Early voting, election campaigning and party advantage in Australia

Accepted Manuscript Early voting, election campaigning and party advantage in Australia Ian McAllister, Damon Muller

PII:

S0261-3794(17)30158-0

DOI:

10.1016/j.electstud.2018.02.003

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JELS 1905

To appear in:

Electoral Studies

Received Date: 17 March 2017 Revised Date:

16 February 2018

Accepted Date: 22 February 2018

Please cite this article as: McAllister, I., Muller, D., Early voting, election campaigning and party advantage in Australia, Electoral Studies (2018), doi: 10.1016/j.electstud.2018.02.003. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT [17 February 2018]

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Early Voting, Election Campaigning

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and Party Advantage in Australia*

Damon Muller

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Ian McAllister

Parliamentary Library Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

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School of Politics and International Relations The Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200

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Corresponding author: Ian McAllister, [email protected] Keywords: elections, voting, postal voting, early voting, election campaigns

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* The 2016 Australian Election Study is available from https://australianelectionstudy.org. Our thanks to three anonymous reviews from this journal and to the editor for their constructive and helpful suggestions.

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Abstract There has been an international trend in recent years towards voters casting an early ballot. In the 2016 Australian federal election almost one in three votes were cast in this way, most of them in person using pre-polling centres. This trend towards early voting raises both normative and practical questions about the purpose of election

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campaigns and how they are conducted, as well as what party advantage may be gained from the process. This paper applies multivariate analysis to the 2016 Australian

Election Study to test four hypotheses related to early voting. The results show that

early voters have less trust in politics and are less likely to participate in the election.

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There are small but consistent electoral advantages to be gained from early voters for

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the Liberal-National Coalition.

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Early Voting, Election Campaigning and Party Advantage in Australia Casting a ballot on election day represents the single political act that regularly brings the majority of a country’s citizens together (Blais, 2000; Franklin, 2004). But for a significant and increasing minority of voters, election day is no longer just that.

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More precisely, for around one in three voters, the rise of early voting1 over the past

two decades has meant that election day is not fixed and a ballot can be cast at any time during the course of an election campaign. Fortier (2006: 1) has called this change ‘a revolution in voting’. It is also very much a silent revolution, because its implications

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have not been widely recognized or understood. The rise of early voting has normative implications for democracy, as well as practical implications for the conduct of

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elections.

Normatively, democratic accountability is based on the assumption that voters choose between competing political parties. The choice that the voter makes at the ballot box is based on an evaluation of the competing policy platforms that the parties offer, which are debated during the course of an election campaign. The quality and quantity of the information flow that takes place during a campaign is one indicator of

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the health of a democracy (Converse, 1962; Nadeau et al, 2008). However, if a significant proportion of voters cast their ballot before that debate is concluded, they may possess only partial information about the policy choices on offer. As a

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consequence, their voting choices may be based on incomplete information.2 In effect, early voting may cause the information exchange between citizens and elites that is

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integral to a democratic election to be attenuated. At a practical level, increasing numbers of electors casting their ballot early has

strategic implications for the parties in how they organize their campaign, and implications for the resources they choose to commit at different stages of the campaign (Fournier et al, 2004). For example, a party may decide to release its policies and commit its resources well in advance of election day in order to catch the attention of early voters. In principle, early voting has the potential—along with that other major change in the dynamics of voting, the internet—to profoundly alter the character of modern election campaigning. And not least, there are major implications for election

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management bodies in how resources are allocated to the various methods of casting a ballot, as well as for a timely and accurate vote count. Early voting has its origins in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the need to cater for mobile populations, such as soldiers and indigenous groups. In the US, absentee voting was first introduced for soldiers fighting in the Civil War (Fortier,

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2006: 7ff) and it was used extensively in the first and second world wars. Until the

1970s, however, early voting was still relatively rare. Postwar changes in labour force participation and social structure have resulted in longer and more inconvenient

working hours, often coupled with increased family responsibilities. These changes,

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together with a declining election turnout which began in the 1980s (Blais, Gidengil

and Nevitte, 2004; Franklin, Lyons and Marsh, 2004), has produced a strong demand

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from citizens for electoral participation to be made as easy as possible. In response, election authorities have progressively relaxed the requirement that other than in exceptional circumstances, voters must cast their ballot only on election day. This paper examines the reasons for the rise of early voting, and evaluates its consequences for views of the political system and for vote choice. The first section examines the rise of early voting in Australia and outlines the current patterns. The

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second section reviews the explanations for its rise and the third section advances four hypotheses to evaluate its relationship with voter attitudes and behaviour. The data and measures that are used to test the four hypotheses are outlined in the fourth section, while the fifth section presents the main results of the analysis. The final section places

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the results within the broader context of international trends in early voting and assesses

1.

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its long-term implications.

Early Voting in Australia

Pre-poll voting has existed in Australian federal elections for as long as voting

has been compulsory. Permitting early voting was an important trade-off for the introduction of compulsory voting, in order to allow those who were unable to attend a polling place on election day (always a Saturday) to cast a vote and to avoid being fined for non-voting. Voting by post was first proposed by the colony of South Australia in 1860 as an obvious solution for a geographically large electorate with a widely distributed electorate; a formal system of postal voting was implemented in 1890. This

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT required a voter to visit a police magistrate to have a ballot paper endorsed, with the magistrate forwarding the completed ballot paper to the returning officer by mail.3

With federation in 1901, the South Australian postal voting system was adopted by the Commonwealth. In addition to postal voting, the new system also introduced the declaration vote, so-called because the ballot was accompanied by a signed declaration

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by the elector. This form of ballot was designed for votes cast within the district but outside the elector’s designated polling place.4 This approach to postal voting was

abolished in 1911, and replaced in 1918 by a slightly different system where voters

applied for a postal ballot, which was then mailed to them; the ballot was then returned

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directly to the returning officer. This system remains in operation today (Brent, 2008). Postal voting was joined as an early voting option by declaration pre-poll voting

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through an amendment to the electoral law in 1990. As with postal votes, declaration pre-poll votes are subject to a ‘declaration scrutiny’ process where the elector’s details on the declaration envelope are checked against the electoral register and, if correct, the vote is entered into the count. Between 1993 and 2007 the number of declaration prepoll votes cast increased threefold (Australian Electoral Commission, 2008). As a result of this increase, it was soon apparent that the requirement to undertake the time-

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consuming declaration scrutiny process would delay an election result. In response, the electoral law was changed in 2010 to allow early votes cast in the elector’s enrolled district to be cast as ‘ordinary’ (ie, non-declaration) votes which are placed directly into the ballot box and counted on election night. The three current methods of early voting

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in Australia are summarised in Table 1.

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Table 1: Current Methods of Early Voting in Australia Type of vote

Date

Definition

Postal vote

1901-

Declaration pre-poll vote

1990-

Ordinary pre-poll votes

2010-

Application by mail; ballot paper mailed to voter and then returned completed by mail Declaration of eligibility made on envelope at an early voting polling place outside the voter’s electorate. Personal attendance at polling place within the voter’s electorate

The formal requirements for eligibility for an early vote are illness, infirmity, travel and religion.5 However, in practice electors are not required to say that they meet any of these requirements.6 Indeed, most countries with early voting have largely

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abandoned such a requirement in order to make voting as easy as possible and to arrest the decline in turnout (Finseraas and Vernby, 2014: 281). As a result, early voting has increased significantly since the mid-2000s. Figure 1 shows that in the 1998 Australian federal election just over one in 10 votes were cast early, with the remaining nine out of 10 electors casting a ballot in person on polling day. By 2016, almost one voter in every

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three was casting an early vote. The rapidly accelerating increase in early voting since 2010 is almost wholly accounted for by the increase in the use of pre-poll ordinary

votes, that is early votes which are deposited directly into the ballot box and involve much less effort for voters than declaration votes.

35

Pre-poll

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Total early votes

30

Pre-poll ordinary votes

Pre-poll declaration votes

25

Postal votes

20 15

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Percent

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Figure 1: The Rise of Early Voting, 1993-2016 (Percent)

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5 0

1993

1996

1998

2001

2004

2007

2010

2013

2016

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Since 2010 pre-poll votes have distinguished between ordinary and declaration votes; see text for details. Sources

Reports of the Joint Standing Commission on Electoral Matters, available from http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Hous e_of_Representatives_Committees?url=em/reports.htm.

The political parties have traditionally occupied a special position in the distribution and collection of postal votes in Australia.7 The parties are permitted to distribute postal vote application forms alongside their election campaign material. In practice, this allows the parties ‘to actively solicit for electors to lodge postal votes’ (Kelly, 2011: 133). In much of the printed campaign material produced by the parties,

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT actively soliciting for postal votes is given greater prominence than the fact that the

electoral management body, the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), manages the process. Most of the parties include addressed envelopes for postal vote applications, with the applications being returned to the parties, not to the AEC. This has been a source of concern for the AEC, who argue that it undermines public trust in the

too late to be accepted (Kelly, 2011: 133-9).

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integrity of the system, creates voter confusion, and risks applications being received

The Liberal and National parties8 have been most effective in harvesting these postal vote applications and in recent elections this trend has been increasing. In the

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2010 election, 26.8 percent of all postal vote applications to the AEC came via the

Liberal or National parties, compared to 22.3 percent that originated with Labor (Kelly,

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2011: Table 9.1). In 2016, 75.9 percent of all paper postal vote applications were received via a political party, with almost three quarters coming from the LiberalNational Coalition (Australian Electoral Commission, 2016: Table 16). Two core constituencies of the Coalition are older and rural voters who use postal votes more frequently than other voters due to health and geographical remoteness. Not surprisingly, then, the Coalition parties organize their resources to make more extensive

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use of postal votes for those who they regard as their most loyal supporters. Nevertheless, we would expect that a voter receiving a postal vote application from a party (which is returned to them in an addressed envelope) would predispose that voter to cast a ballot for that party.

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Early voting is now used by around one in three voters in Australia, and if current trends continue at their present rate, this will reach around half of all votes cast by the

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early 2020s. While early voting has traditionally been associated with casting a postal ballot, these now account for only a small minority of the total early votes that are cast in Australia. The main increase has been in pre-poll ordinary votes, where the voter casts a ballot in person at a pre-poll centre; in the 2016 election around one in five of all votes cast were received in this way. The next section reviews some of the explanations for this extraordinary increase in early voting.

2.

Explaining Early Voting The use of compulsory voting is usually seen as a major explanation for the rise

of early voting in Australia. If voters are fined for non-voting, then electoral

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make registration and voting as easy as possible. For example, voters may cast a ballot outside their constituency on polling day, and ballot instructions are translated into multiple languages (Birch, 2013; Jackman, 2001). A second reason for the rise of early

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voting is that federal election dates are not fixed, and the government has considerable discretion as to when an election will be held. This has seen a trend towards holding

elections at the same time as school holidays, when many voters are absent from their constituency (Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, 2006: 182).9

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A third explanation for the rise of early voting identifies local elections as a

factor. Qvortrup (2005: 415) argues that postal voting was originally introduced in

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order to increase turnout in those local elections where voting is not compulsory (which is around half of all local elections in Australia) and in order to save resources. While there is some evidence that postal voting did increase turnout in those local elections when it was first introduced, now that postal voting has been available for a number of years the turnout rates for postal voting elections in Australia (and also in New Zealand) are again declining (Zvulun, 2010). The conduct of local elections is therefore

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not likely to be a major factor in the rise of early voting.

Another explanation focuses on the convenience to the voter of voting by post. There has been most experimentation with postal ballots in the US, where several states have introduced mail-only voting, notably Oregon in 1998 (Giammo and Brox, 2010).

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Those favouring the change argue that it increases turnout, makes voting more convenient, and saves administration costs (Southwell and Burchett, 2000). Studies

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have shown that mail-only elections do increase turnout, but only among those who are already predisposed to vote (Karp and Banducci, 2000; Neeley and Richardson, 2001). Other studies suggest that over an extended period the use of mail ballots may in fact depress turnout (Dyck and Gimpel, 2005; Funk, 2010; Kousser and Mullin, 2007).10 This is attributed to the difficulty in administering mail-only elections, and to the absence of a fixed election day which can focus voter attention and compliance. A common theme in the early voting literature is its potential for arresting declining turnout in voluntary voting systems (for a review, see Gronke et al, 2008). However, research in the US has shown that this may not achieve its intended goal. Burden et al (2014) show that on its own, early voting actually decreases turnout by

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weakening the civic significance of voting and by reducing the incentives for parties to mobilize the vote. In this view, early voting demobilizes voters by encouraging lower levels of party activity in areas where early voting is high and the outcome is certain (Burden et al, 2014: 107). A wide range of other research has suggested that early voting initiatives at both state and federal level have not affected turnout.11

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Opinion surveys in Australia have asked electors what they see as the major

reasons for casting their ballot early. The AEC surveyed voters in 2010 and 2013 about these reasons and found that around one-third reported that they were voting early

because it was simply ‘more convenient’ (Rojas and Muller, 2014). This was the most

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common response in the surveys, even though it is not a permissible reason under the legislation. In 2013 those who cast an early vote were asked if they would still have

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voted on election day had early voting not been available, and 77 percent said that they would have (Rojas and Muller, 2014). Early voting is therefore being used by most voters to accommodate civic duty with family and work responsibilities, rather than as an essential mechanism to ensure that they cast a ballot.

The increasing public demand for ease of voting closely mirrors changing work and leisure practices. Holding elections on a Saturday was originally designed to

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facilitate attendance at a polling place, particularly under a compulsory system. However, postwar changes in patterns of work and leisure activity mean that for an increasing number of people work or family obligations make it difficult to vote on election day. Electors in full time work, for example, might find it easier to vote in a

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pre-poll polling place near their place of work on a weekday, and not on a Saturday when they have childcare responsibilities. Voters who work in retail or hospitality and

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who work at weekends, in contrast, might find it difficult to leave work on election day, and many vote early to avoid doing so. One consequence of the rise of early voting and the subsequent decrease in

election day voting has been the need for electoral authorities to reallocate resources, both in terms of polling places and in staffing. A 2014 Australian National Audit Office report noted that the AEC had not reduced the number of polling places (Australian National Audit Office, 2014) despite the decline in election day voting. In response, the AEC closed around 10 percent of its usual polling places in the 2016 election (Muller, 2015). Increased early voting also requires extra staff to ensure that the election result can be announced shortly after the close of voting. Large pre-poll centres can collect up

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to 20,000 votes, and because of preferential voting, many will have to be counted more than once (Australian Electoral Commission, 2008).12

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Hypotheses The preceding discussion allows us to identify four hypotheses relating to how

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patterns of early voting may shape the behavior and attitudes of Australian voters. The first hypothesis concerns the unifying experience of elections, where citizens come

together in a single event to cast a ballot. When large proportions of voters cast an early vote, it could be argued that a sense of electoral engagement is lost, with negative

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consequences for views of the democratic system. We know that increased turnout and electoral engagement generally increases satisfaction with democracy (Aarts and Thomassen, 2008; Blais and Dobrzynska, 1998). However, we do not know if the same

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effect holds when the vote is cast early. Our first hypothesis is therefore that early voters will have lower levels of satisfaction with democracy and trust in government because they have missed the personal experience of casting a ballot along with other citizens on election day. H1

Early voters will have lower levels of satisfaction with democracy and trust

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in government when compared to election day voters. Since they will have cast their ballot in advance of election day, it might be expected that early voters will have less total exposure to the election campaign when

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compared to those who vote on election day. As we have already argued, this has implications for democracy insofar as voters may be exposed to differing levels of political information during an election campaign. There is, however, evidence that

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early voters are more attentive to the campaign before they cast their ballot (Karp and Banducci, 2001).13 The question, then, is whether early voters have lower levels of political information and political interest compared to voters who cast their vote on polling day, net of other things. We might predict that early voters are, overall, less likely to be exposed to, and to be influenced by, the events and debates of the election campaign.14 H2

Early voters will have lower levels of exposure to campaign activity and less interest in the election compared to election day voters.

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Early voters have to make more effort to cast a ballot compared to election day voters, insofar as they must complete one or more forms (in the case of a postal vote) or locate and travel to a pre-poll centre (in the case of a pre-poll vote). Gronke et al (2008: 444; see also Fourier et al, 2004) conclude that ‘voters who use early voting are more politically aware, more partisan, and more ideologically extreme.’ Other research

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suggests that early voters tend to possess higher levels of information and certainty of choice which enables them to make a decision (Gronke and Toffey, 2008). We would therefore expect early voters to be more partisan and more ideologically committed

compared to election day voters, since they will have to invest more personal resources

H3

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in casting a ballot.

Early voters will be more partisan and ideologically oriented compared to

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election day voters.

The final hypothesis relates to party advantage, which has generated much discussion in the literature. Studies in the US suggest that there no in-built party advantage from early voting, and that any advantage appears to rest with the party that is better organized and financed (Barreto et al, 2006; Bernsky, 2005; Gronke et al, 2008: 444). However, research in Norway presents a more complex picture, suggesting

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that the centre left and the radical right are the main beneficiaries (Finseraas and Vernby, 2014). To the extent that there may be partisan bias associated with early voting in Australia, we would expect it to be in the direction of the centre right since, as discussed earlier, the conservative Liberal-National Coalition parties have been much

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more active in organizing postal votes compared to the Labor Party (Kelly, 2011: 1339). This leads to the fifth and final hypothesis: Early voters will be more likely to vote for the Liberal-National Coalition

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H4

than election day voters.

These four hypotheses encapsulate the major debates surrounding early voting.

The remainder of the paper tests these hypotheses empirically, while the next section outlines the data that is used, and the operationalization of the variables.

4.

Data, Measurement and Method Data. The data come from the 2016 Australian Election Study (AES) survey,

which is a national survey conducted immediately following each federal election. The

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survey used two separate samples. The first sample is based on the electoral roll, and a random probability sample was drawn representing voters from all states and territories nationwide immediately after the close of rolls. The response rate for the electoral roll sample was 28.4 percent. The second sample is based on the geo-coded national address file (G-NAF) and is a random probability sample of 13 million addresses; the

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response rate was 18.6 percent. For both samples, respondents were given the option of completing the questionnaire in hard copy and mailing it back, or completing the survey online, using a unique login provided in the introductory letter.

Measurement. The 2016 survey estimates of early voting in Table 2 closely match

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the official figures presented in Figure 1. The 2016 AES found that 69 percent of the

respondents reported casting a vote in person on polling day, which is exactly the same

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as the official figure. There is a slight over-estimate of postal voters (10 percent in the AES, compared to an official figure of 8.6 percent) and a slight under-estimate of prepoll voters (21 percent compared to 22.6 percent). The survey did not distinguish between pre-poll ordinary and declaration votes, however pre-poll declaration votes make up only a small proportion of actual pre-poll votes, and it would be reasonable to assume that almost all of the pre-poll voters in the survey were pre-poll ordinary

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voters.15 The survey estimates suggest, therefore, that voters have an accurate recollection of how they cast their ballot and are prepared to provide this information in the survey. Moreover, there are virtually no differences between the two subsamples of

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survey respondents.

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Table 2: Actual and Estimated Early Voting, 2016 (Percent)

Voted in person on election day Voted in person, pre-poll Cast postal vote Total (N)

Actual 69.0 22.6 8.6

Survey

(Roll)

(G-NAF)

69 21 10

(69) (20) (12)

(68) (20) (11)

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100 (2,549)

100 (1,377)

100 (1,172)

The question was: ‘Did you vote in person on election day or did you cast your vote before election day?’ Sources Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters (2016); 2016 Australian Election Study.

The party vote in Table 4 is recalled vote in the 2016 election to the House of Representatives. The vote is divided between the four political groups: the Liberal-

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT National parties won 42.1 percent of the first preference vote; the Labor Party 34.7

percent; the Greens 10.2 percent; and minor parties and independents 13.0 percent. This group is a disparate collection of state-based minor parties and independents.16 The independent variables are measured as follows; full details of question wordings and coding are provided in the Appendix. Satisfaction and trust are measured

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by two questions in the survey. Campaign participation is measured by three variables. The first is a multiple-item scale which measures active engagement in political parties through meetings, contributing money and supporting candidates. The second is also a multiple-item scale and measures engagement through discussing politics with others in

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person and via email. The third variable measures interest in the election. Ideological commitment measures the strength of the respondent’s partisanship as well as the

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strength of her ideology, using position on the standard left-right self-placement scale.17 Finally, a series of control variables are included covering gender, age, birthplace, education, family income and urbanization.

Method. The analyses are conducted using multinomial logistic regression. In the first analysis in Table 3, the excluded category is voters who cast their ballot in person. In the second analysis in Table 4, the excluded category is Greens voters. There are, of

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course, issues of causality in any analysis which seeks to disentangle the causes and consequences of how ballots are cast during the course of an election campaign. We assume, for example, that the frequency of discussing politics with others is a cause of whether or not the respondents casts a pre-poll vote. It could equally well be argued

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that there is a reciprocal relationship, so that casting a pre-poll vote influences the respondent’s level of political discussion. There is no definitive answer to this problem

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given the cross-sectional data that is available here; panel data would be required. Alternative causal mechanisms should therefore be borne in mind when interpreting the results.

5.

Results

Our first three hypotheses predict that electors casting an early vote will be different from those voting on election day across each of three categories—satisfaction and trust, campaign participation, and ideological commitment. The results in Table 3 show estimates from a multinomial logistic regression equation predicting respondents

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT who cast a pre-poll or a postal vote from those who cast a vote in person on polling day, which is the excluded category.

The results find no support for the ideological commitment hypothesis (H3), so the strength of partisanship or ideology did not influence whether the respondent cast an early ballot or not. There is modest support for the satisfaction and trust hypothesis

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(H1): pre-poll voters display significantly less political trust than polling day voters, net of other things. The strongest support emerges for campaign participation (H3). More specifically, electors who indicated that they had discussed politics with others during the campaign, either in person or by phone or online, or who tried to persuade others to

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vote for a particular candidate, were more likely to have voted on election day and less likely to have cast an early pre-poll vote. Perhaps reflecting the relatively small

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numbers of voters involved, party-related forms of participation did not show any significant variation between the three types of voting, nor were there any effects for interest in the election.

Table 3: Types of Voting, Attitudes and Social Background (Multinomial Logistic Regression) Pre-poll

Post

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(SE)

Est

(SE)

.128 -.125*

(.088) (.066)

-.047 -.061

(.113) (.086)

.062 -.090** -.086

(.038) (.035) (.097)

-.001 .017 -.203

(.053) (.050) (.124)

.127 -.006

(.195) (.044)

-.124 -.001

(.253) (.056)

.104 .016** .414** .054 -.032

(.125) (.004) (.164) (.133) (.044)

-.041 .020** .347 -.006 .003

(.161) (.005) (.207) (.173) (.058)

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Est

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Satisfaction and trust Satisfaction with democracy Trust in politics Campaign participation Party participation Discussing politics Interest in the election Ideological commitment Strength of partisanship Strength of ideology Social background Gender Age Australian born Tertiary education Urbanization

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Constant Nagelkerke R-squared (N)

-1.925**

(.421)

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-2.286** .040 (1,714)

(.693)

** significant at p<.01, * p<.05, both two-tailed. Estimates are parameter estimates and standard errors from a multinomial logistic regression predicting pre-poll and postal votes, with election day votes as the

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT excluded category, using listwise deletion of missing values. See text and Appendix for details of variables and coding. Source 2016 Australian Election Study.

The strongest effects in Table 3 are reserved for the respondents’ social background characteristics. Older voters were significantly more likely to cast an early ballot, either pre-poll or postal, compared to election day voters, net of other things.

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Australian born voters were more likely than overseas born voters to cast a pre-poll

vote, an effect which probably reflects better knowledge of the electoral system among this group; while the option of casting a postal ballot is common to many democracies, pre-poll voting in person is not common and overseas voters are unlikely to be familiar

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with it. There are no significant effects for gender, education or, perhaps surprisingly, urbanization.

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The fourth hypothesis predicts that early voters will be more likely to vote for the Liberal-National Coalition, compared to Labor, the Greens, and the minor parties. This prediction is based on the more extensive involvement of the Coalition parties in the early voting process. This hypothesis is tested in Table 4, which presents the results of a multinomial logistic regression predicting the party vote in the House of

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Representatives (Labor, Liberal-National and other) against the excluded category, the Greens. The Greens are chosen as the excluded category since we would expect them to be less likely to possess the organizational resources required to utilize early voting, and we can therefore contrast the two major parties, Labor and Liberal-National, with

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them. Vote type is measured by pre-poll and postal voting, with those who voted in person on election day constituting the excluded category. In addition to the type of

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vote, the three categories of possible consequences of early voting examined earlier are included, with social background included as controls. Table 4: Types of Voting and Vote Choice (Multinomial Logistic Regression)

Type of vote (voted on election day) Pre-poll Postal Satisfaction and trust Satisfaction with democracy Trust in politics

Labor

Liberal-National

Other

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Est

(SE)

Est

(SE)

Est

(SE)

.332 .578

(.255) (.360)

.525* .976**

(.254) (.356)

.114 .812*

(.309) (.403)

.278* -.075

(.136) (.098)

.170 .232**

(.129) (.097)

-.415** -.135

(.162) (.136)

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT .075 -.136** .346**

(.055) (.055) (.139)

-.054 -.169** .329*

(.058) (.056) (.140)

.031 -.125* .466**

(.071) (.068) (.175)

.446 -.266**

(.296) (.064)

.709* -.263**

(.298) (.063)

.739* -.327**

(.366) (.079)

.170 .027** .031 -.696** -.123

(.183) (.006) (.334) (.184) (.076)

.760** .042** .170 -.522** -.221**

(.183) (.006) (.226) (.186) (.076)

.424* .037** .276 -.671** -.224**

(.227) (.007) (.285) (.245) (.089)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-.201

(.639)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-1.092

(.642) .216 (1,738)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.300

(.737)

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Constant Nagelkerke R-squared

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Campaign participation Party participation Discussing politics Interest in the election Ideological commitment Strength of partisanship Strength of ideology Social background Gender Age Australian born Tertiary education Urbanization

(N)

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** significant at p<.01, * p<.05, both two-tailed. Estimates are parameter estimates and standard errors from a multinomial logistic regression predicting vote, with Greens as the excluded category, using listwise deletion of missing values. See text and Appendix for details of variables and coding. Source 2016 Australian Election Study.

The results in Table 4 provide support for the hypothesis that there is a party advantage associated with early voting. The Liberal-National Coalition gained a

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significant advantage from postal voters, compared to the Greens, as well as a lesser but still statistically significant advantage from pre-poll voters. While the signs are in the correct direction, Labor’s advantage is not statistically significant. The ‘other’ group of parties also gained a significant advantage from postal votes, relative to the Greens. All

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of these effects are net of a wide range of other factors. These findings show that early voting conveys a significant advantage to the Liberal-National parties, as the hypothesis

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predicts. The parameter estimate of 0.976 for postal voting in the Liberal-National equation in Table 4 suggests that there is a 49.4 percent greater probability of a postal voter casting her ballot for the Coalition as opposed to the excluded category, the Greens. The same calculation for the Labor equation results in a 36.6 percent greater probability of a postal voter casting their ballot for Labor. Since our principal interest is in any electoral advantage that the major parties may derive from early voting, the results show that postal voters have a 12.8 percent greater probability of voting Coalition rather than Labor. In the case of both major parties, then, there is an electoral advantage to be gained from early voting, net of a wide range of other things. And as hypothesized, the main

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT advantage accrues to the Coalition parties.18 This can be attributed to more effective

Coalition organization around postal voting and perhaps a greater predisposition among Coalition voters to use these methods (net, obviously, of social background which is taken into account in the model). If a significant group of Coalition voters have used postal voting in the past, they may be more inclined to use it in the future regardless of

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what other early voting options, such as pre-poll voting, may exist. Further evidence for the role of the parties in mobilizing postal votes comes from the AES, which asked the respondents if they had been contacted by a political party

and if they had, which party initiated the contact. Table 5 shows that 45 percent of the

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respondents reported having been contacted by a party via mail. A much higher

proportion of postal voters—52 percent—reported having been contacted via mail

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compared to election day voters. Moreover, of those who reported having been contacted by mail, 56 percent reported that the contact had come from either the Liberal or National parties, compared to 42 percent who reported contact from Labor. Table 5: Types of Voting and Party Contact (Percent) Election day

Pre-poll

(21) (45) (6) (3) (7) (4) (1,754)

22 45 6 5 7 5 (525)

19 44 6 6 5 2* (243)

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Contacted by political party via… Telephone Mail Face to face Text, SMS Email Web (N)

(All)

Postal 20 52** 3** 6 11** 6 (243)

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** significantly different from voted in person on election day at p<.05, * p<.10, both two-tailed.

Source

2016 Australian Election Study.

These results show that early voting matters for electoral outcomes. In terms of

shaping voters’ views of the political system or the conduct of the election campaign, the effects are relatively small. Early voters do tend to display campaign demobilization, and there is evidence that they are more distrustful of government. But more important is the electoral advantage that early voting conveys to both major parties, and more particularly to the Coalition parties. The Liberal-National parties have consistently devoted more resources to mobilizing early voters compared to Labor, and this has reaped electoral rewards. While the advantage enjoyed by the Coalition is not

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large, it could easily mean the difference between winning or loosing a closely fought election. In the six general elections held since 2001, for example, the vote difference between the two parties (measured by the two-party preferred vote) has averaged 3.2 percent, and in 2016 the difference was just 0.8 percent. Set in that context, a small electoral advantage among early voters could well determine the election outcome.

Conclusion

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6.

In Australia as in many of other advanced societies, a revolution in voting has

been occurring. As voters’ lives and work habits have become more complex, they have

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demanded greater flexibility in the timing and ease of voting. In response to this

demand, election authorities have relaxed the once strict rules governing the use of early votes. In Australia, the effect has been that nearly one in three votes in the 2016

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federal election were cast in advance of election day, many of them more than a week ahead. This level of early voting is in line with the US, where 31.6 percent of the electorate voted early in the 2012 presidential election.19 Similarly, in the 2015 British general election, 16.4 percent of all votes cast were postal votes, compared to just 4 percent in 2001 (Rallings and Thrasher, 2015: 8).

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This paper has examined the consequences of early voting in Australia, using the 2016 Australian Election Study. The results show that early voters are more likely to be demobilized from the election campaign, and to have less trust in politics. The Coalition derives a net electoral advantage from early voting, after attitudes, behavior

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and social background have been taken into account. Although the effects are relatively small, they have the potential to change the outcome of a closely fought election: on

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their own, early voting could have altered the outcome of three of the last six general elections. The relative lack of any larger effects for early voting may seem surprising given the scale and speed of this change. The answer probably rests in the normalization of early voting: when it was limited to a small proportion of voters, there was scope for considerable bias and manipulation. As early voting has spread across the electorate and become widely used, the political and partisan bias has diminished. The rise of early voting has significant implications for democratic accountability. Theories of democracy assume that citizens come together to make a collective decision after having been exposed to the same information during an election campaign. This assumption is inherent in the political parties being awarded

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT broadly similar funding and resources to conduct their campaigns, and in the equal

treatment they receive in the mass media. If large proportions of the electorate vote at different times in advance of election day, arguably this undermines accountability, and the playing field ceases to be level. As early voting continues to rise, perhaps rising to a

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majority of the electorate, addressing these issues is likely to become more pressing.

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Appendix Recalled vote is measured by the question: ‘In the Federal election for the House of Representatives on Saturday 2 July, which party did you vote for first in the House of Representatives?’ Satisfaction with democracy is based on the question: ‘On the whole, are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied or not at all satisfied

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with the way democracy works in Australia?’ Trust in government is based on the

question: ‘In general, do you feel that the people in government are too often interested in looking after themselves, or do you feel that they can be trusted to do the right thing nearly all the time?’

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Party participation and discussing politics are both multiple item scales which each combine engagement with three election campaign activities. The questions were:

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‘How often did you do the following during the recent election ... discuss politics with others in person (i.e. face to face or over the phone)? … discuss politics with others online (i.e. through email or on a social network site like Facebook or Twitter)? … talk to other people to persuade them to vote for a particular party or candidate? … show your support for a particular party or candidate by, for example, attending a meeting, putting up a poster, or in some other way? … go to any political meetings or rallies?’

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The first three items represent discussing politics, and the last three items party participation. The responses were not at all, rarely, occasionally, frequently. The resulting scales were rescored from a low of zero to a high of 10 with missing values

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coded to the mean. The reliability coefficient for the first scale (Cronbach’s alpha) is 0.82 and for the second scale, 0.79. The correlation between the two scales is 0.47. Interest in the election is based on the question: ‘How much interest would you say you

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took in the election campaign overall?’ Strength of partisanship is based on the question: ‘Would you call yourself a very

strong, fairly strong, or not very strong supporter of that party?’ Strength of ideology uses the standard left-right self-placement question: ‘Where would you place yourself on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means the left and 10 means the right?’ In order to measure strength of ideology, regardless of direction, 0 and 10 on the scale were scored as 10, 1 and 9 as 8, 2 and 8 as 6, 3 and 7 as 4, 4 and 6 as 2, and 5 as zero. Appendix Table: Variables, Definitions and Means

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT .21 .10 .39 .32 .10 .19 2.59

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Party participation Discussing politics Election interest Strength of partisanship Strength of ideology Gender Age Australian born Tertiary education Urbanization

1=yes, 0=no 1=yes, 0=no 1=yes, 0=no 1=yes, 0=no 1=yes, 0=no 1=yes, 0=no From 1=not at all satisfied to 4=very satisfied From 1=look after themselves to 4=can be trusted Multiple item scale, from 0 to 10 Multiple item scale, from 0 to 10 From 1=none at all to 4=great deal 0=not strong, 0.5=fairly 1=very From 0 to 5 1=female, 0=male Single years 1=yes, 0=no 1=yes, 0=no From 1=rural area to 5=large city

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Trust in government

Mean

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Voted in person, pre-poll Postal vote Voted Liberal-National Voted Labor Voted Green Voted Other Satisfaction with democracy

Scoring

See text for question wording and scale construction for party participation and discussing politics. 2016 Australian Election Study.

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Source

1.85

0.77 3.33 2.97 0.46 1.65

48.6 0.78 0.37 3.97

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Notes The formal term in Australia for early voting is ‘pre-poll voting’.

2

There is an extensive literature about what information voters possess, and how they use it to make their political choices. See Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996).

3

This system is closer to pre-poll voting than postal voting as it currently operates.

4

Currently the Australian federal electoral system allows voters to cast a ballot at any polling place within their enrolled district. However, if they vote in person outside their district they must complete an ‘absent vote’.

5

While postal votes are available for voters in prison (those serving a prison term of more than three years are unable to vote whilst incarcerated) and in hospitals, the AEC sends teams of officials to prisons and hospitals to allow residents to cast an in-person vote prior to election day (though these are not considered to be early votes).

6

The legislation also allows for absent votes, which are cast outside the elector’s enrolled district on polling day, and overseas votes for enrolled electors who are out of the country, available at certain overseas posts. In the case of overseas voters, voting is voluntary.

7

The international research indicates that early voters are more likely than election day voters to have been contacted by a political party (Gronke and Toffey, 2008). This presumably reflects efforts by the parties to organize postal votes for their supporters who might otherwise abstain.

8

The two parties have been in permanent coalition since 1923, except for a short period in the 1980s.

9

For example, the 2016 federal election was held during the school holidays, and the AEC suggested that this was one of the factors that contributed to the increase in early voting (see Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, 2016).

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10

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1

Evaluating the effects of mail-only elections on turnout is always problematic in the US due to differences in state registration practices, which is many cases also depress turnout.

11

See Gronke et al (2008), Fitzgerald (2005), Oliver (1996), Primo, Jacobsmeier and Milyo (2007). For a contrary view, see Wolfinger, Highton and Mullin (2005).

12

In addition, postal votes can be received for up to 13 days after polling day, provided they were posted by election day, and may themselves cause a delay in

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT declaring the result. Postal votes, and any other declaration votes, then have to go through the normal count and scrutiny processes A special case of information effects is when early voters do not have full information about candidates and this may influence their choice, particularly where candidates withdraw from the race at a late stage (Meredith and Malhotra, 2011).

14

One of the functions of an election campaign is to mobilize voters, so we might also predict that early voters would be less likely to turnout to vote. Due to Australia’s compulsory voting system we are unable to test this hypothesis.

15

It was not considered feasible to further ask the respondents to indicate which type of pre-poll vote—ordinary or declaration—that they used since the terms would not be familiar to most voters.

16

The vote figures are the first preference vote, since House of Representatives elections are based on preferential voting. Turnout in the election was 91.0 percent.

17

One possible control variable is the direction of party identification. However, compulsory voting and frequent elections means Australia has one of the highest levels of partisan identification in the world (Singh and Thornton, 2013) and the correlation between party identification and vote is around 0.80, so the two are almost interchangeable.

18

The Liberal-National Coalition advantage among postal and pre-poll voters was also reflected in the actual 2016 election results, with the Coalition on average winning 55.5 percent of postal votes and 52.5 percent of pre-poll ordinary votes.

19

US Census Bureau Survey, reported in http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michaelp-mcdonald/a-modest-early-voting-ris_b_3430379.html

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