IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v89y2008i4p902-915.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Voting by Mail: Turnout and Institutional Reform in Oregon

Author

Listed:
  • Sean Richey

Abstract

Objectives. I test the impact of Oregon's vote‐by‐mail system on voter turnout. Methods. To determine the impact, I create a cross‐sectional time‐series regression model of state turnout in presidential elections from 1980 to 2004 and mid‐term elections from 1982 to 2006. Results. I find that Oregon's turnout increases by around 10 percentage points of registered voters in both presidential and mid‐term elections due to the voting‐by‐mail reform. Conclusions. These results suggest that one of the reasons that the United States has comparatively lower turnout is due to its more onerous voting procedures.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean Richey, 2008. "Voting by Mail: Turnout and Institutional Reform in Oregon," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 89(4), pages 902-915, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:89:y:2008:i:4:p:902-915
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00590.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00590.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2008.00590.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McDonald, Michael P. & Popkin, Samuel L., 2001. "The Myth of the Vanishing Voter," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(4), pages 963-974, December.
    2. Powell, G. Bingham, 1986. "American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(1), pages 17-43, March.
    3. Timpone, Richard J., 1998. "Structure, Behavior, and Voter Turnout in the United States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(1), pages 145-158, March.
    4. Kousser, Thad & Mullin, Megan, 2007. "Does Voting by Mail Increase Participation? Using Matching to Analyze a Natural Experiment," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 428-445.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. David H. Folz, 2014. "Vote Centers as a Strategy to Control Election Administration Costs," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(1), pages 21582440145, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Margarita Batlle (Editora), 2015. "Elecciones 2014 en Colombia: candidatos, estrategias y resultados," Books, Universidad Externado de Colombia, Facultad de Finanzas, Gobierno y Relaciones Internacionales, edition 1, number 94, April.
    2. Hoffman, Mitchell & León, Gianmarco & Lombardi, María, 2017. "Compulsory voting, turnout, and government spending: Evidence from Austria," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 103-115.
    3. Daniel Stockemer, 2017. "Electoral Participation: How to Measure Voter Turnout?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(3), pages 943-962, September.
    4. Allison Dale & Aaron Strauss, 2009. "Don't Forget to Vote: Text Message Reminders as a Mobilization Tool," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 787-804, October.
    5. Rachel Milstein Sondheimer & Donald P. Green, 2010. "Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 174-189, January.
    6. Alber, Jens & Kohler, Ulrich, 2008. "The inequality of electoral participation in Europe and America and the politically integrative functions of the welfare state," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Inequality and Social Integration SP I 2008-202, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    7. Tim Powlowski & Dennis Coates, 2013. "The habit for voting, “civic duty” and travel distance," UMBC Economics Department Working Papers 13-05, UMBC Department of Economics.
    8. Konstantinou, Panagiotis Th. & Panagiotidis, Theodore & Roumanias, Costas, 2021. "State-dependent effect on voter turnout: The case of US House elections," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 753-765.
    9. De Benedetto, Marco Alberto & De Paola, Maria, 2019. "Term limit extension and electoral participation. Evidence from a diff-in-discontinuities design at the local level in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 196-211.
    10. Scott Basinger & Damon Cann & Michael Ensley, 2012. "Voter response to congressional campaigns: new techniques for analyzing aggregate electoral behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 771-792, March.
    11. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Increasing Voter Turnout: Is Democracy Day the Answer?," Working Papers 1116, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    12. Baodong Liu & Sharon D. Wright Austin & Byron D'Andrá Orey, 2009. "Church Attendance, Social Capital, and Black Voting Participation," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(3), pages 576-592, September.
    13. Timothy Besley & Sacha Dray, 2022. "Trust as state capacity: The political economy of compliance," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-135, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Shruthi Mohan Menon & Gerard Rassendren, 2022. "Analysis of determinants of voter turnout in Indian states for election years 1991–2019," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 24(1), pages 30-45, June.
    15. repec:pri:cepsud:181farber is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Mueller, Dennis C. & Stratmann, Thomas, 2003. "The economic effects of democratic participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2129-2155, September.
    17. Danny Hayes & Seth C. McKee, 2009. "The Participatory Effects of Redistricting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 1006-1023, October.
    18. Bhatt, Rachana & Dechter, Evgenia & Holden, Richard, 2020. "Registration costs and voter turnout," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 91-104.
    19. R. Urbatsch, 2012. "The paradox of voting intelligently," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 511-524, March.
    20. Nwankwo Cletus Famous & Okafor Uchenna Paulinus, 2017. "Voting in Nigeria: Determinants of Turnout in the 2015 Presidential Election," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 249-260, December.
    21. Herrera, Helios & Llorente-Saguer, Aniol & McMurray, Joseph C., 2019. "Information aggregation and turnout in proportional representation: A laboratory experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:89:y:2008:i:4:p:902-915. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.