I just got sent this recent article by Mark DiCamillo (Field Poll) published in the California Journal of Politics and Policy. This looks like a good journal with an excellent of editors.  I don’t know how the attached article made it by the proofreaders, however.  The data that are reported are fine, but I think the conclusions the author reaches are not really supported at all by the data.

DiCamillo writes, on pg. 1

The recent rapid expansion in mail ballot voting coincides with the rebound in voter turnout in California’s three most recent presidential elections, after an almost continuous 32-year decline. Table 1 shows the trend in voting participation in California presidential elections since 1976 and compares this to the number of mail ballot votes cast in these elections. Californians’ accelerated use of mail ballot voting appears to have had a beneficial effect on voter turnout in recent elections. Evidence for this can be found in the higher turnout rates of mail ballot voters compared to other registered voters (see Table 2).

It’s important that we look at the evidence for these claims.  DiCamillo makes, in my opinion, two errors:

1. In the first figure, he plots presidential turnout rates in California since 1976 along with the number of by mail ballots.  He uses this to argue that the growth in turnout is caused (I can see no other way to interpret “has a beneficial effect on”) in part by voting by mail.
   The problem is that this attributes all or a significant part of the change in turnout to the increased use of a particular mode of balloting.  I am almost certain, based on substantial research in political science, that virtually all of that increase is due to the changing nature of California elections and the California political environment.
   If voting by mail were the cause–and the increased use not an effect–then why did it take so long for that effect to be seen (no excuse absentee voting has been around since 1978)?  If voting by mail causes increased turnout, how to explain the negative correlation from 1976-1996?
2. DiCamillo’s second chart compares the turnout rate among those issued mail ballots to all registered voters in 2008, and again uses this to argue that voting by mail leads to higher turnout.
   It’s hard to know where to start with this claim.
   – It is impossible to conclude anything from a single year.
   – Excluding those on permanent absentee rolls, those requesting absentee ballots have already indicated a strong preference to actually vote. You can’t compare these voters to those who are just registered to vote who have made no positive action toward casting a ballot.
3. – The data in Table 4 explain why the turnout differences exist.  It may be partially due to by-mail balloting, but it is much more likely due to the kind of citzens who opt for that mode: older, better educated, higher income.

This wouldn’t concern me much except that the reason I was sent the article is I am working with a post-election review commission in another state that is considering an aggressive move to voting by mail.  Misleading conclusions about the impact of voting by mail on turnout don’t help election administrators make good policy decisions.

The last point about the demographic profile of by absentee voters–I’ve made that point in at least four published articles at this point, as has Adam Berinsky, Michael Traugott, Michael Hanmer, Priscilla Southwell, Jeffrey Karp–almost everyone who has written on this topic.

On May 19 there will be a special election in California’s CD 32 to fill the vacancy of Hilda Solis. Twelve candidates filed, including front-runners Gil Cedillo (a state Senator) and Judy Chu (a member of the state Board of Equalization). If that wasn’t interesting enough, there is a second Chu in the race, raising questions about potential voter confusion.

Here’s some snips from my local paper, the Pasadena Star-News:

Chu faces her own Asian challenger, one that shares her name and is distantly related. Monterey Park councilwoman Betty Tom Chu, Chu’s cousin by marriage, has jumped into the contest. And though she has gone by her full name in previous elections, this time around she has dropped the Tom and filed papers as Betty Chu, which could produce confusion among voters.

Chu and Chu are known to be political rivals, and some wonder if the Betty Tom Chu’s entrance is an effort to cause confusion.

“It’s a problem but it’s one we can deal with,” said Chu’s campaign consultant Parke Skelton. “It’s kind of an obvious dirty trick… a little too cute by half.”

But Tom Chu said she’s running to serve her Monterey Park community at the federal level.

“There are 12 candidates running. I found out a little about each one before I decided that I don’t want them to represent me and if I don’t want them to represent me, why would I want them to represent my constituents,” she said.

Tom Chu said her top priority would be to cut taxes to stimulate the economy.

She said she is known both with the Tom name and without, and decided for the latter in this contest.

A three-judge panel yesterday dismissed a variety of motions from Coleman to subtract votes from Franken’s total. Here is quote from the ruling, from today’s LA Times:

“The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the November 4, 2008, election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately,” the judges wrote. “There is no evidence of a systematic problem of disenfranchisement in the state’s election system, including in its absentee-balloting procedures.”

Voter confidence–a citizen’s perception whether their ballot will be counted as intended–came under scrutiny in the recent meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.  Two papers examined the validity of voter confidence directly, my own paper with James Hicks, which can be downloaded here,  and a paper by Lonna Atkeson, Michael Alvarez, and Thad Hall. This last group of authors is particularly noteworthy because, as far as I can tell, Alvarez and Hall invented the concept of voter confidence when they included it in a survey conducted before the 2002 election.

Is voter confidence a key metric by which we can measure and monitor the performance of American elections?  Heather Gerken seems to think so–she suggests it as one potential entry into the Democracy Index sweepstakes.  Yet, as Michael Kang notes in review of Gerken’s book, we have to pay very close attention to the quality of the input into any such index.  Garbage in/garbage out is not a way to move the debate over election reform from “shouting to data driven arguments.”

In my recent paper with James Hicks, we started from the assumption that voter confidence was not a good metric of electoral performance, and was instead reflected broader assessments of the state of the nation and the performance of the political system.  Marc Hetherington, for example, argues that the collapse in public support for activist government was caused by declining trust in government.

What if we similarly conclude that “voter confidence” is similarly driven by the public mood, the popularity of the sitting president, or the state of the economy rather than breakdowns in election technology or well-publicized failures in ballot counting?

I haven’t read Atkeson’s paper yet, but I hope to put a review up here in the next week or two, but I spoke to her at the conference, and their conclusions seem very much in line with our own.  Voter confidence responds pretty much as we’d hope it would–while it is (not surprisingly) related to broader measures of trust and confidence in government, is is a) not at all responsive to short term policy evaluations and b) is most strongly related to features of the election, including:

• Did you vote for the winner or the loser?
• The quality of poll workers
• Concerns about voter fraud
• Overall evaluations of the voting experience

We did not find, however, contrary to some previous work, that voter confidence levels were significantly different across different modes of balloting (early in person, absentee, and at the precinct on election day).

We can debate whether survey measures belong in a democracy index, but these results leave me  confident that voter confidence measures what we think it measures.

An excellent report on the Ohio elections system has been released by the Brennan Center and can be downloaded here: http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/final_report_2008_2009_ohio_elections_summit_and_conference/.

I worked with Larry Norden on the early / absentee voting section of this report, although most of the work and all of the credit goes to Larry and his staff at Brennan.

I’ll post a longer review in a day or two when I digest the rest of the findings.

Allegations of election fraud, in particular multiple voting, have arisen in the recent legislative elections in Moldova, including rioting yesterday.

Yesterday 351 previously rejected absentee ballots were added to the tally in the Minnesota Senate race, with 198 going to Franken, 111 to Coleman, and 42 for other candidates. This increased Franken’s lead to 312 votes in the disputed race. Coleman’s legal team says they will appeal.

Got this one in email; it’s an interesting story that raises questions about vetting of pollworkers. Here’s the story from Star-Telegram.com.

The link is here.

Got this info recently: the results of the public cost opening for the VoteCal RFP (RFP SOS 0890-46) are now available.