How Much is Minnesota Like Wisconsin? States as Counterfactuals

Abstract

Political scientists are often interested in understanding whether state laws alter individual level behavior. For example, states often alter their election procedures, which can increase or decrease the cost of voting. In this example, it is important to understand whether these changes alter turnout since changes in costs may disproportionally aect those at the margin of voting. Analysts have typically used one of two dierent regression based research designs to estimate whether changes in state laws increase or decrease turnout. In both instances, voters from states without a change in laws are used as counterfactuals for the voters who experience a change in election law. Here, we carefully examine the assumptions behind both research designs and study their plausibility. Next, we outline a series of research design elements that can be used in addition to the usual designs. These research design elements allow the analyst to better understand the role of unobserved confounders, which is obscured in standard research designs. Using these design elements, we demonstrate that what appears to be clear cut evidence from the usual research designs is often a function confounding. We argue that to truly understand how changes in voting costs alters turnout, a dierent research design is required. Future work must rely on a research design that makes comparisons among voters who live within the same state. Our work has implications beyond turnout to any investigation of how state level treatments alter individual behavior.