Assessing the efficacy of early voting access on Indian reservations: evidence from a natural experiment in Nevada

Abstract

ABSTRACT An emergency legal injunction in Nevada granted two Indian reservations on-site early voting locations in the 2016 general election. These locations were two of four remote reservations participating in an academic survey to examine Native attitudes toward government and voting. The granting of only two locations out of the four creates reasonable conditions to treat the four cases as a natural experiment in on-site early voting. These cases also add to very limited existing knowledge about factors affecting voting behavior on Indian reservations and the impact of early voting sites in rural locations. We find that on-site early voting substantially increased voter turnout in the general election on the two reservations that received access in comparison to the two without satellite voting. We find little evidence that the reservations that received the voting sites were particularly likely to have high turnout in 2016. These findings provide supportive evidence that reducing the cost of voting by providing convenient locations and longer periods to cast a ballot increases voter turnout, including in groups with limited means to vote and low government trust.