UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Voting Alone: The Effects of Secret Voting Procedures on Political Behavior A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science by Scott M. Guenther Committee in charge: Professor James Fowler, Chair Professor Samuel Kernell, Co-Chair Professor Julie Cullen Professor Seth Hill Professor Thad Kousser 2016 Copyright Scott M. Guenther, 2016 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Scott M. Guenther is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Co-Chair Chair University of California, San Diego 2016 iii DEDICATION To my parents. iv EPIGRAPH Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. { Benjamin Franklin v TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page................................... iii Dedication...................................... iv Epigraph......................................v Table of Contents.................................. vi List of Figures................................... viii List of Tables.................................... ix Acknowledgements.................................x Vita......................................... xiv Abstract of the Dissertation............................ xv Chapter 1 Introduction: Secrecy and Voting.................1 1.1 History of Secret Voting...................2 1.2 Conceptual Issues.......................5 1.2.1 Internal Secrecy....................6 1.2.2 External Secrecy...................7 1.3 Electoral Regimes.......................8 1.3.1 Citizen Participants..................9 1.3.2 Elected Participants................. 10 1.3.3 Delegated Participants................ 11 1.4 Influence............................ 13 1.5 Outline............................. 16 1.5.1 A Note about the Chapters............. 18 Chapter 2 Vote Transparency and Political Outcomes in Vermont Town Meetings............................... 20 2.1 Abstract............................ 20 2.2 Introduction.......................... 21 2.3 Institutional Structure of Political Behavior........ 23 2.4 Theory............................. 28 2.4.1 Monitoring and Public Goods............ 29 2.4.2 Hypotheses...................... 31 2.5 Vermont Town Meetings................... 33 2.5.1 Data.......................... 37 2.5.2 Method........................ 43 2.6 Results & Discussion..................... 43 vi 2.6.1 Per Pupil Spending.................. 46 2.6.2 Test Scores...................... 47 2.7 Discussion........................... 52 2.7.1 Conclusion....................... 55 Chapter 3 Committee Chair Elections and the Growth of Majority Party Agenda Setting........................... 66 3.1 Abstract............................ 66 3.2 Introduction.......................... 67 3.3 An Era of Congressional Reform............... 71 3.3.1 Committee Oversight and Agenda Setting Power.. 74 3.4 Theory and Hypotheses.................... 76 3.5 Data & Methodology..................... 80 3.6 Results............................. 82 3.6.1 Robustness Checks.................. 91 3.7 Discussion........................... 94 3.7.1 Future Directions................... 96 3.7.2 Conclusion....................... 97 Chapter 4 Ballot Reforms and Social Influence in Historical American Elec- tions................................. 107 4.1 Abstract............................ 107 4.2 Introduction.......................... 108 4.3 Previous research....................... 111 4.3.1 Consequences of Ballot Reform........... 112 4.3.2 Voter Sensitivity to Secrecy............. 116 4.3.3 Party Brokers..................... 118 4.4 Theory............................. 119 4.5 Data and Estimation..................... 125 4.5.1 Estimation....................... 126 4.6 Results............................. 128 4.7 Discussion........................... 132 Appendix A Vermont Town Clerk Survey.................... 139 Appendix B School Board Survey........................ 143 Appendix C Committee Chair Election Results and Analyses......... 148 Bibliography.................................... 151 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Internal and External Secrecy of Voting.............. 13 Figure 2.1: Social Influence by Ballot Structure Across Increasing Uniformity 32 Figure 2.2: Map of Vermont Townships..................... 36 Figure 2.3: Use of Australian Ballot for School Budget (%).......... 38 Figure 2.4: School Tax Rate Variation Over Time............... 39 Figure 2.5: Average School Tax Rates By State Financing Programs..... 42 Figure 2.6: Marginal effect of Rule Change on Public Education Tax Rate.. 44 Figure 2.7: Impact of Secret Ballot Adoption on Standardized Test Scores.. 48 Figure 2.8: Visually Weighted Lowess Regression of Per Pupil Funding by Bal- lot Type over Student Population Share.............. 50 Figure 2.9: Marginal effect of Ballot Change over Student Population Share. 52 Figure 3.1: Probability Bills Reported out of Committee Pre and Post Reform (1947-2009).............................. 69 Figure 3.2: Change Point Detection of Author-Majority Median Distance (Ma- jority Party)............................. 84 Figure 3.3: Marginal Effect of Secret Chair Election on Minority Bills.... 85 Figure 3.4: Bootstrapped Lowess Regressions of Bill Success Pre-Post Secret Chair Election by Author's Distance from Chamber Median... 86 Figure 3.5: Likelihood Bill Reported Pre-Post Reform Across Distance from Chamber Median (Majority Party Members)............ 87 Figure 3.6: Likelihood Bill Passed Pre-Post Reform Across Distance from Cham- ber Median (Majority Party Members)............... 88 Figure 3.7: Likelihood Bill Enacted Pre-Post Reform Across Distance from Chamber Median (Majority Party Members)............ 89 Figure 3.8: Impact of Chair Behavioral Change on Re-Election........ 89 Figure 3.9: Changes in Bill Advancement by Seniority and Vote Share Follow- ing House Reform.......................... 92 Figure 3.10: Changes in Senate Reporting Following House Reform (Placebo Test)................................. 93 Figure 4.1: Pre-Post Ballot Reform Winning Vote Share (State House Election)126 Figure 4.2: Marginal Effects of Ballot Reform on State District Turnout by Margin of Victory.......................... 130 Figure 4.3: Pre-Post Ballot Reform Winning Voter Share (State House Election)131 Figure 4.4: Marginal Impact of Ballot Reform on Variation of Turnout within Congressional District........................ 132 Figure C.1: Bootstrapped Lowess Regressions of Bill Success by Committee.. 150 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Internal and External Secrecy by Voting Rules........... 19 Table 2.1: Summary Statistics of Regression Variables............. 58 Table 2.2: Impact of Secret Ballot Adoption on Education Tax Rates.... 59 Table 2.3: Impact of Secret Ballot Adoption on Education Tax Rates.... 60 Table 2.4: Effect of Voting Rule Switch Across Time.............. 61 Table 2.5: Robustness Checks.......................... 62 Table 2.6: Impact of Secret Ballot Adoption on Per Pupil Spending..... 63 Table 2.7: Impact of Secret Ballot Adoption on Standardized Test Scores.. 64 Table 2.8: Joint Influence of Ballot Secrecy and Student Share of Population 65 Table 3.1: Descriptive Statistics......................... 99 Table 3.2: Congress-to-Congress Changes in Distribution of Reported Bills (Majority Party)............................ 100 Table 3.3: Likelihood Minority Bill Reported From Committee........ 101 Table 3.4: Likelihood of House Bill Advance (Majority Party)......... 102 Table 3.5: Likelihood of House Passage and Enactment (Majority Party).. 103 Table 3.6: Likelihood of House Bill Advance (Majority Party 1947-2011)... 104 Table 3.7: Influence of post-reform change in Mean Author Ideology on Sup- port for Committee Chairs...................... 105 Table 3.8: Placebo Test: Changes Reporting in Senate Committees (Majority Party)................................. 106 Table 4.1: Electoral Law Changes By State................... 135 Table 4.2: Impact of Ballot Adoption on State District Turnout....... 136 Table 4.3: Impact of Ballot Adoption on State District Margin of Victory.. 137 Table 4.4: Variation of State District Turnout and Australian Ballot Adoption 138 Table C.1: Vote Totals for 93rd and 94th Congress Chair Elections...... 149 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The list of individuals who deserve recognition for bringing my dissertation into fruition is long and distinguished. I am particularly indebted to James Fowler and Samuel Kernell who served as co-chairs for my dissertation. I came to UC San Diego for my graduate education fresh from a stint working in Washington, DC and cocksure in my understanding of the art of politics, which served mostly as a mask for my lack of political science training. I appreciate their initial patience to see something different (and frankly better) than what I was presenting myself as. Among other things, which at the time was as comparative politics specialist. Their early guidance in my graduate career led to a fortuitous switch to American politics in my first year. As dissertation co-chairs their respective insights, wisdom, and candor com- plement one another nicely. Sam, in particular, has come serve as equal parts mentor, collaborator, and friend. In James I have a continual source of meticulous advice and trenchant comments unencumbered by the pretenses of sage wisdom, which it always is. I have been enriched by the communities they have developed over the years at UC San Diego. My graduate school experience would have been unambiguously worse without