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. Powell, G. Bingham, 1986. "American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(1), pages 17-43, March.
    2. 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.
    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.
    2. Seo‐Young Silvia Kim & Akhil Bandreddi & R. Michael Alvarez, 2024. "Partisanship is why people vote in person in a pandemic," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 105(4), pages 1042-1060, July.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    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. Julie A. Marsh & Tasminda K. Dhaliwal & Michelle Hall & Morgan S. Polikoff, 2020. "Civic Engagement in Education: Insights from California's Local Control Funding Formula," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(4), pages 761-774, Fall.
    12. Denny, Kevin & Doyle, Orla, 2008. "Political Interest, Cognitive Ability and Personality: Determinants of Voter Turnout in Britain," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 291-310, April.
    13. Rauh, Christopher, 2017. "Voting, education, and the Great Gatsby Curve," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 1-14.
    14. Christopher Rauh, 2015. "The Political Economy of Early and College Education - Can Voting Bend the Great Gatsby Curve?," 2015 Meeting Papers 82, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. LeRoux Kelly & Langer Julie & Plotner Samantha, 2023. "Nonprofit Messaging and the 2020 Election: Findings from a Nonpartisan Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) Field Experiment," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 157-183, April.
    16. Alan D. Crane & Andrew Koch & Leming Lin, 2024. "Real Effects of Markets on Politics: Evidence from US Presidential Elections," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 73-88, March.
    17. Ozgur Evren, 2009. "Altruism, Turnout and Strategic Voting Behavior," Levine's Working Paper Archive 814577000000000309, David K. Levine.
    18. Henry S. Farber, 2009. "Increasing Voter Turnout: Is Democracy Day the Answer?," Working Papers 1116, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    19. Peter Kotzian, 2014. "Good Governance and Norms of Citizenship: An Investigation into the System- and Individual-Level Determinants of Attachment to Civic Norms," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 58-83, January.
    20. repec:zbw:rwirep:0466 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Adalbert Abraham Ghislain Melingui Bate, 2020. "The effect of education on voter's turnout in african presidential elections," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1607-1622.

    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.