Making Voting Easier

• Author: R. Michael Alvarez,J. Andrew Sinclair,Ines Levin
• Published date: 01 June 2012
• Date: 01 June 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1065912911398048
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

65(2) 248 –262

© 2012 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912911398048

http://prq.sagepub.com

398048PRQ65210.1177/106591291139804

8Alvarez et al.Political Research Quarterly

1California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Ines Levin, California Institute of Technology, MC 228-77, California

Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.

Email: ilevin@hss.caltech.edu

Making Voting Easier: Convenience

Voting in the 2008 Presidential Election

R. Michael Alvarez1, Ines Levin1, and J. Andrew Sinclair1

Abstract

The authors analyze the choice of voting mode in the 2008 presidential election using a large-sample survey with

national coverage that allows a new perspective of convenience voting. Most importantly, they make clear distinctions

among the major forms of convenience voting and demonstrate that not all “convenience voters” share the same

attributes. In addition, the authors find little support for the hypothesis that convenience voting methods have partisan

implications, despite the differences among mail, early, and election-day voters. Results like these have important

implications for future moves toward convenience voting and the design of new outreach campaigns.

Keywords

convenience voting, early voting, 2008 presidential election, multilevel modeling

A basic observation motivates our research: in a democ-

racy, election rules matter. How elections are adminis-

tered can change the costs of elections, voter satisfaction

with the process, the strategies campaigns pursue, the

election’s integrity, and who wins the election. In recent

decades, at the federal, state, and local levels officials and

legislators have taken steps to make participating in elec-

tions more convenient. One approach is broadly called

“convenience voting,” including both in-person early vot-

ing and voting by mail. Our goal is to examine who takes

advantage of these alternatives to better understand the

consequences of convenience.

Berinsky (2005, 482) argues that this question is closed.

“All told,” he writes, “using a variety of methods and data

sources to assess the effect of different voting reforms, a

series of scholars have come to a single conclusion.” He

observes that studies indicate convenience voters are

“more politically engaged” and are likely to be wealthier

and better educated. In other words, convenience voters

are likely voters.

We believe that this debate is far from settled. It is not

the case that scholars have come to a “single” conclusion;

rather than providing a single clear picture, the literature

presents a murky view. There is some interesting and

well-considered research on this topic, but other studies

are less convincing. In addition, convenience voting is a

broad topic, and much research focuses on a single elec-

tion, single state, or small number of survey respondents.

This is understandable, and not necessarily a criticism,

but the limited scope of the existing literature demands

more study before the question is considered closed.

There is also simply the matter of time. For example,

one of the early and oft-cited articles is Patterson and

Caldeira’s (1985) study. In 1982, 6.5 percent of California

voters utilized the recently introduced no-excuse absen-

tee voting law; many of them cast ballots for Republican

George Deukmejian and landed him in the governor’s

office. Decades later in the 2008 June primary, 59 percent

of California voters submitted ballots by mail; in the 2008

November general election, 42 percent of California voted

by mail. It is not appropriate to draw conclusions about

the voting behavior of nearly half of California’s voters in

2008 based on research regarding the behavior of a small

fraction of California’s electorate in 1982. Nor is it appro-

priate to apply conclusions from the study of by-mail voting

in California in 1982 to in-person early voters in Texas in

2010. Thus, we believe that the effects of convenience

voting reforms in recent years deserve study.

We intend to clarify our understanding of convenience

voting. We make clear the distinction between in-person

early voting and by-mail voting, a place of confusion in

the application of previous research. We use a large-

sample national survey from 2008 to study the choice of

voting mode—Election Day, early, and by mail—in the

2008 election. To estimate a well-specified model of indi-

vidual voter choices regarding how to cast their ballots,