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Week 3: A Party Problem

This week, I prepare to replicate my methodology for the next legislative variable: Automatic Voter Registration, a policy with similar intentions to Same-Day Voter Registration, boosting voting and increasing accessibility. But before I seek these results, I aimed to research a major challenge to my findings and how I could correct for it.

Political Parties & The Youth Vote

Does the political party in charge influence efforts to appeal to the youth vote? The Democratic and Republican parties have historically prioritized it differently according to their reach with these age groups; In 2024, around two-thirds of 18-24 year-old voters aligned themselves to the Democratic Party, indicating a clear advantage gained by the youth vote for Democrats (Pew). As a result, great divides have formed on the opinions surrounding early voting or decreasing registration requirements. Where 84% of Democrats and Democratic-leaners agree with the concept of Automatic Voter Registration, only 38% of Republican and Republican-leaning responders agree (Pew, 2021).

So time and time again, we see legislation specifically catering to the youth vote and needs during elections. The Youth Voting Rights Act, sponsored by the Democratic Sen. Warren and Sen. Williams, exemplifies this as it proposes pre-registration and on-campus polling sites among other additions. And as Sen. Warren was quoted claiming Republicans responsible for voter suppression laws that “silence youth voices,” the issue of target demographic reflects in policy-making and both parties’ agendas.

Correcting This Influence

So how do I ensure that the changes I notice are from the laws themselves and their effects over time, not simply due to the political party in charge? First, the current method of comparing a treatment state to a control group helps, and can be improved by creating a treatment group of similar states as well. The treatment states would all have to adopt the policy simultaneously, offering a more limited view to compare my previous results to, rather than a new method to rely on.

As a secondary analysis after checking for the effects of legislation, I can additionally monitor campaign spending and how it is directed to young voters. In this way I can assess if it differs between parties, and identify periods of constant campaigning to use for my studies (rather than times with more fluctuation).

AVR Data Collection

Once again, I’ll be referring to the National Conference of State Legislatures for their data on the Automatic Voter Registration laws in each state. With each state implementing AVR in a much more recent range of the past 2 decades, comparing a treatment group to a control group is significantly more practical.

Week 4: Automatic Advantage

It’s time to discuss the second policy under review for impact on voter turnout: Automatic Voter Registration. Let’s get some context on the subject.

What is Automatic Voter Registration?
We’ve discussed how registration is often a barrier to voting, and AVR is just another way to streamline the process. It allows eligible voters can become registered when interacting with certain government agencies, like the DMV, and their information will pass on to election officials as necessary. 24 states and Washington D.C. have adopted this legislation in some form. The main two types are front-end opt-out and back-end opt-out.

Front-end opt-out: Whether the voter is asked to “continue” to register or “decline” to register, the choice is presented to them on a screen at the government agency.

Back-end opt-out: While interacting with said agency, the voter will provide all necessary registration information, later receiving a post-transaction mailer that they will be registered unless they respond and decline.

So, two different approaches, with the intention to reduce time costs and inform people on the official steps leading up to voting.

Current Literature
Like Same-Day Voter Registration, many credit this policy with diversifying a state’s voting population. In 2019, Oregon governor Katie Brown views the success of AVR as a direct factor in the increase of people of color registered to vote. And when it comes to the youth vote, a working paper from 2024 finds that the prescence of AVR increased voting turnout for those aged 18-24 by 3.2% (Christy, Hankins, et al.).

On the note of bureaucratic efficiency, the practice has been studied to reduce confusion and delays, both due to human error in paper forms, and also the fact that voter registration does not update when a voter moves (a fact many learn too late).

Progress
This week, I replicated my methodology from Week 2 used for SDVR, finding treatment states that adopted AVR in the 2014 to 2024 range and comparing them to their three control states. These control states were determined by their Euclidean distance — the smaller it is, the more similar their fluctuations in turnout were.

The color-coding below for the pre-AVR distance of the first control state means:

Green: Within 0 and 0.05 — a very strong match

Yellow: Within 0.05 and 0.1 — a fairly strong match

Red: Greater than or equal to 0.1 — a weak match

We know their distance, but not the direction, so to understand if their subsequent difference in path is positive or negative, I take the average turnout of treated state and the 3 control states to find their difference: the net impact value.

An increase in turnout (as shown in green) means their divergence is positive, and a decrease in turnout (red) means their divergence is negative.

Key Takeaways
First, some states have been ruled out for weak matches. As a potential solution, I’ll look for turnout data older than 2014 for a better range.

Second, AVR seems to overwhelmingly increase turnout rather than decrease, but it’s important to note that the decrease could either mean a real decrease in turnout, or a failure to keep pace with the control group. This should be further studied.

At the moment, I’m re-evaluating Delaware’s data to derive the net impact value.

I’m in the process of repeating this last step of finding the direction for SDVR, and will add it to next week’s update!

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