Paper 4. The Voting Experience: Precincts versus Absentee Voting.

The media often writes stories about the election day experience, especially if there are long lines or similar issues at the polls. However, less consideration is typically given to the problems that can occur in the absentee balloting problems, where a voter may have to wait to get a ballot in the mail from their election official. Using data from a survey of over 10,000 individuals in the 2008 presidential election, we compare the voting experience of in-person and absentee voters. We focus on the likelihood of problems in the process across various states and differences that may exist between states with broad experience with absentee voting and those states where its use is relatively restricted. We also consider how voter confidence varies across these two populations, based on their experiences with the voting mode they use. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]