Abstract
AbstractObjectiveThis article examines the incidence and effects of the most common ballot ordering procedure used in U.S. general elections, Prevailing Party laws, which give the most advantageous ballot position to the currently prevailing political party.MethodsPanel regression and regression discontinuity analyses are applied to almost 50 years of county‐level election data from Wyoming.ResultsPrevailing Party laws generally increase the favored candidate's vote share by two percentage points or more, enough to flip the result of roughly 1 percent of major elections nationwide.ConclusionsThe effect of Prevailing Party laws is substantially larger than that of more innocuous ballot ordering schemes, due to “endorsement effects” these other schemes lack. The existing literature, which exclusively analyzes these other schemes, substantially understates the degree to which ballot order can be used to maintain political power.
Published Version
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