Showing papers in "Election Law Journal in 2011"
TL;DR: This paper conducted a field experiment with all registered voters in California's San Joaquin County as their subjects, where a randomly chosen treatment group received postcards offering them the chance to easily obtain permanent absentee voting status.
Abstract: Over the past decade, permanent absentee voting, or “Vote-by-Mail” (VBM), has become increasingly popular. More than half the U.S. states offer their citizens the option to vote by mail. Yet until now, we have known relatively little about which voters are most likely to use this option when it is available, and what (if anything) can be done to convert voters effectively to permanent VBM status. In this paper, we address both these issues. We conduct a field experiment with all registered voters in California’s San Joaquin County as our subjects, where a randomly chosen treatment group receives postcards – a low-cost conversion option – offering them the chance to easily obtain permanent VBM status. We supplement this experiment with a survey of a subset of these voters, allowing identification of what types of voters are most likely to convert to VBM. Though the low-cost postcard treatment did significantly increase conversion to permanent VBM status, this effect shows up at disproportionately high rates among groups that already vote at higher rates.
23 citations
Journal Article•
11 citations
TL;DR: In 2008, following a series of legal battles, Washington State adopted an open nonpartisan "Top-Two" primary system in which only the top two vote earners, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.
Abstract: In 2008, following a series of legal battles, Washington State adopted an open nonpartisan “Top-Two” primary system in which only the top two vote earners, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election—the same system California adopted via a 2010 ballot measure. The new primary system is described as a nonpartisan primary but allows candidates to describe their “political party preference.” The state allows candidates to place on the ballot “Prefers Republican Party” or “Prefers Democratic Party” next to their name while arguing that the primary is nonpartisan. Upon adoption, both political parties objected, arguing that they were being forced to associate with candidates they did not select. The state countered that the winners of the Top-Two primary are not “nominees” because the new election is not a primary but a “winnowing election” for the purposes of producing a general election ballot. After the Top-Two primary was struck down on its face by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Cour...
3 citations
TL;DR: In the first decade of the twenty-first century, the number of cases in which parties sought Supreme Court review declined by more than 36 percent from the 1991-2000 decade compared to the 2001-2010 decade as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This article describes the drop in Supreme Court election law cases in the first decade of the twenty-first century, and offers at least a partial explanation as to the reasons for the drop. Although the general amount of election law litigation has risen dramatically since 2000, the number of cases in which parties sought Supreme Court review declined by more than 36 percent from the 1991–2000 decade compared to the 2001–2010 decade. Factoring that decline into account, the data show that the Court issued written opinions in nearly the same percentage of election law cases each decade in which parties sought Supreme Court review—11.9% of cases in the 1991–2000 decade, and 10.5% of cases in 2001–2010. While I cannot exclude the possibility that the Court shied away from hearing some election law cases out of Bush v. Gore fatigue or as the result of random noise, the drop in the number of election law cases in which litigants sought Supreme Court review cases seems to explain a great deal of the d...
2 citations