Declining voter turnout over the past several decades has disturbed politicians and
scholars alike. Some national and state officials have responded to this issue by proposing
various institutional reforms such as election day registration, voting by mail, early voting and
motor-voter registration intended to reduce the costs of voting. In addition to increasing
electoral participation in general, these proposals have also been justified as a means to increase
voter turnout among historically underrepresented populations (i.e., the young, the poor and
racial and ethnic minorities).
Yet research has shown that the promise of these reforms has fallen short of expectations.
Registration reform, for example, is not associated with greater turnout on election day (e.g.,
Knack 1995). The disappointing effects of these policy adoptions pose an interesting puzzle
with respect to electoral behavior. Why, when institutional costs are lowered, does the mass
public not respond?
We contend that the effectiveness of electoral reforms is contingent upon on the strategic
behavior of elites. Without strategic decisions by elites to use electoral reforms to their
advantage, electoral reforms will not result in higher turnout. According to this logic, if vote
maximizing candidates utilize these electoral reforms to mobilize voters in support of their
candidacies, then voter turnout will increase substantially. If candidates’ strategic calculations
suggest that increased turnout is not to the campaign’s advantage and choose not to use them as
part of their campaign strategies, such reforms will, all things being equal, not affect turnout.
Conceptually, our argument highlights the distinction between voters having the
opportunity of voting by mail, registering on Election Day, or voting early, for example, and
candidates choosing to use these opportunities as part of their campaign strategy, a distinction
ignored in previous research. Below we offer a model of how party elites link the availability of
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Convention