Seattle case study: Campaign donation vouchers mostly utilized by the civically engaged—why?
Image by Steven Depolo
Many Bay Areans think political campaigns are too expensive. And efforts in Washington state to level the playing field (via $25 vouchers) have been encouraging, but uncover challenges for local mobilization: due to varying levels of gov't interest, knowledge gaps, etc. From the Journals of Experimental Political Science & Election Law.
Geoffrey Henderson and Hahrie Han's 2020 study in the Journal of Experimental Political Science:
Our analysis estimates the degree to which mobilization increased participation in [Seattle’s] voucher program in the aggregate. …
The democracy voucher program has expanded and diversified participation in Seattle’s campaign finance system. Yet our data suggest that transactional approaches to mobilization for voucher contribution will activate those who regularly vote [voucher use rates: 3.18% for high-propensity voters, 2.31% for medium-high, 1.23% for medium-low, and 0.52% for low], rather than engaging new participants in the political system. While the mobilization effort increased voucher use in underrepresented communities [2.8% for Win/Win coalition members, more than twice the rate (1.2%) among non-members], this increase was significantly greater among frequent voters than among the rest of the electorate. …
Among the barriers to broadening political participation is a widespread feeling of political inefficacy. As one disaffected Seattle resident put it, “maybe [vouchers] would do some good, but politicians don’t want to listen to us” (Cohen 2017). Another voter added that “[o]ur little voucher would be so small compared to corporate America’s donations.” The canvassing message in this study similarly emphasized how vouchers could counter the influence of “wealthy special interests that make big donations”; perhaps by reminding voters of powerful impediments to democracy, the message dampened the effect of mobilization among those who were less predisposed to participate (Levine and Kline 2019). Further, many Seattle residents had simply misplaced or forgotten about their vouchers by the time of the election (Kliff 2018). This challenge speaks to a deeper problem – relatively low levels of political engagement outside of election season. …
We posit that efforts to engage infrequent political participants in the voucher program will need to go beyond traditional voter mobilization tactics. As the language barrier could help explain the lower treatment effects among lower propensity voters (Garcia Bedolla and Michelson 2012), outreach in multiple languages could help address disparities in participation. Further, a large body of research documents how community organizations have fostered high levels of political engagement among low-income, majority–minority communities (Christens, Peterson, and Speer 2011; Christens and Speer 2011; Osterman 2006; Speer et al 2010; Tesdahl and Speer 2015; Warren 2001).
Read the whole thing here (behind paywall).
Brian J. McCabe and Jennifer A. Heerwig's 2019 study in the Election Law Journal:
Overall, our analyses confirm that the Democracy Voucher program successfully increased participation in the municipal campaign finance system and shifted the donor pool in a more egalitarian direction … [but] participants in Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program are more likely to be white, liberal, female, and older. While we find that voucher users are not representative of the broad universe of registered voters, they are much more demographically similar to voters in the 2017 election …
When we investigate the predictors of successfully assigning all of one’s attempted vouchers, we find the oldest Seattleites were more likely to use a voucher, but they were also significantly less likely to successfully assign all of their vouchers than younger participants. Although there are few significant differences by race, we do note that Asian Americans were less likely to successfully assign all of their attempted vouchers, relative to whites. This finding may be driven by Seattle’s large foreign-born Asian American population (U.S. Census Bureau 2019). Although the vouchers were available in 15 different languages, nonnative English speakers may have encountered difficulties with navigating the new system.
We also report that, among voucher users, those in the lowest income categories were less likely to successfully assign all of their vouchers. This result may be driven by overall lower levels of the political resources critical to engagement (Brady, Verba, and Schlozman 1995). In fact, these findings are generally consistent with previous studies of political engagement that point to higher levels of civic engagement among citizens with greater access to political resources and civic knowledge.
As we conceptualize the successful redemption of vouchers as an act of political engagement, it is important to acknowledge that this act requires knowledge of what the vouchers are, how the program operates, and what is required to successfully redeem them. Continued efforts to improve the program in future election cycles should focus on addressing the barriers that limit participation, including lack of knowledge about the program and limited understanding about how to participate (BERK Consulting 2018). …
By attracting nontraditional candidates and empowering citizens to fund those campaigns, we may expect the infusion of public money to shift key pieces of the electoral system—for example, the degree of electoral competitiveness, the process of candidate emergence, or the level of candidate interaction with local constituents—relative to a counterfactual in which campaigns remained privately financed. Resultant policy decisions may also more closely reflect the preferences of the electorate.
Read the whole thing here (behind paywall).
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