Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science

Local elections in the United States typically experience lower voter turnout compared to midterm and presidential elections. Political parties and candidates often deploy various mobilization tactics to boost participation among those already inclined to vote. However, these approaches often fail to target those less engaged in the political process. This study explores the efficacy of Get Out The Vote (GOTV) strategies in local elections, specifically examining their impact on low-propensity voters. We focus on the role of community trust in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the emphasis on place-based identity as catalysts for increased voter participation. Our hypothesis suggests that NGOs, through sustained engagement, cultivate trust that makes low-propensity voters more responsive to GOTV appeals. We also investigate whether invoking a shared community identity enhances voter turnout. We utilize observational data alongside a randomized GOTV field experiment involving over 29,000 mailers distributed across three unique Houston neighborhoods during the 2023 municipal election. Although our findings show no significant impact from place-based identity priming, the results reveal that any mailer from well-established NGOs significantly increases voter turnout. These results challenge the prevailing doubts surrounding the effectiveness of mailer-based mobilization in local elections, indicating that the trust NGOs build over time is crucial for mobilizing voters in contexts where engagement is both vital and difficult.

Acknowledging the challenges low-propensity voters face in accessing information for local elections, our study examines whether providing nonpartisan voter information guides can increase turnout. In collaboration with local nonprofits, we distributed nonpartisan voter guides to about 10,700 low-propensity voters in the 2023 Houston municipal election. This reduced the informational barriers to voting but was not enough to eliminate the costs of voting for this population.