The Consequences of Electoral Institutions in the United States Restricted; Files Only
Szewczyk, James (Spring 2020)
Published
Abstract
In three essays, this dissertation analyzes how electoral institutions shape the behavior of voters, the behavior of elected officials, and policy outcomes in the United States. Each essay consists of an empirical study in which I estimate the effects of an electoral reform or set of related electoral reforms on these outcomes.
In the first essay I examine if vote-by-mail impacts how much information voters gather about politics. I argue that this reform results in a more informed electorate, because voters have additional time with their ballots and access to resources to conduct research about races that they know nothing about. I test this prediction in two contexts. I find that all-mail elections in Utah cause a decrease in straight ticket voting, which is consistent with the logic that voters spend more time with their ballots when voting by mail. In addition, I show that a vote-by-mail reform in California causes an increase in voter knowledge and an increase in time that voters spend gathering information about the election.
The second essay explores how this increase in information among voters affects elected official behavior. I find that all-mail elections cause a decrease in taxing and spending in the state of Washington's municipalities. This is evidence in support of my argument that elected officials are more competent and responsive after the implementation of vote-by-mail. To further support this claim I show that vote-by-mail causes a decrease in violations on accountability audits and an increase in turnout in municipal elections.
Finally, in the third essay I consider how reforms that restrict access to the ballot affect voter behavior and representation. I trace out the effects of restrictive voting laws on voter behavior in congressional elections, the outcomes of these elections, and, consequently, the behavior of members of the House of Representatives. I find that voting restrictions cause the median voter in congressional districts to shift to the right on the ideological spectrum. As a result, the implementation of voting restrictions causes the election of more conservative legislators that are less likely to cosponsor legislation related to civil rights issues.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction . . . 1
2 Does Vote-by-Mail Cause Voters to Gather Information about Politics? . . . 8
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2 Political Information, Elections, and Vote-by-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.3 The Effects of Vote-by-Mail on Straight Ticket Voting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.1 The Transition to Vote-by-Mail in Utah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4 The Effects of Vote-by-Mail on Voter Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4.1 The California Voter’s Choice Act . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4.3 Estimation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.4.4 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.4.5 Robustness Checks and Additional Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3 How Electoral Institutions Affect Political Accountability: Evidence from All-Mail Elections . . . 43
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.2 Vote-by-Mail, Political Information, and Electoral Accountability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3 Observable Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.4 Estimating the Effects of Vote-by-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.4.1 Municipal Elections in Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
3.4.2 The Staggered Implementation of Vote-by-Mail in Washington . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.4.3 Estimating Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.5 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.6 Vote-by-Mail Causes a Decrease in Taxing and Spending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.6.1 Placebo Tests and Additional Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.7 Evidence in Support of the Theoretical Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.7.1 Vote-by-Mail Causes a Decrease in Negative Accountability Audit Findings . . . . . 63
3.7.2 Vote-by-Mail Causes an Increase in Municipal Election Turnout . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.7.3 Changes in the Composition of the Electorate do not Explain the Findings . . . . . . 67
3.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
4 Voting Restrictions and Representation in Congress . . . 71
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
4.2 How Voting Restrictions Impact Turnout and Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
4.3 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.1 Voting Restrictions Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.3.2 Dependent Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
4.3.3 Control Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
4.4 Empirical Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
4.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.5.1 The Effects of Voting Restrictions on Voter Behavior and Election Outcomes . . . . 93
4.5.2 The Effects of Voting Restrictions on Representation in Congress . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.5.3 Voting Restrictions and the Partisan Composition of Congressional Districts . . . . . 100
4.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
A Appendix to Chapter 2 . . . 116
A.1 Survey Questionnaire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
A.2 Summary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
A.3 Robustness Checks and Additional Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
A.3.1 Survey Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
A.3.2 Who is Affected by Vote-by-Mail? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
B Appendix to Chapter 3 . . . 134
B.1 Summary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
B.2 Robustness Checks and Additional Results: Municipal Fiscal Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
B.3 Catalist Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
B.4 Robustness Checks: Audit Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
B.5 Robustness Checks and Additional Results: Voter Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C Appendix to Chapter 4 . . . 157
C.1 Summary Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
C.2 Additional Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
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