Browsing by Author "Stein, Robert"
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Item Disparities in Democracy: The Causes and Consequences of Polling Place Practices and Conditions(2020-08-13) Lamb, Matt; Stein, RobertElections are the method by which we translate public preferences into policy. For most Americans, the act of voting is the sole method by which they are able to place themselves within the American body politic. Yet so little is known about how Americans perceive the act of voting itself. Scan research has been conducted as to how Americans interact with the polling place, and the potential for downstream effects for political behavior. In this dissertation, I ask what impact the logistics and conditions of voting have on voter behavior. I present three empirical studies that investigate various aspects of election administration. In Chapter 2 I examine the circumstances under which people are likely to leave the check-in line at the polling place before casting a ballot. I find that long lines lead to higher incidence of people leaving the check-in line at the polling place before casting a ballot, however, voters in majority-Black precincts tend to leave the check-in line at higher rates despite having shorter lines. In Chapter 3, I study whether those who cast their ballots at a “vote center” rather than a precinct polling place had a better voting experience. I find that those who voted at vote centers had more negative experiences. Finally, in Chapter 4, I study the impact of vote-by-mail on county expenditures for election administration. I find that vote-by-mail reduced expenditures for election administration overall, however, disparities exist in how much money per voter is spent based on demographic composition of the county. I discuss key takeaways and potential future research in Chapter 5.Item Down-Ballot Decision Making: The Effect of Electoral Level on Individual Cognitive Processing & Information Consumption(2021-04-29) Perry, Steven; Stein, RobertOf the more than 500,000 elected officials nationwide, more than 96% are elected to positions in local government. As a result, each election cycle the vast majority of races on a voter’s ballot are comprised not of high profile races for well-known positions in state and federal government, but for positions in local government. Local electoral contests provide a large and diverse array of positions that are placed before the electorate; in addition to traditional legislative and executive positions, voters in state and local elections are often tasked with selecting candidates to judicial, administrative, law enforcement, and other specialized positions. Do voters use the same types of cognitive strategies when making decisions for these bottom-of-the-ballot contests that they use when evaluating candidates for more well-known offices? Little work has systematically examined the effect that different institutional electoral levels may play on a voter’s cognitive decision making processes. The implications of this research trend are clear: voters are electing the vast majority of office holders and are making the greatest number of decisions through processes that we, as scholars, know the least about. Through a series of original experiments, I identify the effect of electoral level on voters’ cognitive processing, information acquisition, and decision making. Overall, I find clear evidence of an electoral effect: in spite of significant information asymmetries and higher information costs, voters in local elections desire more information about candidates running for local office.Item Early Campaign Contact and Voter Turnout in the 2018 Texas State Senate District 6 Special Election(Rice University, 2019-04) Wilson, Chloe; Stein, RobertThe creation of early in person (EIP) voting periods has been a popular policy implemented by state legislatures seeking to increase voter turnout through decreasing the costs of going to the polls. The efficacy of EIP voting has been questioned in the literature. EIP voting has, however, changed the way in which campaigns are run (Burden et al 2014; Hamel et al 2018). Using individual-level, paid phone-bank call data from the Ana Hernandez campaign for the Texas State Senate District 6 special election held on December 11, 2018 and district-wide voter history data I examine the efficacy of campaign contact under early voting conditions. I find this contact to be ineffective, once vote history is taken into account. A history of voting in the 2018 primary election and 2018 bond elections is a much stronger predictor of turning out in the election studied. This analysis indicates that contacted voters who turned out were more likely self-motivated to vote rather than mobilized through contact, complicating Arceneaux and Nickerson’s (2009) contingency model of campaign contact, which states that high propensity voters are the most cost effective to turn out through campaign contact. These findings have important implications regarding the status quo model of campaign contact currently implemented and how it can be modified to be both more effective in turning out voters in low salience elections.Item The efficacy of preparing for natural disasters(Kinder Institute for Urban Research, 2013) Stein, Robert; Buzcu-Given, Birnur; Duenas-Osorio, Leonardo; Subramanian, DevikaPrevious research has identified a host of actions individuals take in preparation for pending natural disasters. We do not know, however, how these preparations affect outcomes, including property damage, personal injury and evacuation behavior. In this study we argue that different modes/types of preparation produce different outcomes and are associated with different predictors. We test our hypotheses with data from a survey conducted with residents of Harris County, Texas, after Hurricane Ike in 2008. We find that preparations for hurricanes cluster around two distinct dimensions; preventative preparation (e.g., raising the level of residence, purchasing insurance) and mitigating preparation (e.g., buying water and food, filling gas tank). We tested the relationship between preparation and outcomes by defining preparation as a function of risk and other determinants of risk identified in the literature including prior hurricane experience, demographics, living closer to the coast, and information seeking. We find that those who prepare are most likely to confront greater risk from approaching hurricanes than those who do not prepare. We also find that preventative preparation has a significant and negative effect on bad outcomes, specifically in property damage. Mitigating preparation, however, has a significant and negative effect on the likelihood individuals evacuate, especially residents of non-evacuation areas. Our findings have strong implications on how emergency planners and local officials should prepare for and communicate with the public before severe weather episodes.