Contemporary election reforms that are purported to increase or decrease turnout tend to have negligible effects on election outcomes. We offer an analytical framework to explain why. Contrary to heated political rhetoric, election policies have small effects on outcomes because they tend to target small shares of the electorate, have a small effect on turnout, and/or affect voters who are relatively balanced in their partisanship. After developing this framework, we address how the findings bear on minority voting rights. We then show that countermobilization from political parties cannot explain the small effects of election laws. We explain that even when a state passes multiple policies at the same time, the reforms will still only have a marginal effect on turnout and an ambiguous effect on who wins. Finally, we explain what policies should raise alarm about affecting outcomes.

中文翻译：

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选举规则如何影响谁获胜

旨在增加或减少投票率的当代选举改革往往对选举结果的影响可以忽略不计。我们提供一个分析框架来解释原因。与激烈的政治言论相反，选举政策对结果的影响很小，因为它们往往针对一小部分选民，对投票率影响很小，和/或影响党派关系相对平衡的选民。制定这个框架后，我们将讨论研究结果对少数族裔投票权的影响。然后我们表明，政党的反动员不能解释选举法的微小影响。我们解释说，即使一个国家同时通过多项政策，改革仍然只会对投票率产生边际影响，对谁获胜的影响也模糊不清。最后，我们解释了哪些政策应该对影响结果发出警报。