Do voter ID laws affect turnout? Does no-excuse absentee voting change electoral results? How would you find out? Hoover senior fellow Justin Grimmer goes through the research literature to separate fact from fiction.
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Show notes:
“Evidence vs. Hyperbole: The Relationship between Election Laws and the Health of Democracy” by Justin Grimmer and Eitan Hersh. Available here: https://www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/Grimmer-Hersh_EvidenceVsHyperbole_web.pdf
“How Election Rules Affect Who Wins” by Justin Grimmer and Eitan Hersh. Available here: https://academic.oup.com/jla/article/16/1/1/7641615?rss=1&login=true
“Do non-citizens vote in U.S. elections?” Richmond, Chattha, and Earnest. Electoral Studies, 2014: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379414000973
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Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
0:50 – What happens when states change their election rules?
1:12 – Most election law changes have little to no effect on elections
2:10 – Investigating claims of election fraud
2:47 – The three reasons why voting reforms don’t have large effects
3:30 – Testing Voter ID laws
6:30 – Second order effects of voter ID laws
9:35 – Voting reforms have made it easier to vote
10:25 – Andy Hall’s research on no-excuse absentee voting
12:00 – The big things that drive turnout
12:48 – The shift from in-person to absentee voting
14:50 – Why do states have different voting rules?
16:44 – Working with coauthors
17:40 – Claims about the 2020 election – Non-citizens voting
23:10 – Difference between irregularities and fraudulent behavior
24:54 – Making vote counting more visible
26:15 – Instantaneous vote reports
27:30 – What states are really good at running elections?
29:25 – Felon disenfranchisment
31:05 – How do you change people’s minds?
32:45 – The effects of redistricting
34:30 – The best remedy for worries over the election
