Despite heavy rhetoric, partisan considerations had little influence on states’ decisions to make voting easier.

Recent efforts in a number of Republican-controlled states to roll back previous reforms that make the act of voting easier, combined with the adoption of voter identification laws, signal the strong partisan divisions on matters of election administration. By examining the factors that explain the initial adoption of two common convenience voting methods (no-excuse absentee voting and in-person early voting), Daniel Biggers and Michael Hanmer find that partisan considerations were much more limited than one might expect. Republican governors were less likely to adopt in-person early voting but not no-excuse absentee voting and control of or party strength in the state legislature exerted little influence on this decision. Instead, enactment of both reforms seems to have been affected by utility, with elderly and rural population size, as well as geographic size, influencing adoption. These findings contrast with the heightened partisan debate on these matters and provide important insights into the history and future of these reforms