The SAVE act, Voter ID laws, and turnout in America | Political Reality | S01E12

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Show Notes for Voter ID Ep.

📄 Riker and Ordeshook, “A Theory of the Calculus of Voting” (paper where the key equation came from):https://www.jstor.org/stable/1953324

⚡ World’s briefest summary of the above:https://adambrown.info/p/notes/riker_and_ordeshook_a_theory_of_the_calculus_of_voting

📊 Meta-study of papers that built from this earlier work (alas, it’s behind a paywall, I’m sorry):https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379412001527

📚 “Classic” (2008 lol cry) review of research on convenience voting:https://www.annualreviews.org/docserver/fulltext/pl/11/1/annurev.polisci.11.053006.190912.pdf?expires=1774472398&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=4CCCEB2034EED20DCF150C7F87AD6286

➕ plus some specific papers (there are lots more out there but this is a decent start):

🧠 People with greater political knowledge are more likely to use convenience voting: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17457289.2020.1814308

⚖️ Convenience voting can exacerbate socioeconomic biases in composition of voters: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.mit.edu/dist/9/583/files/2026/01/perverseconsequences_2005.pdf

📬 Voting by mail increases turnout but does so differently across groups: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.mit.edu/dist/9/583/files/2026/01/whovotesbymail_2001.pdf

🏛️ Background on the SAVE act:

🔎 https://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/five-things-to-know-about-the-save-act/ 📰 https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/9-things-to-know-about-the-proposed-save-america-act ⚠️ https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/new-save-act-bills-would-still-block-millions-americans-voting

📜 The SAVE act itself:https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22/text

🗺️ Voter ID laws by state:https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state

⚖️ Discussion of the constitutionality and legality of the SAVE act:https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/the-supreme-court-and-voting-identification/

💸 Discussion of the poll tax issue regarding the SAVE act:https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/5757040-save-act-voter-id-debate/