Turnout In States Research Articles

That’s Why the Lady Lost to the Trump: Demographics and the 2016 Presidential Election

I examine the relationship between demographics and vote choice using pre-election tracking polls, exit polls, and data on the American states. A number of important findings emerge: (1) there was a fair amount of preference stability in 2016; (2) Clinton underperformed Obama in 83% of demographic groups examined; (3) at the state level, the percent of whites with low levels of education and the size of the rural population had important effects on vote choice, and both of those variables were more strongly correlated with Democratic vote share in 2016 than in 2012; and (4) while state turnout rates were moderately correlated with Clinton’s vote share, changes in state turnout rates from 2012 to 2016 did not have a substantial impact on Clinton’s performance.

State Electoral Institutions and Voter Turnout In Presidential Elections, 1920–2000

AbstractExpansiveandrestrictive state electoral institutions have been instrumental in structuring the vote throughout American history. Studies focused on a small number of reforms, years, or states lack the scope necessary to comprehensively evaluate the effects of institutional change over time. This work, however, places recent reforms in historical context and offers a long-term perspective. Using an original data set, it identifies the institutions that have generated the most substantial effects on state turnout rates during presidential elections from 1920 to 2000. Findings demonstrate that restrictive laws (those aiming to limit the vote or make voting more costly) produced large and consistently negative effects in the Southern and non-Southern states alike, but the effects associated with expansive reforms (those making participation more convenient or less costly) vary. Although a few expansive laws have increased turnout in the non-Southern states, they have had no effect in the Southern states where turnout rates are lowest.

Voter Turnout in the 2010 Midterm Election

I place national turnout rates in historical perspective and investigate what state turnout rates may tell us about what factors are related to higher levels of voter participation. In midterm elections compared to presidential election, voter turnout is lower among all groups, but more so for young people. I discuss the implications of younger citizens' disengagement in midterm elections in light of an increasing gap in support for the political parties’ candidates among the young and the old.

Voting by Mail: Turnout and Institutional Reform in Oregon*

Objectives. I test the impact of Oregon's vote‐by‐mail system on voter turnout.Methods. To determine the impact, I create a cross‐sectional time‐series regression model of state turnout in presidential elections from 1980 to 2004 and mid‐term elections from 1982 to 2006.Results. I find that Oregon's turnout increases by around 10 percentage points of registered voters in both presidential and mid‐term elections due to the voting‐by‐mail reform.Conclusions. These results suggest that one of the reasons that the United States has comparatively lower turnout is due to its more onerous voting procedures.

The Electoral College, Mobilization, and Turnout in the 2000 Presidential Election

This study takes a two-stage approach to examining the impact of the electoral college on turnout in the 2000 presidential election. First, we examine whether battleground states received more media spending and visits by the candidates and their party committees compared to nonbattleground states. Second, we examine whether media spending and candidate visits were related to state-level turnout. The results of the project show that the battleground states did receive significantly more media expenditures and candidate visits from the two major party campaigns than nonbattleground states. Furthermore, when controlling for state-level contextual and political factors, the more media expenditures and candidate visits a state received the higher the state turnout. Finally, the analysis reveals that state battleground status indirectly impacted state-level turnout through its effect on media spending and candidate visits.

Congress and the people: deliberative democracy on trial

Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Making a Constitution Chapter 2: The Bill of Rights: Madison Gets Religion Chapter 3: The Right to Petition: The Long Drive Chapter 4: Congress and the Progressive Era Chapter 5: The Initiative and Referendum Movement Chapter 6: National Referendum Proposals and the Isolationist Impulse Chapter 7: The Dawning of the Sunshine Seventies Chapter 8: A Window on Congress: Televising Floor Debates Chapter 9: The Revival of Direct Democracy Proposals Chapter 10: The Road to the Republican Revolution Chapter 11: The Road to Governance: Revolution, Reform, and Reality Chapter 12: Coming Full Circle: The Complete Revolution? Chapter 13: Term Limits and the Scarlet Letter Chapter 14: The Electronic Congress Chapter 15: The Curtain Falls Twice on the House Chapter 16: The Future of Deliberative Democracy Appendix A: Voter Turnout in States with and without Statutory Initiatives and/or Referendums, 1992 and 1996 General Elections Appendix B: House Legislative Data for 103d-105th Congresses Bibliography Index

Registration, Turnout, and State Party Systems

This study reexamines the influence of party elite liberalism on voter participation across the American states. Incorporating Hill and Leighley's measure of liberal party control, we offer a framework that places party elites as an important component in the state electoral setting. However, this effort departs from previous work by suggesting that studies of voter mobilization should pay greater attention to participation as a multi-stage process, where citizens must first register. Our results con form to expectations driven by this conceptualization. States with more liberal Democratic elites and more Democratic legislatures witness higher levels of registration, controlling for other factors. We find that the influ ence of liberal party control on state turnout is indirect, operating through registration. Our results are consistent with a view of party elite ideology as a long-term, rather than campaign-specific, component of state electoral politics. More generally, the analyses provide new insight into influences on aggregate registration and turnout and into the electoral participation across the United States of different income classes.

Calculating voter turnout in U.S. House primary elections

Using original data, this research note computes improved turnout statistics for closed primary elections to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1992 and 1994. These data are compared to earlier estimates of primary turnout that used a substitute measure. We find that the previous measure overestimated turnout in both election cycles, particularly in Democratic primaries. As a result, studies of House primary election turnout need to be reexamined in light of these findings. Future research ought to rely on the new measure used here to more accurately assess the influences on turnout in states with party registration.

Easy Registration and Voter Turnout

Registration requirements are often identified as factors that depress turnout in the United States In addition, it is alleged that they contribute to the socioeconomic skew of the voting population because the costs of registration have greater impact on the less educated In order to gain greater insight into the effects of registration, I analyze individual turnout in states which impose minimal or no registration costs on their residents, where turnout differences may not be reasonably attributed to registration requirements Comparing turnout in these states with turnout in the rest of the country, I find that while registration does contribute to the upscale character of voters, there are substantial differences for which registration laws are not responsible.

State Turnout and Presidential Voting

This article challenges Radcliff's recent claim that state-level voter turnout strongly influences state-level vote divisions for president. It is demonstrated that Radcliff's claim is an artifact of ignoring the contribution of the Voting Rights Act to southern electoral politics. When the analysis is restricted to nonsouthern states, least squares dummy variable (LSDV) pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis shows no evidence whatsoever of a turnout effect on the vote.