Voter Opinions about Election Reform: Do They Support Making Voting More Convenient?
Name
elj.2010.0083.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
265.12 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
42c467d43554be2796aee979c0481008
Author(s)
Alvarez, R. Michael
Hall, Thad E.
Levin, Ines
Stewart III, Charles H
Date Issued
June 2011
Journal
Election Law Journal
Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert Inc
Citation
Alvarez, R. Michael et al. "Voter Opinions about Election Reform: Do They Support Making Voting More Convenient?' Election Law Journal 10, 2 (June 2011): 73-87. © 2011 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We study public opinions about convenience voting reforms, using a unique state-by-state survey conducted in the 2008 presidential election. Our analysis of the American voting public's support for convenience voting reforms provides a variety of important insights into the potential direction of innovations in the electoral process in the near future. First, we find that the most prominent convenience voting reforms have mixed support. These include attitudes toward automatic voter registration, Election Day voter registration, and moving Election Day to a weekend. These reforms do not have majority support among all voters nationwide, but some enjoy majority support within some states. Second, we find that Internet voting and voting by mail do not receive a great deal of support from American voters. There is no state in which a majority of voters supports Internet voting, nor are there states where expanded vote-by-mail has majority support (other than states which have already implemented these reforms). Finally, we find that an overwhelming majority of Americans support requiring showing photo identification and a bare majority support making Election Day a holiday. Support for reform is highly correlated with political affiliations and attitudes, and especially correlated with support for Barack Obama.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2010.0083
