Framing Automatic Voter Registration: Partisanship and Public Understanding of Automatic Voter Registration

Abstract

Automatic voter registration (AVR) is a recent innovation in voter registration in the United States, passed by 18 states plus DC in the last 4 years. AVR has generally escaped partisan polarization about election reform, having passed in Republican and Democratic controlled states. Using a survey experiment in the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we investigate effects of source cues about support of AVR from different party elites and from election administrators on the public’s expectations about AVR’s impact on turnout, voter fraud, fairness, and election problems. Our experimental results show an asymmetric partisan effect. When AVR is endorsed by Democratic leaders, Republicans (and independents) expect AVR to reduce the fairness and legitimacy of elections, while Democrats are generally resistant to partisan cues.