Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-smtgx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-07T12:08:34.254Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Voting Lines, Equal Treatment, and Early Voting Check-In Times in Florida

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2021

David Cottrell ,
Michael C. Herron Open the ORCID record for Michael C. Herron [Opens in a new window]  and
Daniel A. Smith
David Cottrell
Affiliation:
University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Michael C. Herron*
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
Daniel A. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
*
Michael C. Herron, Dartmouth College, 6108 Silsby Hall, Hanover, NH 03755-3547, USA. Email: michael.c.herron@dartmouth.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Lines at the polls raise the cost of voting and can precipitate unequal treatment of voters. Research on voting lines is nonetheless hampered by a fundamental measurement problem: little is known about the distribution of time voters spend in line prior to casting ballots. We argue that early, in-person voter check-in times allow us identify individuals who waited in line to vote. Drawing on election administrative records from two General Elections in Florida—1,031,179 check-ins from 2012 and 1,846,845 from 2016—we find that minority voters incurred disproportionately long wait times in 2012 and that in-person voters who waited excessively in 2012 had a slightly lower probability—approximately one percent—of turning out to vote in 2016, ceteris paribus. These individuals also had slightly lower turnout probabilities in the 2014 Midterm Election, ceteris paribus. Our results draw attention to the ongoing importance of the administrative features of elections that influence the cost of voting and ultimately the extent to which voters are treated equally.

Keywords

voting linesequal treatmentelection administrationturnoutearly voting

Information

Type
Original Article
Information
State Politics & Policy Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 109 - 138
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Amos, Brian, Smith, Daniel A., Ste. Claire, Casey . 2017. “Reprecincting and Voting Behavior.” Political Behavior 39 (1): 133–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, Hersh, Eitan . 2012. “Validation: What Big Data Reveal about Survey Misreporting and the Real Electorate.” Political Analysis 20 (4): 437–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, Hersh, Eitan . 2014. “Voter Registration: The Process and Quality of Lists.” In The Measure of American Elections, eds. Burden, Barry C., Stewart, Charles III. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 61–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badger, Emily . 2016. “Why Long Voting Lines Could Have Long-Term Consequences.” The New York Times, November 8. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/upshot/why-long-voting-lines-today-could-have-long-term-consequences.html (accessed December 9, 2017).Google Scholar
Bauer, Robert F., Ginsberg, Benjamin L., Britton, Brian, Echevarria, Joe, Grayson, Trey, Lomax, Larry, Mayes, Michele Coleman, McGeehan, Ann, Thomas, Tammy Patrick Christopher . 2014. “The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.” Technical Report, Presidential Commission on Election Administration. https://elections.delaware.gov/pdfs/PCEA_rpt.pdf (accessed July 20, 2020).Google Scholar
Bentele, Keith G., O’Brien, Erin E. 2013. “Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies.” Perspectives on Politics 11 (4): 1088–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burden, Barry C., Canon, David T., Mayer, Kenneth R., Moynihan, Donald P. 2014. “Election Laws, Mobilization, and Turnout: The Unanticipated Consequences of Election Reform.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (1): 95–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarey, A. J., Cooke, Matthew W. 2011. “Patients Who Leave Emergency Departments without Being Seen: Literature Review and English Data Analysis.” Emergency Medicine Journal 29 (8): 617–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Conti, Regina . 2008. “Time Flies: Investigating the Connection between Intrinsic Motivation and the Experience of Time.” Journal of Personality 69 (1): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costa, Mia, Schaffner, Brian F., Prevost, Alicia . 2018. “Walking the Walk? Experiments on the Effect of Pledging to Vote on Youth Turnout.” PLOS ONE 13 (5): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Downs, Anthony . 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Dyck, Joshua J., Gimpel, James G. 2005. “Distance, Turnout, and the Convenience of Voting.” Social Science Quarterly 86 (3): 531–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Florida Department of State, Division of Elections 2017. “Voting Activity by Ballot Type for 2016 General Election.” http://dos.myflorida.com/media/697842/2016-ge-summaries-ballots-by-type-activity.pdf (accessed July 20, 2020).Google Scholar
Florida Division of Elections. 2016. “Early Voting Locations and Times–Statewide File.” https://dos.myflorida.com/media/697189/early-voting-locations-and-times-2016-general-election_eng.pdf (accessed May 11, 2019).Google Scholar
Fraga, Bernard L. 2016. “Redistricting and the Causal Impact of Race on Voter Turnout.” The Journal of Politics 78 (1): 19–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grofman, Bernard, Owen, Guillermo, Collet, Christian . 1999. “Rethinking the Partisan Effects of Higher Turnout: So What’s the Question?” Public Choice 99 (3/4): 357–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gronke, Paul, Galanes-Rosenbaum, Eva . 2008. “The Growth of Early and Non-Precinct Place Balloting: When, Why, and Prospects for the Future.” In America Votes! A Guide to Election Law and Voting Rights, ed. Griffith, Benjamin E. Chicago: American Bar Association, 261–80.Google Scholar
Gronke, Paul, Toffey, Daniel Krantz . 2008. “The Psychological and Institutional Determinants of Early Voting.” Journal of Social Issues 64 (3): 503–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herron, Michael C., Smith, Daniel A. 2012. “Souls to the Polls: Early Voting in Florida in the Shadow of House Bill 1355.” Election Law Journal 11 (3): 331–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herron, Michael C., Smith, Daniel A. 2013. “House Bill 1355 and Voter Registration in Florida.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 13 (3): 279–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herron, Michael C., Smith, Daniel A. 2014. “Race, Party, and the Consequences of Restricting Early Voting in Florida in the 2012 General Election.” Political Research Quarterly 67 (3): 646–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herron, Michael C., Smith, Daniel A. 2015. “Precinct Closing and Wait Times in Florida during the 2012 General Election.” Election Law Journal 14 (3): 220–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herron, Michael C., Smith, Daniel A. 2016. “Precinct Resources and Voter Wait Times.” Electoral Studies 42 (2): 249–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herron, Michael C., Smith, Daniel A., Serra, Wendy, Joseph, Bafumi . 2017. “Wait Times and Voter Confidence: A Study of the 2014 General Election in Miami-Dade County.” In Races, Reforms, & Policy: Implications of the 2014 Midterm Election, eds. Sisco, Tauna, Galdieri, Christopher, Lucas, Jennifer . Akron: University of Akron Press, 107–122.Google Scholar
Highton, Benjamin, Wolfinger, Raymond E. 2001. “The First Seven Years of the Political Life Cycle.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (1): 202–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirst, William, Phelps, Elizabeth A., Buckner, Randy L., Budson, Andrew E., Cuc, Alexandru, Gabrieli, John D. E, Johnson, Marcia K., Lyle, Keith B., Lustig, Cindy, Mather, Mara, Meksin, Robert, Mitchell, Karen J., Ochsner, Kevin N., Schacter, Daniel L. 2009. “Long-term Memory for the Terrorist Attack of September 11: Flashbulb Memories, Event Memories, and the Factors that Influence Their Retention.” Journal of Experimental Psychology. General 138 (2): 161–76.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kimball, David C. 2013. “Why Are Voting Lines Longer for Urban Voters?” Unpublished Working Paper. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2255009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimball, David C., Kropf, Martha . 2008. “Voting Technology, Ballot Measures, and Residual Votes.” American Politics Research 36 (4): 479–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leighley, Jan E., Nagler, Jonathan . 2014. Who Votes Now? Demographics, Issues, Inequality, and Turnout in the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martinez, Michael D., Gill, Jeff . 2005. “The Effects of Turnout on Partisan Outcomes in U.S. Presidential Elections 1960–2000.” The Journal of Politics 67 (4): 1248–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mukherjee, Elora . 2009. “Abolishing the Time Tax on Voting.” Notre Dame Law Review 85 (1): 177–246.Google Scholar
Neeley, Grant W., Richardson, Lilliard E. 2001. “Who Is Early Voting? An Individual Level Examination.” The Social Science Journal 38 (3): 381–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, Pippa . 2014. Why Electoral Integrity Matters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, Stephen . 2017a.“The Downstream Consequences of Long Waits: How Lines at the Precinct Depress Future Turnout.” Unpublished Working Paper. https://www.dropbox.com/s/7eis5yychwgqstw/pettigrew%20-%20lines%20and%20turnout.pdf?dl=0 (accessed July 20, 2020).Google Scholar
Pettigrew, Stephen . 2017b. “The Race Gap in Precinct Wait Times: Why Minority Precincts Are Underserved by Local Election Officials.” Political Science Quarterly 132 (3): 527–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pitner, Barrett Holmes . 2016. “Early Voting Lines Are so Long, People Are Fainting. That Harms Democracy.” The Guardian, October 19. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/19/early-voting-lines-georgia (accessed December 9, 2017).Google Scholar
Santos, Fernanda . 2016. “Angry Arizona Voters Demand: Why Such Long Lines at Polling Sites?” The New York Times, March 24. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/us/angry-arizona-voters-demand-why-such-long-lines-at-polling-sites.html (accessed December 15, 2017).Google Scholar
Sackett, Aaron M., Meyvis, Tom, Nelson, Leif D., Converse, Benjamin A., Sackett, Anna L. 2010. “You’re Having Fun When Time Flies: The Hedonic Consequences of Subjective Time Progression.” Psychological Science 21 (1): 111–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Burns, Nancy, Verba, Sidney, Donahue, Jesse . 1995. “Gender and Citizen Participation: Is There a Different Voice?” American Journal of Political Science 39 (2): 267–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaikh, Sanober, Jerrard, David, Witting, Michael, Winters, Michael, Brodeur, Michael . 2012. “How Long Are Patients Willing to Wait in the Emergency Department Before Leaving without Being Seen.” Western Journal of Emergency Medicine 13 (6): 463–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shino, Enrijeta, Smith, Daniel A. 2018. “Timing the Habit: Voter Registration and Turnout.” Electoral Studies 51:72–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, Douglas M., Markovits, Zachary S. 2010. “Long Lines at Polling Stations? Observations from an Election Day Field Study.” Election Law Journal 9 (1): 3–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Charles . 2013a. “2012 Survey of the Performance of American Elections.” Harvard Dataverse, Study 1902.1/21624. http://hdl.handle.net/1902.1/21624 (accessed July 20, 2020).Google Scholar
Stewart, Charles III . 2013b. “Waiting to Vote in 2012.” The Journal of Law and Politics 28 (4): 439–63.Google Scholar
Stewart, Charles . 2017. “2016 Survey of the Performance of American Elections.” Harvard Dataverse, Study 10.7910/DVN/Y38VIQ. doi:10.7910/DVN/Y38VIQ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strate, John M., Parrish, Charles J., Elder, Charles D., Ford, Coit . 1989. “Life Span Civic Development and Voting Participation.” The American Political Science Review 83 (2): 443–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sun, Benjamin C., Bilstadt, Emily Spilseth, Pelletier, Andrea, Camargo, Carlos . 2007. “Characteristics and Temporal Trends of ‘Left before Being Seen’ Visits in US Emergency Departments, 1995-2002.” The Journal of Emergency Medicine 32 (2): 211–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Florida Legislature. 2017. “The 2017 Florida Statutes.” Title IX Electors and Elections, Chapter 100, Section 100.011. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0100-0199/0100/Sections/0100.011.html (accessed December 15, 2017).Google Scholar
U.S. Election Assistance Commission. 2013. “2012 Election Administration and Voting Survey.” https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/6/2012ElectionAdministrationandVoterSurvey.pdf (accessed July 20, 2020).Google Scholar
U.S. Election Assistance Commission. 2017a. “EAVS Deep Dive: Early, Absentee and Mail Voting.” https://www.eac.gov/documents/2017/10/17/eavs-deep-dive-early-absentee-and-mail-voting-data-statutory-overview (accessed September 13, 2018).Google Scholar
U.S. Election Assistance Commission. 2017b. “The Election Administration and Voting Survey: 2016 Comprehensive Report.” https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/6/2016_EAVS_Comprehensive_Report.pdf (accessed July 20, 2020).Google Scholar
Verba, Sidney, Schlozman, Kay Lehman, Brady, Henry, Nie, Norman H. 1993. “Race, Ethnicity and Political Resources: Participation in the United States.” British Journal of Political Science 23 (4): 453–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Hannah L., Herron, Michael C., Smith, Daniel A. 2018. “Early Voting Changes and Voter Turnout: North Carolina in the 2016 General Election.” Political Behavior 41:841–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar