The effect of signing ballot petitions on turnout

Abstract

ABSTRACT Do ballot initiatives increase voter turnout? Some studies find a strong impact while others find the relationship to be modest and/or conditional. Either way, the underlying mechanism is not well understood. Here, we build on past work by hypothesizing that signing a ballot petition acts as a personalized form of campaign contact, increasing the likelihood of turnout. Previous investigations have been aggregate in nature, or have had to rely on either samples of petition signers or county-level inferences. We procured the complete lists of initiative petitions signers for two recent, high-profile state ballot measures in Arkansas, among the most frequent direct democracy users among the American states. By supplementing these individual-level data with the state voter file, we assess the impact of having signed a petition, controlling for age and vote history. Our results confirm earlier findings that signing a petition increases the probability of voter turnout, especially among irregular voters. This has consequences for both candidate and initiative elections in jurisdictions that, like Arkansas, conduct both elections at the same time.