We examine the early voting process in Tennessee during the election of 1994. By conducting a mail survey of all 95 county registrars, we ascertained the methods and costs of early voting implementation. Generally, the survey reveals a strong belief that early voting encourages greater participation by voters, with turnout data supporting this belief. We find that the ballot type and location of early voting sites play an important role in determining both the costs of early voting and the rate of voter participation

Neeley, Grant W.

Richardson, Lillard E., Jr.

English

University of Dayton

University of DaytoneCommonsPolitical Science Faculty Publications Department of Political ScienceSummer 1996Implementation of Early VotingLillard E. Richardson Jr.University of MissouriGrant W. NeeleyUniversity of Dayton, gneeley1@udayton.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/pol_fac_pubPart of the American Politics Commons, Comparative Politics Commons, Models and MethodsCommons, Political Theory Commons, and the Public Affairs, Public Policy and PublicAdministration CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Political Science at eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion inPolitical Science Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCommons. For more information, please contact frice1@udayton.edu,mschlangen1@udayton.edu.eCommons CitationRichardson, Lillard E. Jr. and Neeley, Grant W., "Implementation of Early Voting" (1996). Political Science Faculty Publications. 74.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/pol_fac_pub/74\ • SPECTRUM seeks to be an honest observer of the state government arena and a vehicle for expression of the newest ideas and latest thinking on state policies and institutions, The mission of SPECTRUM is to provide reliable information and insightful analysis on public policy issues to anyone whose interest in state government strekhes beyond limited, short-term goals of the status quo, SPECTRUM seeks to develop common ground among all entities and individuals who are interested in improving state government and to unite practitioners, academics, business, the media and others in a common understanding of the problems and solutions that are unique to governance of the American states and territories. SPECTRUM Staff Managing Editor: Susan Bush Senior Editors: Keon Chi Bob Silvanik Editorial Assislflnt: Lauren Lovelace Production Manager: Fred J, Vickers Graphic Design Coordinator: Skip Olson Electronic Publishing Specialist: Connie P LaVake Advertising: Phyllis Santos (606) 244-8111 Publication Sales Department: 1-800-800-1910 Reprint Permissions: Allison Spurrier (606) 244-8113 ISSN: 1067-8530 Copyright 1996 The Council of State Governments 3560 Iron Works Pike PO. Box 11910 Lexington, KY 40578-1910 Implementation of Early Voting We examine the early voting process in Tennessee during the election of 1994. By conducting a mail survey of all 95 county registrars, we ascertained the methods and costs of early voting implementation. Generally, the survey reveals a strong belief that early voting encourages greater participation by voters, with turnout data supporting this belief. We find that the ballot type and location of early voting sites play an important role in determining both the costs of early voting and the rate of voter participation. by Lilliard E. Richardson Jr. and Grant W. Neeley Introduction Low voter turnout is a well documented and often lamented aspect of the American political system (Powell 1986; Piven and Cloward 1989). Although there are numerous explanations for declining participation (see Teixeira 1992), one important factor is the impact of structural barriers on voting turnout (Walker 1966; Rusk 1970; Rosenstone and Wolfinger 1978; Erikson 1981; Fenster 1994J. To improve turnout, sever-al structural reforms have been proposed. Early voting is one such reform. Adopted in 1991 by Texas and since imple-mented in limited form by several other states, early voting allows citizens a "no hassle" method of voting a couple of weeks prior to the election. Tennessee instituted early voting in 1994 when it conducted a primary and general election for Congressional, state and local elections. Be-cause early voting may include weekend and evening hours of operation, it greatly reduces the structural impediments otherwise placed on a registrant who has an inflexible job or childcare situation. In addition, voting sites at churches, shopping centers and community cen-ters may ameliorate some of the social factors that reduce turnout by making voting more accessible for low information registrants. Despite the fact that many states have adopted early voting in the beliefthat it would increase voter turnout, very little research has been conducted on voter participation through absentee ballots or early voting. Magleby (1987) shows that elections handled by mail ballot in California enjoyed higher than nor-mal participation rates, and he demonstrates that education levels had an even greater ef-fect on participation in mail ballot elections than normal elections. Dubin and Kalsow (1995), in their study of California's absentee balloting system, demonstrate that liberalized absentee voting may have increased turnout in primary elections but not general elections. They also found demographic differences be-tween absentee voters and other voters. Garcia, Stein and Ward (1993), in their research on the Texas early voting system, show that ethnicity, the operating hours of voting sites, and the presence of a nongovernmental voting location affect early voting participation. For both election officials and scholars there are several questions about the implementa-tion of the program that remain unanswered. How are election officials conducting early voting? What are the costs associated with the implementation of the program? How does ballot type and the location of the early voting sites affect the cost of the program and turn-out? Further, did early voting have a positive impact on turnout? To answer these questions, we examine the early voting experience in Tennessee for the 1994 primary and general elections. Our analysis is informed by a survey of all 95 county election officials in the state of Tennessee. In the next section we discuss the characteristics of early voting before we turn to the methods of implementation, the costs of implementation and turnout effects of early voting. Page 16 SPECTRUM Summer 1996 county budget for expenses, Several indicated that earlv votina \Vas "too expensive for the county" ,;nd that "the state should help with the costs of early voting," Several thought that it was "reallv a bad situation for all small coun-ties," and m~ny indicated that they had "never \Vorked harder in our life." One \vent so far as to say "early voting was HELL," As Table 1 sho\VS, counties experienced a \vide range of costs in implementing early vot-ing, The minimal total number of hours that early voting was open for the public was 42 hours, and the maximum total was 178 in the primary and 166,5 in the general election, On average, the voting sites were open for 100 hours each time. A major factor in implementing early vot-ing is the work force needed to staff the poll-ing place and to tabulate the results, While \Ve n1ust carefully interpret the survey results because some respondents vie\ved the ques-tion as the number of extra workers needed beyond the permanent, full-time stafl; there \vas tren1endous variation in the number of election workers needed_ The number of poll workers ranged as high as 100 for the primary and 70 for the general election, The median number of poll workers per county was 4 for the primary and 5 for the general election, The counties, on average, also needed 100 person hours to tabulate the primary results and 60 person hours for the general election, The number of person hours ranged as high as 3240, Both the number of early voters par-ticipating and whether or not a paper ballot was used contributed to the number of person hours needed to tabulate the results, The dil~ ficulties some counties had in tabulating the results for the primary is readily seen in that 28'< of the counties did not have the early vot-ing results finished until alter 11 p,m, The tre-mendous irr1provement in tabulation time from the primary to the general election reflects the complexity of the primary ballots (which in-cluded county genernl elections!, the learning process of conducting the initial early voting process, and a transition from paper ballots to mechanized voting. So how much did this process cost the coun-ties" Costs ran as high as $51,265 for the pri-Table l Early Voting Costs JJriniar.J' General Total Hours of Operation range 42 178 42 - 166,5 n1ean 95,7 97,4 rnedian 97 98 Number of Workers range 0 - 100 0 - 70 n1ean 7 6,9 n1edian 4 5 Person Hours to Tabulate range 0 - 3240 0 - 3240 mean 10L73 60,88 median 17 10 Time Finished Tabulating before 7 p,m. 6(} 19Ci 7 p,m, - 9 p,m, 43r; 68(-( 9 p,n1- - 11 p,m, 23r-r ll '!r after 11 p,m, 2sr,-; 9c1 - ' Estimated Tow! Cost range $0 - $51,265 $0 - $71,365 mean $6,:367 $6,317 n1edian $3,070 $3,224 sun1 $592,146 $587,475 Cost Per Vote range $0 - $39,91 $0 $52,89 n1ean $4,55 $3,73 median $2,58 $L71 Page 18 SPECTRUM Summer 1996 wise not have the time to cast a ballot, and reduces congestion at the voting site, but it may increase the costs for the county. To test these ideas, we used bivariate crosstabular analysis. For all three dependent variables and the proximity and hours of op-eration independent variables, we divided the responses into three categories oflow, medium and high. The ballot type variable was sepa-rated into two categories: paper ballot only or mechanical ballot. As Table 2 shows, ballot type has a very strong effoct on the cost per early vote. Half of all "paper only" counties were in the highest cost per vote category in both elections. Like-wise, counties with a low percentage of the county population living in the voting site city are in the highest cost catego1ies. Where prox-imity to the voting site is low, costs tend to be much higher. On the other hand, hours of op-eration does not appear to have a consistently significant effect on cost per vote. Clearly, the most important factor for lowering the costs of early voting is to use mechanized ballots. The Impact on Turnout What can the Tennessee experience in 1994 tell us about the impact of early voting on turn-out? Eight out of 10 county election o!licials in Tennessee believe that early voting increased participation, but did turnout increase? To assess the impact of early voting turnout, con-sider three ways of examining turnout. First, how did Tennessee turnout compare to the rest of the nation in 1994? Second, how did turnout in this election compare to other recent mid-term elections in Tennessee? Third, were there any discernible effects at the county level? One problem with assessing the impact of early voting is that the 1994 election was an extremely salient one for the state of Tennes-see. There were two US. Senate seats and the gubernatorial election on the ballot. All three were hotly contested, and one of the Senate seats and the gubernatorial race did not in-clude an incumbent. Because of the unique nature of this election, we are wary of making any grand claims about the effect of early vot-ing on turnout. Clearly, more evidence is needed to fully assess the impact of early vot-ing, but an early assessment may be useful for others considering such a program. One way to evaluate Tennessee's early vot-ing experience is to compare voter turnout in 1994 with turnout in other election years. While the 1994 election was extremely com-petitive in Tennessee, an examination of other Figure 1 50 40 c •• § 35 l (II 30 ' ~ <( 10 5 0 . 1958 Page 20 1962 1966 Turnout Trends in Midterm Elections 1970 1 974 1978 1982 1986 1990 Year SPECTRUM 1994 6 USA0 Cong -i:>-south· Cong Summer 1996 Table4 Implementation Effects of Early Voting on Turnout A - PRIMARY ELECTION Ballot Type Paper Only Machine - ___ ,, - -Early Turnout of Registered Voters IO\V 51!} 19'/r med 24';; 40St high 24</C 40(k P2 = 10.35*** P' = 4.58 P'= 1.72 Percent of Total Votes Cast Early low 447r 23C:t med 3l'i'r 35~:;:-high 24f7r 42'7r P2 = 5.43* P' = 4.49 P* = 1.58 B - GENERAL ELECTION Ballot Type LouJ 49r; - .r 230( 36'7r 39'7r 32r;1r 29</i Proxilnil}_' Hours of Operation Med High Low Med High 37'7} 23t;:, 27(7r 41r;;- 37<;;:-30(;(- 470t 38<7'r 28'7r 30'7r 33'} 30lJ- 35(} 31(,k 33c;;-39!/'r 201/C 29tX:- 34% 36(/( 36f_} 33S'r- 35~} 38</( 2-c1 ;.) IC 26'7r 47c;-;.- 35t;; 28r;} 390( Proxi111.ity Hours of'011eration Paper Only Machine Low lvled High /_,Olli Med High Early Turnout of Registered Voters lO\V 46l)( 27f?r 58<;,;- 290; 10'} 44(} 39f! ...., -r 21 r;;-med 42'7r 30'7r 29<} 42?r 29C/r 28</l- 41'} 230; high 13'7r 43';f 13r,y 29t,r, 6Ei 28<J 27<} 52l/(-P' = 7.39** P' = 23.37*** P' = 7.15 Percent of Total Votes Cast Early lO\V 48'7} 28</t 62r,:y 29f/(- 10'7' 29'7r- 39':} 31 <;;-med 30<;7, 35l,} 24(l 42'7r 35<;,_ 36\-( 33<!( 31r;; high 22'} 38'7' i4r;" 29l)(- 55c,:r 36l,} 27<;;- 38'7r P2 = 3.58 P2 = 21.99*** P' 1.26 * indicates that p<.10 *"'indicates that p<.05 *** indicates that p<.01 els of turnout in both elections, but the vari-able is significant at only the .10 level for the primary and not at all in the general election. Proximity exhibits a pattern similar to what was found for the percent of registered voters: a weak effect in the primary, but a highly sig-nificant effect in the general election. Finally, hours of operation has no apparent relation-ship with the percent of total votes cast early in either type of election. Conclusion The early voting experience in Tennessee varied greatly both in terms of cost and par-ticipation. While the requirements for early voting \Vere minimal, many counties extended the early voting opportunity beyond the re-quirements of the state by offering satellite voting sites and extended hours of operation. However, the small number of satellite loca-tions may not have provided for a full test of the early voting program's potential for in-creasing access to the ballot.Although we can assess the impact of early voting using only one year, it does appear that high levels of early voting are positively related to increases in turnout. The experience gained in the 1994 election should prove valuable to both the Ten-nessee election officials trying to improve the Page 22 SPECTRUM Summer 1996 

Implementation of Early Voting

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Implementation of Early Voting

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