ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø

ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø Authors

See citation below for complete author information.

Daniel Paul Professor of the Practice of Government and Technology, ÌÇÐÄvlog¹ÙÍø and FAS

Abstract

Studies that examine the impacts of state policies on voter participation tend to focus on one of five stages: eligibility, registration, turnout, balloting, and counting. We argue that because a policy can shape outcomes at multiple stages, this approach of assessing impacts on a single stage offers a limited view of how state policies and practices affect voters as they move through the election franchise. Using nationwide county-level data for presidential elections between 2008 and 2016, we employ a new, multistage approach to estimate the impacts of five categories of policies: eligibility restrictions, voter registration, convenience voting, voter identification, and provisional balloting. We show that in three of the five areas, state policies influenced two or three stages at once. We find persistent downstream effects, where policies hypothesized to influence turnout also influence balloting.

Citation

Brodnax, NaLette, Ji Su Yoo, and Latanya Sweeney. "State Policies and the US Election Franchise: A Multistage Approach." American Political Science Association Preprints, April 15, 2022.