Voting, Early Voting and PartyMobilization: Is Timing Everything?

Voting, Early Voting and Party Mobilization: Is Timing Everything? The adoption of many electoral reforms (e.g., election day registration, early voting and motor-voter registration) have been designed and justified in terms of increasing voter participation. Research has shown that the promise of these reforms has fallen far short of expectations in two particular ways. First, the effect of electoral reforms has had a limited direct effect on overall turnout levels. And, second, the effects appear to be concentrated among likely voters: the reforms simply enable election day voters to vote by mail or to vote early (thus not increasing the size of the electorate nor changing its composition as reformers argue is the case). We have demonstrated in previous research that one explanation for these findings is that scholars have ignored the important role of partisan campaign mobilization in linking the reform to overall turnout levels. That is, we find that early voting is associated with greater turnout when party elites use early voting as part of their campaign strategy. And we conclude that previous research has misspecified the basic causal factors in predicting overall turnout, resulting in incorrect estimates of the effect of electoral reforms on voter turnout. In this paper we extend this research agenda by exploring in greater detail whether reconceptualizing the dependent variable provides more leverage on the question of the impact of electoral reforms. More specifically, we test whether the availability of early voting increases the likelihood that a voter will vote early (as opposed to voting on election day or abstaining) and what types of voters are so affected. We explore the conditions under which candidates and party officials use early voting in Texas to mobilize voters to support their party’s candidates for Governor and U.S. Senator in the 2002 midterm election and whether such efforts yield a substantial effect on election day and early voting turnout. We draw upon a unique database that studies a panel of registered voters and matches their reported and validated voting behavior with partisan campaign activities in each voter’s respective county. Our measure of validated voting also includes the method of balloting for each voter: in-person early balloting, mail-in balloting and, in-person election day balloting. To measure county-level campaign activities we interviewed Texas county party chairs in all 254 Texas counties about the level and nature of their campaign activities. Specific questions are asked about how the party and their candidates emphasize early voting among target populations relative to other types or targets of campaign mobilization. We believe this paper will be an important second step in more accurately assessing the importance of electoral reforms to voter turnout in contemporary American elections. It should be of interest to scholars of electoral procedures and reform, voter turnout and party politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]