EFFin' Unsound

post by tensor

Over at our near-namesake, it seems to do so:

Controlling for all of the other factors thought to shape voter participation, our model showed that the availability of early voting reduced turnout in the typical county by three percentage points.

Well, that could be a problem for advocates of early voting as a means to increase turnout. But what did Jim Miller think of the original paper?

I haven’t read the original paper.

I took a quick look at it. The central part of their claim is quite interesting:

Advocates, journalists, and politicians frequently propose changes to election laws out of the belief that making voting easier will increase voter turnout. [...] We challenge this notion, and show that the most popular reform – early voting – actually decreases turnout, an unanticipated consequence that has significant implications for policy and for theories of how state governments can influence turnout.

If a state had mail-in ballots for years, in addition to polling places, then closed all of the polling places, does that count as “making voting easier”? That would seem to make it harder, especially for those of us who’d become used to a polling place. That was the case in Washington State, so the applicability of this study here would seem questionable.

So, how does voting fare in a specific state, before and after early voting?

…is based on a three-part statistical analysis of the 2008 presidential election.

Oh, they didn’t look at historical data. Well, that’s reassuring.

Having ignored the actual paper in favor of The New York Times editorial about it, Jim set a pretty low bar for his commenters. Luckily, the amen corner there could limbo under a rug the floor:

If this state and other states weren’t so lazy, they would require registration before each Presidential election. They do that in Canada, you know.

We await KDS’ in-depth study of voter registration in Canadian Presidential elections*. (While Jim Miller won’t bother to read it, he may indeed agree that the recent set of Canadian Presidents shows a definite trend.)

I like that idea, of registering every year. It should include showing ID and proof of state residency.
It should be a little inconvenient to vote.

Heck, why not retinal scans, fingerprints, a couple of witnesses, and a blood test? That way, after the right-wing candidate loses in Washington State (a huge surprise, that), the supporters can shriek about voter fraud, because they never, ever need any evidence to do so.

However, I am all for requiring literacy tests. For teabaggers.

It bugs the daylights out of me that an admitted illegal alien is out drumming up the vote. I hope any registrations that this group gets are closely scrutinized. I bet most/all are fake.

Logic, how the heck does that work?

*Yeah, scottd and demo kid beat me to this one. It’s been a long day, alright?

This entry was posted on Monday, October 25th, 2010 at 10:40 PM and is filed under tensor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.