Framing Automatic Voter Registration: Partisanship and Public Understanding of Automatic Voter Registration

• Author: Christopher B. Mann,Natalie Adona,Paul Gronke
• Date: 01 November 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20922525
• Published date: 01 November 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X20922525

American Politics Research

2020, Vol. 48(6) 693 –699

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20922525

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Article

Automatic voter registration (AVR) is the latest significant

reform to the electoral process in the United States. AVR

shifts the burden of voter registration from the eligible regis-

trant to the state government (Burden & Nieheisel, 2013).

While there are variations among states, typically AVR reg-

isters all eligible citizens who interact with government

agencies, most commonly through the state’s motor vehicles

department. The state elections office reviews the registra-

tion application, determines a potential registrant’s eligibil-

ity, and then accepts or rejects the application.

Despite AVR’s significant change to voter registration, it

has not gotten bogged down by the partisan “voting wars”

typical of the last two decades of policy debates to change

how elections are administered (Hasen, 2013). Oregon was

the first state to implement AVR in 2016, and 17 more states

and DC have adopted AVR as of June 2019 (National

Conference of State Legislatures, 2019). While more

Democratically controlled states have passed the reform,

there are states of all partisan colorations that now have AVR

(seven with divided government, two with Republican con-

trol, and 10 with Democratic control).

Public opinion shows bipartisan support for AVR, but

with partisan gaps. Roughly two thirds of the American pub-

lic supports AVR, including four in five Democrats and a

bare majority of Republicans (Bialik, 2018; Gallup, 2016;

Ingraham, 2018). Referenda to pass AVR in several states

provide additional (and legally binding) indications of public

support. However, research on public attitudes about AVR is

in its infancy. Adona and Gronke (2018) find “the public

does not currently express strong support or opposition to

AVR” (p14) suggesting that many people may not be famil-

iar with AVR and are answering based on the brief descrip-

tions provided in a survey question.

We leverage this survey result for this research. When the

public is willing to make broad judgments, but show low lev-

els of detailed information, source cues from political elites

can have a strong influence on expectations about policy out-

comes (Mondak, 1993). We developed and implemented a

survey experiment to test how source cues shape public

expectations about AVR’s impact on the voting process.

AVR as Bipartisan Reform

The promise of improving both “access” and “integrity” is a

major reason AVR avoids the partisan “voting wars.” Democrats

and liberals see potential to increase access (e.g., Griffin et al.

2017; Weiser, 2016). Republicans and conservatives see

potential to increase integrity of elections (e.g., Borchardt,

2019). Another possible explanation why AVR has not gotten

bogged down in the polarized “voting wars” debate is that it is

922525APRXXX10.1177/1532673X20922525American Politics ResearchMann et al.

research-article2020

1Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA

2Reed College, Portland, OR, USA

3Democracy Fund, Washington, DC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Christopher B. Mann, Skidmore College, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga

Springs, NY 12866-1632, USA.

Email: cmann@skidmore.edu

Framing Automatic Voter Registration:

Partisanship and Public Understanding of

Automatic Voter Registration

Part of Special Symposium on Election Sciences

Christopher B. Mann1, Paul Gronke2, and Natalie Adona3

Abstract

Automatic voter registration (AVR) is a recent innovation in voter registration in the United States, passed by 18 states plus

DC in the last 4 years. AVR has generally escaped partisan polarization about election reform, having passed in Republican

and Democratic controlled states. Using a survey experiment in the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we

investigate effects of source cues about support of AVR from different party elites and from election administrators on the

public’s expectations about AVR’s impact on turnout, voter fraud, fairness, and election problems. Our experimental results

show an asymmetric partisan effect. When AVR is endorsed by Democratic leaders, Republicans (and independents) expect

AVR to reduce the fairness and legitimacy of elections, while Democrats are generally resistant to partisan cues.

Keywords

election administration, voter registration, public opinion, automatic voter registration, survey experiment