Election-Campaign Law

Hall and Kousser on internet voting in the London Free Press

By Paul Gronke

This story came across the transom, about the potential impact of internet voting on turnout.

I found this quote by Thad Kousser particularly interesting: “There’s no reason not to expect (mail-in voting) will lead to higher turnout,” said Thad Kousser, a visiting professor at Stanford University whose research was published in Political Analysis.

Michael Hanmer, in his newly released book on Cambridge, makes a different argument: turnout is a relatively marginal act, and none of the relatively minor reforms on the table, including internet voting and voting by mail, are likely to increase turnout very much.

I agree with Michael, as I suspect Thad K. does, but his quote seems a bit misleading. Maybe this is just about the message you send to a reporter.

I think Thad Hall gets it right:

“Don’t expect new people flooding into the system,” Hall said.  It appears Internet voting was mostly used as a convenience by people who would have gone to traditional polls.

Full post as published by Election Updates on March 15, 2010 (boomark / email).