Registration costs and voter turnout

摘要

We exploit a natural experiment in Massachusetts in 2012 to estimate the causal effect of lowering voter information and registration costs on: voter registration, turnout and voting behavior in presidential elections. Both a within-Massachusetts specification and a cross-state specification (utilizing Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire data) show a statistically significant effect on voter registration and turnout that is of a material magnitude. However, conditional on registration we find no material difference in turnout. Finally, we find a large treatment effect on Democrat voteshare. Our results highlight the importance of voter registration and information costs for electoral participation, especially for citizens from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.