The File Maintenance Effects of Automatic Voter Registration

• In Event: Democracy, or the Lack Thereof, in State Elections II

Abstract

Automatic voter registration (AVR) is an umbrella term for systems that press voter registration more firmly on citizens who engage with government at certain administrative touch points, most notably the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The policy has been shown to increase registration rates, but the exact mechanism by which it does so is not entirely clear. AVR systems often include a change in the way that address update transactions are handled. AVR therefore often simplifies both the process of getting on the rolls as well as staying registered once there.

The distinction between address updates and new registrants matters a great deal for how we think about the registrants touched by AVR. New registrants are likely to be less engaged with the political system and so may require more outreach to convert into regular voters.

In this paper we distinguish between new registrants and address updates with data from the vendor Catalist. The data identify changes in a county's voter file since the previous presidential election:
totally new registrants, registrants who have recently moved, and registrants who have dropped off the rolls.

With these data we conduct difference-in-difference analyses of the two main paths for AVR effects identified above. The results suggest that AVR's effect occurs through address updates much more than is commonly understood.

Authors

• Eric McGhee, Public Policy Institute of California

• Mindy Romero, USC