Research
Lost in Transition: The Adverse Participatory Effects of Administrative Costs
In Progress
Research consistently shows that higher net costs of voting decrease political participation. However, less is known about how voters react to different types of voting costs. In this study, I use residential mobility to examine the relative importance of administrative, social, and informational costs on voter turnout. The political and administrative boundaries crossed during a move cause variations in voting costs for the mover. I provide a framework for understanding how different types of moves increase the costs of voting. Additionally, I introduce a novel method for measuring residential mobility using real estate transactions data. I find that moves involving a change in election jurisdictions (often cross-county moves) significantly reduce voter turnout. These cross-jurisdiction movers are about 10 percentage points less likely to vote than movers within the same jurisdiction. This effect is mainly due to higher administrative costs. I find mixed evidence that higher informational and social costs reduce turnout. These findings suggest that turnout is more sensitive to increases in administrative costs compared to increases in informational or social costs.
Intra-County Moves and Fail-Safe Voting Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993
Under Review
Residential mobility can greatly impact the accuracy of voter registration lists and impede voters' ability to cast ballots. Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 offers a partial remedy to these challenges through fail-safe voting. This provision allows registered voters who move within their election jurisdiction without updating their address to correct their registration and vote on Election Day. Thus, fail-safe voting acts as a county-level form of portable voter registration. Despite their potential to improve list accuracy and expand voter eligibility, these fail-safe provisions are not thoroughly explored in the election administration literature. By analyzing data from North Carolina's voter files, I aim to address this gap by estimating the number of registrants who use fail-safe voting and identifying those most likely to do so. In each of the 2020, 2022, and 2024 elections, approximately 18,000 to 24,000 individuals were fail-safe voters. Highly mobile voters, such as younger and minority individuals, are more likely to rely on fail-safe voting. Fail-safe voting effectively corrects registration addresses and ensures individuals can vote at the correct location.
Automatic Voter Registration and List Maintenance (w/ Marc Meredith)
2023 - Published in Pandemic at the Polls
This chapter argues that the main benefit of Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) policies is not the enfranchisement of new voters, but rather voter list maintenance. When states implement AVR, there are significant increases in the number of voter registration address updates. This results in cleaner voter rolls and increased voter eligibility for people who move frequently. Additionally, this chapter highlights the usefulness of AVR as a tool for conducting registration when in-person registration opportunities are limited, such as during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.