Voter Mobilization Meets eGovernment: Turnout and Voting by Mail From Online or Paper Ballot Request

Abstract

During the past two decades, the movement toward eGoverment has shifted many government services online. Despite initial hopes that the Internet could be leveraged to increase voter participation, eGovernment has changed little about the voting process. Our field experiment compares two treatments sent to voters via postal mail prior to the 2010 general election in Maine: (1) recruitment to request a mail ballot via Maine's new online system and (2) recruitment to request a mail ballot using Maine's traditional paper application. We find that recruitment to vote by mail using a traditional paper ballot application significantly increased turnout. Contrary to the expectations of advocates of eGovernment, the mailer encouraging voters to use Maine's innovative new online ballot request system generated no significant increase in overall voter turnout. Our findings indicate why eGovernment continues to contribute less to democratic participation than anticipated.