ABSTRACT
This chapter examines ideas for increasing turnout in American elections. It also examines the limits and merits of reforms aimed at improving access to the voting booth. The two most prominent reforms, motor voter reforms and Election Day registration (EDR), sought to increase turnout by making the act of registration easier. EDR holds greater potential for increasing turnout on a national scale. In 1991 the state of Texas began to allow citizens to cast ballots prior to Election Day. Given the simplicity and convenience of the process, mail-in voting should increase turnout, and some evidence suggests that voting by mail does lead to increases in turnout. In the 2004 presidential elections, the Pentagon, under its Federal Voting Assistance Program, planned to implement the secure registration and voting experiment (SERVE). Matching the turnout levels achieved in other established democracies, however, will not be possible without institutional reform. The chapter also provides an outline of this book.
