United Kingdom: 97% of Scots sign up to vote in Scottish independence referendum | Daily Mail

Nearly 4.3million people have registered to vote in next week’s Scottish independence referendum – 97 per cent of those eligible. The referendum is set to be the biggest poll in Scotland’s history, with more people registered to vote than ever before. Registration figures were released today as a new opinion poll gave the ‘No’ campaign a slim lead, following a barrage of bad news for First Minister Alex Salmond. The latest poll suggested that 53 per cent of Scots opposed independence with 47 per cent in favour, excluding those who have yet to make up their minds. The total number of people who have registered for next Thursday’s referendum is 4,285,323, more than for any previous election or referendum in Scotland, according to the vote’s ‘chief counting officer’.

National: On Facebook, Nobody Knows You’re a Voter. Well, Almost Nobody. | New York Times

Your Facebook profile doesn’t have boxes to check which political party you belong to or whether you voted in the last election. But political organizations who already know that can now deliver Facebook ads to fit your political preferences. At least two statewide campaigns during the past year have used the new tool, “Custom Managed Audiences,” to reach Facebook users who are registered voters or political supporters. Facebook says Terry McAuliffe’s election as Virginia governor in 2013 and this year’s re-election effort of John Cornyn, a Texas Republican senator, are examples of successful user targeting via voter lists. The company first introduced the tool in February 2013 and recently upgraded its capabilities. Linking the two isolated sets of data and teasing out information on voter preferences and opinions is a new front in microtargeting. Even smaller campaigns could use the technique to sway small but crucial sets of voters with very specific messages. Facebook’s most notable achievement may be that it makes some of the sophisticated approaches used during the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns affordable to other kinds of political contests.

Editorials: Why the GOP is so obsessed with voter fraud | Salon

It is rare for a politician to publicly deride efforts to boost voter turnout. It is seen as a taboo in a country that prides itself on its democratic ideals. Yet, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie last week slammed efforts to simplify voter registration. Referring to Illinois joining other states — including many Republican-led ones — in passing a same-day voter registration law, Christie said: “Same-day registration all of a sudden this year comes to Illinois. Shocking. It’s shocking. I’m sure it was all based on public policy, good public policy to get same-day registration here in Illinois just this year, when the governor is in the toilet and needs as much help as he can get.” Christie was campaigning for Illinois GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn, who signed the same-day registration bill into law in July. Christie, who chairs the Republican Governors Association, denounced the effort to boost voter turnout as an underhanded Democratic tactic, despite the Illinois State Board of Elections being composed equally of Democrats and Republicans. Referring to the same-day voter initiative, Christie said Quinn “will try every trick in the book,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Christie said the program is designed to be a major “obstacle” for the GOP’s gubernatorial candidates. The trouble with such rhetoric – beyond its anti-democratic themes — is its absurd assertions about partisan motives. After all, many of the 11 states with same-day registration laws currently have Republican governors.

Editorials: Prizes for Voting? Tackling Turnout in American Politics | John Wilson/Article 3

In the 2012 presidential election, over 125 million votes were cast for one of two presidential candidates. President Obama was reelected with 51% of the popular vote (a little over 65 million votes). And yet in that election, only 57.5 percent of eligible citizens cast a ballot. We should take a second to note that there are countries with so called “compulsory voting” where citizens are required vote. According to the Center for Voting and Democracy, an advocacy group for electoral reform, countries with mandatory voting, such as Australia, have achieved close to 90% voter turnout in recent years. If only 57.5 percent of eligible voters vote in a presidential election year, you can imagine what happens at the midterms (like the one we will have in November). For context, turnout for the last five midterm elections has hovered between 39 and 42 percent. So despite how crucially important our right to vote is in this country, somewhere between 42 percent and 61 percent of the eligible population decides not to vote in a given election year. The problem with this low voter turnout is that it can have a major impact on the types of candidates that succeed. We have talked before about the polarization of American politics into two more extreme parties unable that are unwilling to compromise. While voter turnout isn’t entirely to blame for this, you can see how if only the most enthusiastic (and usually extreme) voters turn out to vote for candidates, its more likely that those extreme candidates win primaries and general elections.

Illinois: Christie Slams Effort To Boost Voter Turnout For 2014 Election As Democratic ‘Trick’ | International Business Times

During a campaign stop in Illinois on Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie decried efforts to simplify voter registration. He suggested that the higher voter turnout produced by such efforts is harmful to Republican candidates, and that Illinois’ new same-day voter registration statute is a Democratic “trick.” Referring to Illinois joining other states — including many Republican-led ones — in passing a same-day voter registration law, Christie said: “Same-day registration all of a sudden this year comes to Illinois. Shocking. It’s shocking. I’m sure it was all based on public policy, good public policy to get same-day registration here in Illinois just this year, when the governor is in the toilet and needs as much help as he can get.” … Christie, who chairs the Republican Governors Association, denounced the effort to boost voter turnout as an underhanded Democratic tactic. (The Illinois State Board of Elections is composed equally of Democrats and Republicans, according to the Chicago Tribune.) Referring to the same-day voter initiative, Christie said Quinn “will try every trick in the book,”  according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Christie said the program is designed to be a major “obstacle” for the GOP’s gubernatorial candidates. In fact, most of the 11 states with same-day registration laws currently have Republican governors.

Oklahoma: ‘Bad voter’ website might shame Oklahomans into going to the polls | The Edmond Sun

Will access to public information, peer pressure and a bit of shame send more Oklahomans to the polls? David Glover, 51, a self-described political junkie, hopes so. Oklahoma has seen abysmal voter turnout — so bad that the state ranked third lowest in overall participation during the 2012 elections, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report. Glover says he wants to do everything within his power to change that and get voters to the ballot box for each election. (The next election, by the way, is today’s primary run-off with polls open until 7 p.m.) “I’m trying to figure out how to encourage more people to vote,” said Glover, a self-employed Oklahoma City resident. “There are not many good reasons to vote if you think your vote is not going to matter.”

Editorials: How Low Voter Turnout Helps Public Employees | Pacific Standard

There’s been some talk recently about the effects of off-cycle elections—that is, elections that are held on a different date from national elections—on voter turnout and representation, particularly with respect to Ferguson, Missouri. This is a particularly interesting feature of American elections because it is something that we know depresses voter turnout substantially, and yet it persists. Why do we continue to hold these low turnout elections? Sarah Anzia explains this nicely in her dissertation and new book on off-cycle elections. The key to understanding these elections’ persistence, Anzia shows, lies not in knowing how few people turn out to vote in them, but just who turns out to vote. Basically, it’s people with a personal stake in the election. When the election is dominated by teachers, firefighters, and police officers, and their immediate friends and family, policies will follow. The electorate in a presidential election consists of tens of millions of people, only a few of whom stand to directly benefit in a personal, material way depending on who wins. The vast majority of voters have some sense that things would be somewhat better under their chosen candidate than under the other one, but in a much more abstract way. And for the most part, these same people are voting in all the contests further down the ballot that day, including races for Congress, state legislature, city council, and school board.

Editorials: Left and Right Agree: Increase Voter Turnout in Ferguson | John Fund/National Review

I’m always looking for areas where the Left and the Right can agree on a policy reform, even if it is for different reasons. One has emerged from the tragedy of Ferguson, Mo. In the aftermath of Michael Brown’s shooting, many blamed some portion of the tension there on the striking racial gap between the police force, which is 94 percent white, and Ferguson’s African-American population, which makes up two-thirds of the city. Not only the police force but also the rest of the local power structure in Ferguson is dominated by whites. Ferguson has seen enormous demographic change in the last 20 years, with the percentage of its black population growing from 25 percent to 67 percent. But five of its six city council members are still white, as is the mayor. The school board has six white members and one Hispanic.

California: Can paying people to vote increase voter turnout? L.A.’s looking into it and the answer is yes. | The Washington Post

Just 23.3 percent of Los Angeles voters cast ballots in last year’s mayoral election, the lowest figures in 100 years. Turnout was “embarrassingly down,” Herb Wesson, the city’s council president said, and he’s looking at how to change that. “Someone brought up what would it be like if we had some sort of incentive program,” Wesson said. “It’s just an idea.” The Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted Thursday for Wesson to look into various ways to increase turnout, including cash incentives like a lottery. The idea is just in the “incubation process,” Wesson said, with nothing approaching even an actual proposal, but there’s data to suggest paying people to vote increases turnout. A study conducted in 2010 in Lancaster, Calif., in northern Los Angeles County, by Fordham University professor Costas Panagopoulos found nominal incentives like a few bucks don’t do much to increase turnout, but a few more dollars is enough of an incentive to convince a larger percentage of people to vote.

Editorials: The voter turnout conundrum in Los Angeles | Los Angeles Times

It’s one of the worst ideas we’ve heard in a long time: Last week, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission floated a plan to offer cash prizes as an incentive to get Angelenos to vote in local elections. Sheer desperation, as far as we can tell, led the commission to propose an election day lottery, with a jackpot of $1,000 or more that might persuade more registered voters to go to the polls. Would it work? Probably. But it’s still a bad idea. The folks pushing the lottery concept are well-intentioned and obviously disheartened by Los Angeles’ record of terrible voter turnout. Just 23% of registered voters bothered to cast a ballot in last year’s mayoral election. Last week, turnout was an abysmal 9.5% for a Los Angeles Unified School Board special election. But dangling a cash prize over the polls is a cynical and superficial pseudo-solution that fails to address the deeper reasons why people don’t vote. If the Ethics Commission and the City Council want to increase engagement and participation on election day — and they should — they would do better to focus on specific changes that make it easier to cast a ballot, while also getting to work on larger, longer-term reforms that could help counter the pervasive civic malaise that prevents so many Angelenos from feeling engaged in the democratic process.

Editorials: How to boost voter turnout in L.A. — and it isn’t offering prizes | Los Angeles Times

In a wondrous proposal that says more about the decline of civilization than its authors surely intended, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission has come up with a way to boost voter turnout in L.A. city elections: Make voters eligible for cash prizes. The recommendation may fail to persuade the City Council to enact such a plan, and even if it does, the particulars — two $25,000 awards? one $50,000 windfall? 500 all-you-can-eat coupons to In-N-Out Burger? — remain to be determined. The plan’s purpose is to arrest the decline of voter participation in municipal elections, which has been falling for decades and hit an all-time low of 23% in last year’s mayoral run-off. Then again, it would be almost impossible to design a system more likely to produce low turnouts than L.A.’s elections. They are held in the spring of odd-numbered years, when potential voters are just coming up for air after the saturation coverage and ad blitzes of presidential and gubernatorial contests. More fundamentally, by the terms of California’s Constitution, city officials don’t have all that much power over public affairs. Separately elected school boards run the schools, while county supervisors are in charge of health and welfare programs.

Missouri: Voter Registration in Ferguson Called ‘Disgusting’ | New York Times

On Sunday the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist and television host, mentioned that voter turnout in the Ferguson, Mo., area was a mere 12 percent in the last election, and pledged to help boost that number with a registration drive. Twelve percent, he said, was “an insult to your children.” He wasn’t the first to think of channeling the anger over Mike Brown’s death in this particular direction. Twitter users on Saturday noted voter registration tables in front of the makeshift memorial where the unarmed teenager was shot by a police officer. Encouraging more participation in the democratic process in a community that feels alienated from political power — hence the demonstrations — seems like an obviously good idea; and one that’s particularly compelling because it’s so simple. Voting is an alternative to protesting in the streets. And yet, the executive director of the Missouri Republican Party, Matt Wills, denounced the plan.

Canada: Weekend voting and online ballots: Election Ontario considers the future | canada.com

How would you like to vote on weekends? And online or by phone? Those are just a couple of ideas Elections Ontario floats in its annual report released Friday*. The annual report does not cover the recent general election, and much of it would have been written before the writs were drawn up and Ontarians re-elected Premier Kathleen Wynne and sent her Liberals back to office for a fourth term. And though voter turnout ticked up slighty to 52.1 per cent in 2014 from 48.2 per cent in 2011, the number is still low and Chief Electoral Officer Greg Essensa offers a few ideas to get Ontarians back to the polls. “Other democracies hold elections on weekends and their experience suggests that should Ontario follow suit, voter turnout may increase,” the annual report states. It also points out that schools are often used as polling locations and moving elections to non-school days would facilitate that process. The report also calls for a rethink of the traditional ballot box.

California: Panel wants L.A. to look at using prizes to boost voter turnout | Los Angeles Times

Alarmed that fewer than one-fourth of voters are showing up for municipal elections, the Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted Thursday to recommend that the City Council look at using cash prizes to lure a greater number of people to the polls. On a 3-0 vote, the panel said it wanted City Council President Herb Wesson’s Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee to seriously consider the use of financial incentives and a random drawing during its elections, possibly as soon as next year. Depending on the source of city funds, the idea could require a ballot measure. Commissioners said they were unsure how big the prizes should be or how many should be offered, saying a pilot program should first be used to test the concept. “Maybe it’s $25,000 maybe it’s $50,000,” said Commission President Nathan Hochman. “That’s where the pilot program comes in — to figure out what … number and amount of prizes would actually get people to the voting box.”

California: Bill to Strengthen California Voting Rights Act Approved by State Assembly | California Newswire

A bill to strengthen voter protections under the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) was approved today by the State Assembly. SB 1365 by Senator Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) expands the CVRA by explicitly prohibiting school boards, cities, and counties from gerrymandering district boundaries in a manner that would weaken the ability of a racial or language minority to influence the outcome of an election. Current state law only allows a challenge of at-large elections. The bill now goes to the State Senate for a final concurrence vote and then to the Governor’s desk. “With today’s vote, we are one step closer to strengthening voting rights for all Californians,” said Senator Alex Padilla. “As our state becomes increasingly diverse we must ensure that the rights of all voters are protected,” added Padilla.

New Jersey: Third parties say Democrats and Republicans shouldn’t get top ballot spots this year | Star-Ledger

With all 21 county clerks about to draw candidate positions for the general election, some New Jersey third parties are preparing to take legal action to get their candidates equal billing with Democrats and Republicans in November. At issue is the state’s law that has allowed the Democratic and Republican Parties to get the two top slots on the ballot every November. If the two major parties get priority, officials in at least two political organizations — the Democratic-Repubilcans and the Libertarians — say they’ll sue. “Either the Libertarian Party and people of New Jersey will have won a history victory for ballot equality, or we’re going to have a historic battle on our hands,” said Patrick McKnight , chairman of the Libertarian Party. “I’m hoping for the former, but preparing for the latter.” Fred LaVergne, a “Democratic-Republican” candidate Congress in the 3rd District, said he plans a separate suit. County clerks hold drawings to determine where candidates go on the ballot after the Secretary of State certifies the primary election results. But under New Jersey law, political parties get a special “party column” if, in their primary elections, they received at least 10 percent of the total number of votes that were cast for Assembly candidates in the preceding general election. The party column means they’re at the top of the ballot.

Editorials: Time to find a better way on voting | Detroit Free Press

On Election Day, newspapers all over the country write editorials urging readers to get out and vote. We talk about civic duty, the need for citizens to participate in the governing process, and how the right to vote is the bedrock of American democracy. But let’s face it — if you’re reading this editorial, you’re probably already planning to vote. Let’s talk instead about how we get people out to vote — and why what we’re doing isn’t working. Based on previous turnouts, about 1.4 million people statewide could cast ballots in Tuesday’s primary election, about 20% of the state’s more than 7 million registered voters. That’s unsurprising for a primary in a non-presidential year, with a noncompetitive gubernatorial primary (both Republican and Democratic nominees for the office have been chosen for more than a year).

Turkey: Expats not keen on voting abroad | Hurriyet Daily

Turkish citizens living abroad have not been rushing to the ballot box for Turkey’s presidential elections, as only a small number of citizens have obtained an appointment to cast their vote. In the past, Turks living abroad could vote in polling stations at border gates. But on average, only 7 percent of the 2.6 million potential overseas voters voted in previous elections. With recent changes to the Election Law, however, the overseas electorate can vote at embassies, consulates and other designated areas in their country of residence between July 31 and Aug. 3. However, the amendment failed to significantly raise the expatriate voter turnout as only around 180,000 Turkish national have registered to vote overseas. A majority of the more than 2.7 million eligible voters living abroad may not be able to cast ballots in the presidential elections as they failed to make an appointment to vote through the website of the High Election Board (YSK).

Utah: Improving voter turnout still a tough nut to crack | Deseret News

Would the ability to vote in your pajamas, on a smart phone, make you a better participant in the political process? Would it make you care more? Utah’s lieutenant governor has convened a committee to study the idea of making the state a pioneer in Internet voting. They might want to look to Norway, which tried such a thing — then, according to a headline writer at npr.org, did a “Ctrl+Alt+Delete” on the whole thing a few weeks ago. Utah Director of Elections Mark Thomas told the Deseret News last week that the biggest hurdle to overcome is security. Norwegian officials would agree. They couldn’t do it. NPR quotes Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory computer scientist David Jefferson as saying, “There is no way to guarantee that the security, privacy and transparency requirements for elections can all be met with any practical technology in the foreseeable future.”

Editorials: Everyone says turnout is key. So why does it keep going down? | Dan Balz/The Washington Post

Tens of millions of dollars will be spent this year in an effort to boost turnout in the November elections. But the longer-term trends suggest that any marginal increase in what is expected to be a low-turnout election won’t have much effect on one of the chronic problems of America’s politics. The Center for the Study of the American Electorate (CSAE) recently issued a dreary summation about participation in the primary elections so far this year. Based on the 25 states that have already held their primaries, the report chronicled a pattern of voter indifference and, in some cases, record low turnout. In 15 of the 25 states with statewide primaries, turnout was the lowest ever, and only three of the 25 saw an increase over the last mid-term election in 2010. One of those that produced increased turnout was Mississippi, but that happened during the extraordinarily contested run-off election between Sen. Thad Cochran (R) and his tea party challenger state Sen. Chris McDaniel.

Turkey: Voters in Europe | Today’s Zaman

For the first time in Turkey’s history, Turkish citizens who live in a foreign country will be able to vote in the elections. Turkey’s envoy to Berlin says that the number of voters is 3 million. This is a significant number given that it corresponds with 7 percent of the total number of voters, and the winner is determined by a small margin in the second round of the presidential elections. Unfortunately, we are not well prepared for these elections, which will take place abroad for the first time. I believe that there will be many problems in how the election is handled and carried out. Half of the voters in Europe live in Germany (1.4 million). Five hundred ballot boxes are reserved for these voters. It appears that there will be 3,000 voters for each box, the voters will have to sign up for a time to vote and the boxes will be stationed in predominantly Turkish areas.

North Carolina: New voting law will hurt minority voting, witness says | Greensboro News-Record

North Carolina has a long and established history of voter discrimination against blacks and that history would continue under a new state voting law, an expert testified this afternoon in U.S. District Court in Winston-Salem. Poll taxes were on the books until the 1920s, said Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. And literacy tests, in which blacks were sometimes forced to read the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, remain on the books, even though they aren’t enforced, Burden said. Burden was testifying in a hearing on a preliminary injunction to block provisions of North Carolina’s voting law that was passed in 2013. Those provisions include reducing the number of days for early voting from 17 to 10, eliminating same-day voter registration and prohibiting county elections officials from counting ballots cast by voters in the correct county but wrong precinct.

Editorials: Will Same-Day Voter Registration Law Fix Hawaii’s Poor Voter Turnout? | Honolulu Magazine

On June 30, Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed legislation into law that will eventually allow same-day voter registration, first at absentee polling places beginning in 2016, and at all precinct polling places on Election Day starting in 2018. Lawmakers hope the adoption of HB 2590 will improve Hawaii’s abysmal voter turnout. Allowing same-day registration in other states, including Connecticut and Colorado, has boosted voter turnout. Other studies have shown election-day registration can increase turnout between 7 and 14 percentage points. Hawaii has one of the lowest voter turnouts in the nation, with just 44 percent of eligible voters actually casting ballots in last year’s presidential election, even when local boy Barack Obama was on the ballot.

Editorials: Thad Cochran’s victory shows voting rights well protected | Jeff Jacoby/The Boston Globe

Tea Party insurgent Chris McDaniel came tantalizingly close to knocking off Senator Thad Cochran in Mississippi’s Republican primary runoff last week, but a surge in black voter turnout saved the six-term incumbent’s bacon. Cochran’s election to a seventh term in November now seems a foregone conclusion, and boy, are a lot of conservatives mad. “There is something a bit unusual about a Republican primary that’s decided by liberal Democrats,” McDaniel fumed on election night, slamming Cochran and the GOP establishment for “once again reaching across the aisle [and] abandoning the conservative movement.” But whatever else the election outcome meant, Cochran’s “reaching across the aisle” made his victory a noteworthy instance of something that supposedly doesn’t and can’t happen in Mississippi even today: A white GOP politician sought support among Democrats, and particularly black Democrats. And far from being politically powerless, they tipped the election.

Editorials: Give Voters a Bill of Rights | Bloomberg

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key formula in the Voting Rights Act last year, Chief Justice John Roberts had a constructive but not entirely practical suggestion: “Congress may draft another formula based on current conditions.” Against all odds, this Congress — on track to be the least productive in modern history — actually came up with a new formula. Unfortunately, it could do more harm than good. The old formula dictated which states and counties were subject to more stringent requirements under the Voting Rights Act, now almost half a century old. The law protects the voting rights of all Americans but — until the court’s decision — paid special attention to election rules and practices in eight states and parts of seven others, mostly in the South. Because of their history of disenfranchisement, those districts were required to get “preclearance” from the federal government for any changes to election practices, including ID requirements and polling hours.

North Dakota: Secretary of state says election glitch shouldn’t resurface | Bismarck Tribune

Officials with the North Dakota Secretary of State’s office said the cause of an election night technical problem with the state’s election results page has been fixed. Secretary of State Al Jaeger said safeguards have also been put in place to ensure any similar problems don’t occur during the Nov. 4 general election. To prevent a repeat of the primary election, a load test of the department’s site will be conducted sometime prior to the November election. Jaeger said testing of the state election website was done prior to the 2012 general election, which produced the largest voter turnout in state history. Deputy Secretary of State Jim Silrum said the problem was a relatively minor one discovered in the system. “It was a query that was running inefficiently,” Silrum said. “I can’t blame it on Information Technology Department; I can’t blame it on our vendor.”

Missouri: Voters to decide on early voting | El Dorado Springs Sun

Missouri voters may be facing a choice this November that could affect the integrity of the state’s elections for generations to come. The issue is that of early voting and which direction, if any, Missouri voters are going to choose to enact. Currently, the only early voting allowed in Missouri is that of absentee ballots by which voters must declare they will be out of town or otherwise unable to cast a ballot in person on election day. The Legislature passed a measure that the governor has placed on the November General Election ballot that would allow early voting with no explanation or excuse needed for six business days prior to the November General Election. This proposal would provide a means of early voting to increase voter turnout and ease election day waiting lines while not putting undue financial pressures on local election authorities.

National: Impacts of voting case extend past Kansas, Arizona | Associated Press

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and other top lawmakers have urged a federal appeals court to overturn a decision by a judge in Kansas that they say would limit the authority of Congress to regulate federal elections and derail its ability to pass legislation protecting the right to vote. Their friend-of-the-court filing last week at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes in the lawsuit filed by Kansas and Arizona to force federal elections officials to help those states impose their proof-of-citizenship requirements on federal voter registration forms used by residents of the states. Both states argue the requirements prevent voter fraud by thwarting voting by noncitizens. Critics of such laws view them as suppressing voter turnout. But both sides agree the potential impacts of the case could extend to other states.

Delaware: Same-day voter registration supporters push for bill’s passage | Delaware Newszap

Advocates for same-day voter registration met at Frazier’s restaurant Friday to pump up support for getting legislation passed. The bill, H.B. 105, if approved would make Delaware the 13th state in the nation to allow eligible voters to register to vote on the day of the election at their polling place. Currently, the registration deadline is 24 days prior to an election. The Central Delaware NAACP said Friday that states with same-day voter registration have a voter turnout around 10 points higher than states that do not.

Ohio: Early voting hasn’t boosted Ohio turnout | The Columbus Dispatch

Early voting has not led to more voting in Ohio, at least not in terms of total votes cast. A Dispatch analysis of the vote totals from the past three presidential elections in the state shows that overall turnout in the 2012 race, when Ohioans arguably had the most opportunities in state history to vote early, was lower than in the 2004 election, when there was virtually no early voting in Ohio. Turnout in 2008, the first presidential race in which Ohioans had no-fault absentee voting and also the first time an African-American was on the ballot, was about 1 percent higher than in 2004. “People who vote early are people who are typically going to vote anyway,” said Paul Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State University. “So, early voting hasn’t really succeeded in turning out more people to vote. We’ve made it a lot easier to vote, but on the other hand, some people are very discouraged about politics and might not care how easy it is to vote.”