Permanent illness or disability 5 Difficulty with English 6 Not interested in the election or not involved in politics 7 My vote would not make a difference 8 Not eligible to vote 9 Other reason -2 Don't know -3 Refused -9 No Response

In this chapter (and Chapter 5) the dependent variable is whether the respondent chose Answer Choice #1 above.

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100

Percent

10 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Answer Choices From Above Source: 2008 CPS; Note includes all Americans

Figure B.1: Reasons for not Registering to Vote

265