ANRV344-PL11-19 ARI 28 January 2008 15:20 V I E E W R S I E N C N A D V A Convenience Voting Paul Gronke, Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum, Peter A. Miller, and Daniel Toffey Department of Political Science and The Early Voting Information Center, Reed College, Portland, Oregon 97202; email: [email protected]; [email protected] Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 2008. 11:437–55 Key Terms The Annual Review of Political Science is online at early voting, absentee voting, turnout, election administration, http://polisci.annualreviews.org elections, vote by mail This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.053006.190912 Abstract Copyright c 2008 by Annual Reviews. ! Forms of convenience voting—early in-person voting, voting by All rights reserved mail, absentee voting, electronic voting, and voting by fax—have be- 1094-2939/08/0615-0437$20.00 come the mode of choice for >30% of Americans in recent elections. Despite this, and although nearly every state in the United States has adopted at least one form of convenience voting, the academic re- search on these practices is unequally distributed across important questions. A great deal of literature on turnout is counterbalanced by a dearth of research on campaign effects, election costs, ballot quality, and the risk of fraud. This article introduces the theory of convenience voting, reviews the current literature, and suggests areas for future research. 437 ANRV344-PL11-19 ARI 28 January 2008 15:20 INTRODUCTION voting.2 Every convenience voting method Convenience voting is typically understood aims to give potential voters easier access to to mean any mode of balloting other than the ballot, even if, in some cases, it might mean precinct-place voting. Examples include cast- getting rid of the traditional polling place ing a ballot early at a local elections office, altogether. at a satellite location, or at a voting center; It should be noted that although “con- filling out an absentee ballot and dropping it venience voting” does not necessarily mean in the mail; phoning into a special system; “voting other than at the precinct polling or logging into a secure website and cast- place,” this is how the reforms have been im- ing a ballot on the web. Convenience voting plemented up to now. However, some com- goes by various names, but they all capture mentators worry about the disappearance of one essential idea: making voting more con- the precinct place and how this will affect venient (less costly) by allowing voters to cast democratic norms and values. It is also im- a ballot at a place and time other than the portant to note what is not being considered precinct polling place on Election Day. Ac- in this review: changes in laws to make voting cording to the most commonly applied model more convenient by facilitating voter regis- of turnout, lowering the costs of voting will tration. Registering to vote is a separate act increase voter participation; therefore, more from that of voting, although the emergence convenient forms of voting should be associ- of election-day registration has begun to blur ated with higher turnout (Riker & Ordeshook this distinction (Demos 2006, Knack 2001). 1968, Aldrich 1993). Even though some For a review of registration laws and their scholars critique the rational choice frame- impact on voter turnout, see Highton 2004, work for understanding political behavior 1997). and voting turnout (Green & Shapiro 1994), Convenience voting represents a funda- few argue that we should make voting less mental change in the way citizens cast their convenient. ballots and has necessarily sparked important Virtually unknown two decades ago, con- questions, theoretical and practical, which are venience voting methods have become com- examined at both the individual and aggregate monplace throughout the United States, levels. This review begins by briefly describ- where they include liberalized absentee bal- ing the major types of convenience voting and loting, early in-person voting, limited use of how these methods have increasingly been the telephone and fax (mainly for disabled ac- used. Next, we turn to research that exam- cess), and some experimentation with inter- ines how convenience voting has affected vot- net voting. Convenience voting is not just ing behavior. The main focus for proponents an American phenomenon—it is expanding of convenience voting has always been on worldwide.1 Some nations, such as Estonia, turnout, and the vast bulk of political science are far ahead of the United States in ex- research in the field has also concentrated on perimentation with methods such as internet voter participation. Scholars have also asked whether new balloting methods change the composition of the electorate by encouraging 1Non–precinct place voting methods are increasingly be- some segments of the population while leav- ing adopted in other democratic nations. According to ing participation among other sectors of soci- the EPIC Project database (http://www.aceproject.org), ety unaffected, or even discouraged. 46% of the democratic nations listed allow electors to cast ballots before the designated national election day. Of these nations, 34% allow early voting for everyone, whereas the remaining 66% place some restriction on non–precinct place voting, such as limiting it to citizens 2The March 2007 Estonian experiment with Internet vot- who are in hospitals, living abroad, or serving in the ing attracted substantial media interest but no academic military. studies to date (see OSCE 2007, Trechsel 2007). 438 Gronke et al. ANRV344-PL11-19 ARI 28 January 2008 15:20 During the discussion of individual vot- ceived little attention from the political sci- ers, we consider the literature on campaigns. ence community, although interest is growing If voters are greatly affected by the shift to- rapidly. ward convenience voting, then one would Finally, we step back and look globally predict that campaigns would similarly be at elections as part of a broad set of citi- affected. Convenience methods hold the po- zenship activities. Elections are about much tential to transform Election Day into an more than just winning and losing, or even “election month,” a period of several days expressing a set of preferences about candi- to several weeks during which voters cast dates and parties. Elections, some scholars ar- their ballots. How have campaigns responded gue, are a ritual that is woven into the fabric to this change? Does it increase or decrease of our civic life. Thus, scholars ask whether campaign costs? Do convenience voting op- the decline of precinct voting will change the tions advantage one party over another? Our function of elections and Election Day in the review finds that scholars have not yet ex- way that democracies operate. Some have ad- amined these obviously important questions. dressed the issue narrowly, asking, for exam- There is some evidence that campaigns have ple, whether voters like mail or early in-person altered their strategies in order to mobilize voting more than precinct place voting. Oth- early and non–precinct place voters, but the ers have turned to a much larger set of norma- evidence is mainly indirect (drawn from stud- tive concerns, arguing that convenience has ies of the individual voter). We are aware of come at the expense of the civic ritual pro- no studies that specifically examine the impact vided by the polling place. When nearly 30% of convenience voting on political campaign- of US voters do not appear at the precinct ing. This is an important avenue for future polling place on Election Day to mingle with research. their neighbors and take their turn behind Second, we explore the literature on elec- the curtain, what impact—if any—does this tion administration. Election administrators have on the way Americans think about pol- and policy makers are responsible for the le- itics, about democracy, and about society? galization and implementation of any conve- After all, these scholars ask, why should con- nience voting method. In the public sphere, venience be a concern when citizens are en- advocates argue that introducing this kind of gaging in the most fundamental act of demo- voting reduces the overall cost and improves cratic citizenship? the overall quality of election administration. The ordering of topics in this review is not Convenience voting reduces the need to staff intended to make any statement about their polling places on election days, provides more relative importance. The reasons why political time to process ballots, and may give elec- science has focused on questions of individual- tion administrators more time to respond to level political behavior, such as turnout, and voter problems (such as an invalid or incor- has been relatively uninterested in questions rect registration). Others raise concerns that of policy choice and policy implementation convenience voting may increase fraud and al- are outside the scope of this review. The aca- low for coercion. Some scattered, non-peer- demic approach to election reform mirrors reviewed research has examined the question many of criticisms of political science as a of fraud directly (Fund 2004), while other discipline: that it is too behavioral; that its scholars have pioneered methodological re- theoretical models are too atomistic and in- search for detecting election fraud (Mebane dividualistic; that it ignores the larger social et al. 2003). Such a substantial policy inno- context; and that questions of public adminis- vation ought to attract notice among schol- tration and public policy are of little interest. ars of public policy decision making and We argue in our final section that many of the policy implementation, but so far it has re- most important and intellectually challenging www.annualreviews.org Convenience Voting 439 • ANRV344-PL11-19 ARI 28 January 2008 15:20 questions surrounding convenience voting lie laws, which expands the early voting system outside individual-level voting behavior.