The Effectiveness Of Voter Registration Drives At Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Sites

Vanessa Williamson (Brookings Institution), The Filer Voter Experiment: How Effective Is Voter Registration at Tax Time? (Apr. 2, 2019):

In this paper, Vanessa Williamson discusses the Filer Voter experiment, which assessed the effectiveness of conducting voter registration drives at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites for lower-income households in Cleveland and Dallas. The Filer Voter program doubled the likelihood of unregistered tax filers registering to vote. Replicated at all VITA sites nationally, this would lead to about 115,000 unregistered eligible voters to register to vote, including 63,000 people who would not otherwise register.

The Filer Voter program increased voter registration and turnout. The program doubled the likelihood that a person not registered to vote would become registered. Put another way, fully half of the people newly registered to vote via the Filer Voter program would not otherwise have registered. The program largely avoids the costs associated with recruiting and training new volunteers to implement a voter registration program, and did not slow the tax preparation process at the sites where voter registration was offered. The results offer a roadmap for nonprofit organizations, for-profit preparers, and state officials who wish to harness the tax filing process to substantially increase civic participation in their communities.