“The most popular reform—early voting—is actually associated with lower turnout when it is implemented by itself,” according to the University of Wisconsin team of political scientists who studied state voting patterns in the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. “This result upends the conventional view that anything that makes voting easier will raise turnout.” Controlling for other factors that predict an individual’s probability of voting, these researchers found that early voting appears to “lower the likelihood of turnout by three to four percentage points” compared with the probability in 15 states that do not allow early voting or had not implemented other voting reforms.
Study: Early voting associated with lower turnout | Pew Research Center
