Diversifying the Donor Pool: Did Seattle's Democracy Vouchers Program Reshape Participation in Municipal Campaign Finance?

Abstract

In this paper, we evaluate whether an innovative new campaign finance program in Seattle, Washington shifted the composition of campaign donors in local elections. In 2015, voters in Seattle approved the creation of the Democracy Voucher program with the intent of broadening representation in the campaign finance system and expanding participation from marginalized communities. Every registered voter in Seattle was provided with four, twenty-five-dollar vouchers that they could, in turn, assign to the local candidate(s) of their choice. Through an analysis of the inaugural implementation of the program in 2017, we investigate whether this innovative public financing system increased participation, broadened involvement from underrepresented groups and led to a donor pool that was more representative of the electorate. Compared to cash donors in the municipal election, we report that voucher users are less likely to be high-income and more likely to come from poor neighborhoods. While older residents are over-represented among voucher users, there is little difference in the racial composition of cash donors and voucher users. Our analysis confirms that the Democracy Voucher program successfully moved the donor pool in a more egalitarian direction, although it remains demographically unrepresentative of the electorate. The lessons from Seattle’s inaugural implementation offer key insights for other municipalities considering public financing policies, and these lessons have the potential to reshape the national policy debate about the influence of political money.

Mind the (Participation) Gap: Vouchers, Voting, and Visibility

“…Candidates who wish to redeem vouchers agree to various restrictions on private fundraising and demonstrate their viability by raising small private donations. Research concurrent with ours has shown that Seattle's voucher program expanded the campaign finance donor pool (McCabe & Heerwig, 2018), though not yet to the extent that advocates have promised. 1 Because all voucher contributions are publicly disclosed, Seattle's program allows us to analyze the effects of political cross-pressure on the decision to assign campaign finance vouchers.…”

“…1. McCabe and Heerwig (2018) Notes. Linear probability models estimated by ordinary least squares (OLS), resampled (1000 times) to generate 95% confidence intervals (in brackets) around the mean estimate from resampling.…”

“…1.McCabe and Heerwig (2018) compare the pool of cash donors in Seattle to the pool of voucher users in 2017. They report that the pool of voucher donors is much larger (4x) than cash donors, and that voucher donors are more likely to come from poorer neighborhoods than cash donors.…”