One of our bloggers is on this panel as discussant. Andre Blais is principal investigator for “Making Electoral Democracy Work,” a very interesting sounding comparative elections project coming out of the Canadian research system. Finally, if memory serves (confirmed from his website), Garrett is one of Mike’s many successful graduate students. Aha! And Morgan is on this panel, too! Guess I’m waking up early again tomorrow.

25-3 Election Procedures: The Impact of Polling Places, Ballots, and Voting Systems
Date: Friday, April 13 8:30 am
Chair(s): Andre Blais, Université de Montréal

Paper(s): Does the Location of a Polling Place Influence Voting Behavior?: Voting in Churches and Support for Proposition 8
This paper examines whether support for California’s Proposition 8 (banning gay marriage) was higher in those voting precincts that used churches as their polling place as compared to those precincts that used some other type of public building.
Garrett Glasgow, University of California, Santa Barbara

Straight-ticket Scapegoat? The Impact of the Straight-ticket Option on State Legislative Contests
An analysis of 1990s Illinois state legislative electoral returns demonstrates that the removal of the straight-ticket option from state ballots may have been counterproductive to partisans seeking an advantage via changes to the ballot design.
Michael Allen Lewkowicz, Georgia Gwinnett College

The Effect of Electronic Voting on Voter Behavior and Representation
This paper tests the hypothesis that electronic voting effects voter behavior and representation, relative to paper voting. Using ballot level data, we analyze voter expression and choice conditional on an individual’s voting technology choice.
Morgan Llewellyn, Institutions Markets Technologies, Lucca

The Effects of Ranked-choice Voting Systems on Racial Group Voting Behavior in Urban Elections
An examination of strategic racial cross-over voting in two ranked-choice voting urban mayoral elections. Data are individual ranked-choice ballots with race of voter estimated via a modified ecological inference procedure.
Jason Alan McDaniel, San Francisco State University
James Newburg, Brown University

Prevalence and Moderators of the Candidate Name Order Effect: Evidence from all Statewide General Elections in California
Does the order of candidates’ names on the ballot have the power to alter vote shares and change election outcomes? This research re-evaluates conflicting results of order effects in California elections, revealing a consistent pattern of influence.
Josh Pasek, University of Michigan
Jon Krosnick, Stanford University
Alexander Moss Tahk, Stanford University

Discussant(s): Andre Blais, Université de Montréal
Charles H. Stewart, Massachusetts Institute of Technology