Voting Turnouts
Estimating the Electoral Effects of Voter Turnout
Thomas Hansford & Brad Gomez
American Political Science Review, May 2010, Pages 268-288
Abstract:
This article examines the electoral consequences of variation in voter turnout in the United States. Existing scholarship focuses on the claim that high turnout benefits Democrats, but evidence supporting this conjecture is variable and controversial. Previous work, however, does not account for endogeneity between turnout and electoral choice, and thus, causal claims are questionable. Using election day rainfall as an instrumental variable for voter turnout, we are able to estimate the effect of variation in turnout due to across-the-board changes in the utility of voting. We re-examine the Partisan Effects and Two-Effects Hypotheses, provide an empirical test of an Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis, and propose a Volatility Hypothesis, which posits that high turnout produces less predictable electoral outcomes. Using county-level data from the 1948-2000 presidential elections, we find support for each hypothesis. Failing to address the endogeneity problem would lead researchers to incorrectly reject all but the Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis. The effect of variation in turnout on electoral outcomes appears quite meaningful. Although election-specific factors other than turnout have the greatest influence on who wins an election, variation in turnout significantly affects vote shares at the county, national, and Electoral College levels.
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Economic Globalization and Voter Turnout in Established Democracies
Nils Steiner
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper asks whether international economic integration negatively affects electoral turnout. The theoretical model builds on the premise that economic integration constrains the ability of national governments to shape outcomes. Citizens are conscious of such constraints and take them into account when considering the costs and benefits of casting a vote in national elections. The result is a lower inclination to vote under conditions of high economic integration. Consequently, aggregate turnout is lower the more internationally integrated a national economy is. Analysis of aggregate data for parliamentary elections in 23 OECD democracies over the period 1965-2006 robustly supports this hypothesis. The empirical estimates suggest economic globalization as a central cause of the general decline in turnout within established democracies.
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Race And Turnout In U.S. Elections Exposing Hidden Effects
Benjamin Deufel & Orit Kedar
Public Opinion Quarterly, Summer 2010, Pages 286-318
Abstract:
We demonstrate that the use of self-reported turnout data often results in misleading inferences about racial differences in turnout. We theorize about the mechanism driving report of turnout and, utilizing ANES turnout data in presidential elections from 1976 to 1988 (all years for which comparable validated data are available), we empirically model report of turnout as well as the relationship between reported and actual turnout. We apply the model to the two subsequent presidential elections in which validated data are not available, 1992 and 1996. Our findings suggest that African Americans turned out almost 20 percentage points less than did Whites in the 1992 and 1996 U.S. presidential elections-almost double the gap that the self-reported data indicates. In contrast with previous research, we show that racial differences in factors predicting turnout make African Americans less likely to vote compared to Whites and thus increase their probability of overreporting. At the same time, when controlling for this effect, other things equal, African Americans overreport electoral participation more than Whites.
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Stump Speeches and Road Trips: The Impact of State Campaign Appearances in Presidential Elections
Jeffrey Hill, Elaine Rodriquez & Amanda Wooden
PS: Political Science & Politics, April 2010, Pages 243-254
Abstract:
Travel, stump speeches, and pressing-the-flesh make up a large part of any presidential electoral campaign. Obviously, candidates feel that their appearances are important, as they make hundreds of appearances between Labor Day and Election Day. But are they right? Well over 100 million people cast ballots in November, but only the tiniest fraction of voters meets or catches a glimpse of either of the candidates. Do candidate appearances and contact sway voters in some way? In this article, we use changes in weekly state tracking polls to determine the impact of candidate appearances in battleground and non-battleground states. Using polling data from the 2000, 2004, and 2008 elections, we find that campaign appearances can change a candidate's polling percentages, and that the impact varies by candidate and location (battleground state, safe Democratic state, or safe Republican state). We also find that the selection of a vice-presidential candidate is important, because of this candidate's ability to campaign effectively.
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Orphan Counties and the Effect of Irrelevant Information on Turnout in Statewide Races
Keena Lipsitz & Jeremy Teigen
Political Communication, April 2010, Pages 178-198
Abstract:
Over 10% of the American electorate lives in counties served by out-of-state media because of the mismatch between media markets and state boundaries. Frequently, these "orphan" counties face a different information environment than others in their home state: they receive no news coverage and political advertising for their own statewide races, irrelevant information pertaining to candidates in the neighboring state who will not appear on their ballots, or both. With a combination of county-level, individual-level, and political advertising data, our analysis evaluates the effect of orphan county residency and irrelevant political information on political participation. Results indicate that orphan counties have lower turnout rates than non-orphan counties and that this difference is explained by lower levels of interest in the campaign stemming from exposure to irrelevant information.
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The Impact of State Legislative Term Limits on the Competitiveness of Congressional Elections
Nathaniel Birkhead, Gabriel Uriarte & William Bianco
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study examines the impact of state legislative term limits on the candidacy decisions of challengers in U.S.House elections. Using data from 1996 to 2006, the authors show that the impact of term limits is mitigated by local political factors, such as an incumbent's election margin. The larger the incumbent's previous electoral margin,the lower the likelihood of facing a quality challenger. The authors also identify an unanticipated consequence of term limits: In incumbent races, term limits can generate a substitution effect; as termed out state legislators enter elections, other quality challengers from the same party stay out of the race, as they are unwilling to face a primary in addition to a general election fight. As a result, the increased number of termed out state legislators who seek Congressional office are offset by the reduced number of other quality challengers from nonlegislative offices, resulting in minimally more competitive Congressional elections.
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The Effect of Nomination Divisiveness on the 2008 Presidential Election
Priscilla Southwell
PS: Political Science & Politics, April 2010, Pages 255-258
Abstract:
This research examines the effect of disgruntlement among primary and caucus voters who supported U.S. presidential nomination losers - a potentially divisive nomination process. I analyze the general election voting behavior of primary and caucus voters in the 2008 presidential election to determine if differences exist between supporters of the winning nominee in each party and backers of other candidates who also sought the nomination. A multivariate analysis of the determinants of "loyal party vote" suggests that Clinton and Edwards supporters showed a significantly higher degree of defection in the general election, although this behavior did not occur among people who voted for Romney or Huckabee in their state's primary or caucus.
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Local News Outlets and Political Participation
Jackie Filla & Martin Johnson
Urban Affairs Review, May 2010, Pages 679-692
Abstract:
We investigate how access to local government information affects turnout in municipal elections. We hypothesize that the availability of news focused on local public affairs in an individual's municipality affects her political participation.We anticipate that turnout will be depressed by restricted access to local government news. We test this expectation using survey data from the Los Angeles (California) Designated Market Area (DMA) collected by the Public Policy Institute of California, and the availability of weekly and daily newspapers in municipalities surrounding Los Angeles. We find that absent local news, voters are less likely to turnout. We examine reasons for this and discuss future research to investigate the influence of local news on voting.
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Amy Becker, Kajsa Dalrymple, Dominique Brossard, Dietram Scheufele & Albert Gunther
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Summer 2010, Pages 181-203
Abstract:
This study tests the relative mobilizing effects of predispositional factors and attention to media content during a gubernatorial race that focused heavily on stem cell research as a salient campaign issue. Our analyses are based on a statewide telephone survey (N = 508 in June-July 2006) conducted prior to the midterm and gubernatorial elections in the U.S. State of Wisconsin. Results show that ideological predispositions and attention to both newspaper and online media best explain issue participation. In contrast with prior research, our findings show that religiosity did not influence issue participation on the stem cell controversy in Wisconsin. Implications of these findings and the importance of research on issue participation for the field of public opinion research and the future of political campaigns are discussed.
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The Persistence of Minority Representation: Evidence from U.S. Cities
Tom Vogl
Harvard Working Paper, March 2010
Abstract:
When minority groups win elections, the victories frequently lead to long eras of minority representation. I use regression discontinuity methods to study this phenomenon, examining the unprecedented rise of African-American mayors in the late twentieth century. In the South, where African-Americans faced political exclusion, narrow victories by black candidates were extremely likely to be followed by subsequent black victories. Narrow losses, in contrast, always resulted in subsequent losses. This pattern is absent in the North, where black mayors had no significant incumbency advantage. I find no robust evidence in support of several common explanations for the persistence of minority political gains, which involve changes in policy, demographics, and attitudes. Instead, the data are consistent with a simple theory of voter mobilization in which black and white candidates have varying capacities to increase voter turnout. Black victory occurs when black voter turnout crosses a threshold. This threshold crossing was more persistent in the South because its history of political exclusion made black turnout especially sensitive to mobilization efforts.
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Adeline Delavande & Charles Manski
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article reports new empirical evidence on probabilistic polling, which asks persons to state in percent-chance terms the likelihood that they will vote and for whom. Before the 2008 presidential election, seven waves of probabilistic questions were administered biweekly to participants in the American Life Panel (ALP). Actual voting behavior was reported after the election. We find that responses to the verbal and probabilistic questions are well-aligned ordinally. Moreover, the probabilistic responses predict voting behavior beyond what is possible using verbal responses alone. The probabilistic responses have more predictive power in early August, and the verbal responses have more power in late October. However, throughout the sample period, one can predict voting behavior better using both types of responses than either one alone. Studying the longitudinal pattern of responses, we segment respondents into those who are consistently pro-Obama, consistently anti-Obama, and undecided/vacillators. Membership in the consistently pro- or anti-Obama group is an almost perfect predictor of actual voting behavior, while the undecided/vacillators group has more nuanced voting behavior. We find that treating the ALP as a panel improves predictive power: current and previous polling responses together provide more predictive power than do current responses alone.
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Do Voters Perceive Negative Campaigns as Informative Campaigns?
John Sides, Keena Lipsitz & Matthew Grossmann
American Politics Research, May 2010, Pages 502-530
Abstract:
We argue that citizens distinguish the tone of a campaign from the quality of information that it provides and that evaluations on each dimension respond differently to positive and negative political advertising. We test these claims using survey and advertising data from the 2000 presidential campaign and two 1998 gubernatorial races. In each race, citizens separate judgments about the tone of a campaign from judgments about the quality of information they have received. Furthermore, negative campaigning affects the former, but not the latter, set of evaluations. These results have implications for the debate over the impact of negative advertising and for how citizens perceive campaigns as political processes.
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Media Systems and the Political Information Environment: A Cross-National Comparison
Toril Aalberg, Peter van Aelst & James Curran
International Journal of Press/Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
To express attitudes and act according to their self-interest, citizens need relevant, up-to-date information about current affairs. But has the increased commercialization in the media market increased or decreased the flow of political information? Hallin and Mancini stress that the existing empirical evidence is fragmented and that this question therefore has been difficult to answer. In this article the authors present new data that allow them to systematically examine how the flow of political information on TV occurs across six Western countries during a thirty-year period. The authors find that the flow of political information through TV varies according to the degree of commercialization. The flow of news and current affairs is lowest in the most commercially oriented television system and among the commercial TV channels. There is however important cross-national variation even within similar media systems. The authors' data do not suggest a convergence toward the liberal system when it comes to the political information environment on TV. Rather, what strikes them is how strongly resistant some European countries have been to subordinating the needs of democracy to profit making.