The Cost of Convenience
An Experiment Showing E-Mail Outreach Decreases Voter Registration
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6339337 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Elizabeth A Bennion (0000-0001-9166-8660, Indiana University–South Bend, South Bend, IN, USA), David W Nickerson (0000-0001-6383-9418, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 858-869 |
| Publication date | 2011-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Research Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1065-9129 • E-ISSN: 1938-274X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1065912910382304 |
| OpenAlex | W2068793676 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 44 |
| References cited | 37 |
Lower transaction costs have shifted voter registration activities online and away from traditional modes of outreach. Downloading forms may impose higher transaction costs than traditional outreach for some people and thereby decrease electoral participation. A randomized, controlled experiment tested this hypothesis by encouraging treatment participants via e-mail to use online voter registration tools. The treatment group was 0.3 percentage points less likely to be registered to vote after the election. A follow-up experiment sent reminders via text message to randomly selected people who had downloaded registration forms. The treatment increased rates of registration by 4 percentage points, suggesting that reminders can ameliorate many of the negative effects of directing people to downloadable online registration forms
Advertising · Business · Database · Database transaction · Internet privacy · Outreach · Percentage point · Political science · Randomized experiment · Upload · Voter registration · Voting · World Wide Web · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · Law · Medicine · Social Media and Politics · Finance
Women Empowerment and Economic Development
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"Don't You Plan on Voting?" The Motives and Effects of Peer Pressure in Voter Mobilization
Promoting voter registration
Email Mobilization Messages Suppress Turnout Among Black and Latino Voters
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Power Lines
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The partisan costs of automatic voter registration
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Does State Online Voter Registration Increase Voter Turnout
Navigating the mismeasurement of intermediary variables in message-based experiments
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Targeting voter registration with incentives
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Determinants of Rejected Mail Ballots in Georgia’s 2018 General Election
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Mobilization Around New Convenience Voting Methods
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Making Young Voters
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Do text messages increase voter registration? Evidence from RCTs with a local authority and an advocacy organisation in the UK
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| Unique citing works | 44 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,14 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2026 (15) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 44 |