Turning up turnout.

• Author: Hernandez, Michael D.
• Position: TRENDS & TRANSITIONS

Voter turnout in the upcoming midterms will be in the low-40s percentage range--compared to the typical presidential year turnout of around 60 percent--if history is an indicator.

Many policymakers would like to boost midterm turnout, but research shows it's difficult-complicated by factors ranging from political polarization and frequency of elections to Election Day weather and the level of enthusiasm sparked by citizens' initiatives and ballot measures.

Still, legislators continue to seek out measures to increase participation in elections, including the following.

Early, Absentee and Mail Voting

Providing alternatives to Election Day voting through early in-person voting, absentee voting and vote-by-mail elections has a small but statistically significant impact on turnout, the 2008 report, "Convenience Voting," found. The report maintained these measures could boost turnout by an estimated 2 percent to 4 percent. Although these options increase convenience, they also prompt concerns about the possibility for voter fraud when a person is casting a ballot away from a polling place.

Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who runs the United States Elections Project, says vote-by-mail elections often increase turnout for local and smaller elections but not for larger elections. Oregon and Washington, which have had only all-mail elections for 14 years and four years, respectively, have some of the nation's highest voter turnout rates. Oregon reported that about 82.8 percent of registered voters (and 64.3 percent of eligible voters, by McDonald's calculations) cast a ballot in the 2012 general election, while Washington had a turnout of 81.2 percent of registered voters...