Why Making Voting Easier Isn’t Enough: Early Voting, Campaigns, and Voter Turnout

• Published date: 01 July 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X241253808
• Author: Brian T. Hamel,Jan Leighley,Robert M. Stein
• Date: 01 July 2024

Article

American Politics Research

2024, Vol. 52(4) 343–354

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X241253808

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Why Making Voting Easier Isn’t Enough: Early

Voting, Campaigns, and Voter Turnout

Brian T. Hamel

1

, Jan Leighley

2

, and Robert M. Stein

3



Abstract

Early voting laws intended to increase voter turnout seem to have had little to no effect on turnout. Why? We argue that the

effects of early voting on turnout are contingent on campaigns providing citizens with information about the election, their

choices, and how to vote early. When campaigns do so, turnout increases because citizens are more likely to vote –and more

likely to vote early. Using individual-level panel data, we show that direct campaign contact increases turnout exclusively via the

use of early voting. Using county-level data, we show that campaign ad volume also increases turnout via an increase in early

voting turnout. Our results aff‌irm our expectation that campaigns facilitate the expected mobilizing effects of early voting. At the

same time, the effects of campaigns on early voting are small in magnitude, and emerge only under campaign mobilization

conditions that are more the exception than the norm.

Keywords

early voting, campaigns, convenience voting, campaign ads

Over the last 50 years, many states have adopted election laws

to make voting easier for citizens. One of the most widely

adopted laws is in-person early voting,

1

which allows eligible

citizens to cast their ballot over the days and weeks prior to

Election Day. By increasing the time available to vote,

proponents believed that individuals otherwise unlikely to

vote would be more likely to cast a ballot by voting early. The

logic is simple: reduce the costs of voting, and more citizens

will vote. Yet, the most common empirical f‌inding is that the

adoption of in-person early voting has no effect on overall

turnout (e.g., Berinsky, 2005;Fitzgerald, 2005;Gronke et al.,

2007;Larocca & Klemanski, 2011), or perhaps may even

lower it (Burden et al., 2014).

These counterintuitive f‌indings about the effects of early

voting on turnout lead us to take a step back, and instead to

ask why some citizens choose to vote early in the f‌irst place,

and why others do not. That is, what factors or conditions, if

any, predict the use of early voting? We believe answering

this question can both provide insight as to why early voting

availability is not consistently associated with greater overall

turnout, and establish the condition(s) under which making

early voting available might actually produce higher levels of

turnout.

Drawing on Berinsky (2005), we argue that the

adoption and availability of early voting on its own is not

enough to get non-voters to use early voting and in turn

increase turnout. Central to our argument is the obser-

vation that while voting early may reduce the direct costs

of voting (i.e., the actual time and effort it takes to acquire

and cast a ballot), it does not reduce the informational

costs of voting, e.g., awareness and knowledge about the

election, the candidates and issues on the ballot, or

awareness of how to vote early. If a citizen is unaware of

the election or does not know who or what is on the ballot,

the convenience of early voting is irrelevant to getting

them to the polls. And if a citizen does not know how to

vote early, they cannot do so.

We argue that candidates and their campaigns are well-

positioned to lower those informational costs an d therefore,

to increase turnout via the use of early voting. It is well-

documented that campaigns are the primary way that cit-

izens learn about the election and their choices (Freedman

et al., 2004;Hill & Leighley, 1993;Holbrook & McClurg,

2005;Rosenstone & Hansen, 1993;Vavreck, 2009).

Campaigns can also inform citizens about how to vote early

and are incentivized to encourage their backers to do so.

When these informational costs are reduced, we anticipate

1

University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA

2

American University, Washington, DC, USA

3

Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Brian T. Hamel, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle #305340,

Denton, TX 76203-1277, USA.

Email: Brian.Hamel@unt.edu