Guess the source....
@SwampRayder Some good insights and data as to why your election day prognostications turned out to be wrong. Hell, nearly everybody got the math wrong.
Early Voting Didn’t Boost Overall Election Turnout, Studies Show
Analysis of early poll data also fails to predict eventual winner
South Florida voters were given instructions by polling center workers as they received their ballots at an early voting center in Miami on Nov. 3, 2016. PHOTO: RHONA WISE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By
REID J. EPSTEIN
Dec. 30, 2016 12:06 p.m. ET
48 COMMENTS
Most early voting programs didn’t increase the number of people who cast ballots in 2016, they just changed the way people participated, according to examinations of this year’s election results.
President-elect Donald Trump’s Nov. 8 victory also put aside long-held notions that pre-Election Day indicators from early-voting data could serve as useful predictors of who would win the election.
Election figures in Ohio bear out the lack of relationship between the availability of early voting and overall turnout.
Before the 2008 election, Ohio lawmakers for the first time introduced early and no-excuse absentee voting in the state. When President Barack Obama defeated Sen. John McCain that year, 1.72 million Ohioans voted before Election Day. But postelection figures showed that overall turnout increased from 2004 by just 51,000 votes.
THE TRUMP TRANSITION
Fewer Ohioans voted in 2012, and fewer still in 2016, even as early voting numbers rose to 1.86 million in 2012 and 1.88 million in 2016.
Pre-Election Day ballots increased this year even though Ohio limited the early-voting period and added restrictions, such as a prohibition on counties subsidizing prepaid return envelopes on absentee ballots.
“You’re just moving the same amount of votes. You’re moving 30% of them to early voting but it’s not increasing the overall number,” said Mike Dawson, a former Republican political aide in Ohio who operates ohioelectionresults.com. “Early voting is not increasing voter turnout. Voter motivation is what increases voter turnout.”
Much of the pre-Election Day prognostications using available early-voting data pointed to a Hillary Clinton victory, based on the Democratic nominee’s strengths in states such as Florida. There, 70% of ballots were cast before Nov. 8 and the data showed strong turnout in urban counties where Democrats do well.
Voter data compiled by Steve Schale, a Tallahassee political operative who was a senior official in President Barack Obama’s Florida campaigns, showed Mrs. Clinton led Mr. Trump by 247,000 votes when polls opened on Election Day. But Mr. Trump ultimately won the Election Day turnout in the state by 360,000 votes—a 13-point margin that wiped out her advantage.
“With Trump, many of his voters had the characteristics of people associated with Election Day voters, people marginally connected to the system,” said Paul Gronke, the director of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Oregon. “They were a population that we hadn’t considered in our models.”
Mr. Gronke compared total turnout and early voting turnout from the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections and found little correlation between changes in early voting and overall turnout.
His figures show nine states—including competitive ones like Minnesota, Virginia and Wisconsin—and Washington, D.C., where the percentage of early votes increased from 2012 to 2016 as overall turnout fell. Meanwhile, pre-Election Day voting percentages dropped in 14 states, including Nevada, where overall turnout increased.
“We thought that more early voting indicated a campaign with good mobilization and voter enthusiasm,” Mr. Gronke said. “Hillary Clinton does appear to have had a very good early-vote chasing operation but she ran out of votes.”
Michael McDonald, who operates the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida, said a full study of early voting’s impact on turnout won’t be complete until next summer, when analysts can examine county-by-county results and test for changes in local voter laws and regulations.
Yet Mr. McDonald said his preliminary figures show expanding early voting and vote-by-mail programs increases overall turnout, though it has a more significant impact on lower-profile, midterm and off-year local elections.
An example, he said, comes from Washington state, which began conducting its elections entirely by mail in 2011. In the 2014 midterm election, Washington saw above average voter turnout despite having no competitive statewide contests for state or federal office.
“If there is a positive effect, it’s not a large positive effect of early voting on turnout in a presidential election,” Mr. McDonald said. “People are well aware of the elections taking place and if there aren’t significant barriers on voting they’ll participate.”
Write to Reid J. Epstein at Reid.Epstein@wsj.com
@SwampRayder Some good insights and data as to why your election day prognostications turned out to be wrong. Hell, nearly everybody got the math wrong.
Early Voting Didn’t Boost Overall Election Turnout, Studies Show
Analysis of early poll data also fails to predict eventual winner
South Florida voters were given instructions by polling center workers as they received their ballots at an early voting center in Miami on Nov. 3, 2016. PHOTO: RHONA WISE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
By
REID J. EPSTEIN
Dec. 30, 2016 12:06 p.m. ET
48 COMMENTS
Most early voting programs didn’t increase the number of people who cast ballots in 2016, they just changed the way people participated, according to examinations of this year’s election results.
President-elect Donald Trump’s Nov. 8 victory also put aside long-held notions that pre-Election Day indicators from early-voting data could serve as useful predictors of who would win the election.
Election figures in Ohio bear out the lack of relationship between the availability of early voting and overall turnout.
Before the 2008 election, Ohio lawmakers for the first time introduced early and no-excuse absentee voting in the state. When President Barack Obama defeated Sen. John McCain that year, 1.72 million Ohioans voted before Election Day. But postelection figures showed that overall turnout increased from 2004 by just 51,000 votes.
THE TRUMP TRANSITION
Fewer Ohioans voted in 2012, and fewer still in 2016, even as early voting numbers rose to 1.86 million in 2012 and 1.88 million in 2016.
Pre-Election Day ballots increased this year even though Ohio limited the early-voting period and added restrictions, such as a prohibition on counties subsidizing prepaid return envelopes on absentee ballots.
“You’re just moving the same amount of votes. You’re moving 30% of them to early voting but it’s not increasing the overall number,” said Mike Dawson, a former Republican political aide in Ohio who operates ohioelectionresults.com. “Early voting is not increasing voter turnout. Voter motivation is what increases voter turnout.”
Much of the pre-Election Day prognostications using available early-voting data pointed to a Hillary Clinton victory, based on the Democratic nominee’s strengths in states such as Florida. There, 70% of ballots were cast before Nov. 8 and the data showed strong turnout in urban counties where Democrats do well.
Voter data compiled by Steve Schale, a Tallahassee political operative who was a senior official in President Barack Obama’s Florida campaigns, showed Mrs. Clinton led Mr. Trump by 247,000 votes when polls opened on Election Day. But Mr. Trump ultimately won the Election Day turnout in the state by 360,000 votes—a 13-point margin that wiped out her advantage.
“With Trump, many of his voters had the characteristics of people associated with Election Day voters, people marginally connected to the system,” said Paul Gronke, the director of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College in Oregon. “They were a population that we hadn’t considered in our models.”
Mr. Gronke compared total turnout and early voting turnout from the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections and found little correlation between changes in early voting and overall turnout.
His figures show nine states—including competitive ones like Minnesota, Virginia and Wisconsin—and Washington, D.C., where the percentage of early votes increased from 2012 to 2016 as overall turnout fell. Meanwhile, pre-Election Day voting percentages dropped in 14 states, including Nevada, where overall turnout increased.
“We thought that more early voting indicated a campaign with good mobilization and voter enthusiasm,” Mr. Gronke said. “Hillary Clinton does appear to have had a very good early-vote chasing operation but she ran out of votes.”
Michael McDonald, who operates the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida, said a full study of early voting’s impact on turnout won’t be complete until next summer, when analysts can examine county-by-county results and test for changes in local voter laws and regulations.
Yet Mr. McDonald said his preliminary figures show expanding early voting and vote-by-mail programs increases overall turnout, though it has a more significant impact on lower-profile, midterm and off-year local elections.
An example, he said, comes from Washington state, which began conducting its elections entirely by mail in 2011. In the 2014 midterm election, Washington saw above average voter turnout despite having no competitive statewide contests for state or federal office.
“If there is a positive effect, it’s not a large positive effect of early voting on turnout in a presidential election,” Mr. McDonald said. “People are well aware of the elections taking place and if there aren’t significant barriers on voting they’ll participate.”
Write to Reid J. Epstein at Reid.Epstein@wsj.com
