The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Voter Turnout
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Voter Turnout in Texas: Can It Be Higher?
Voter Turnout in Texas: Can It Be Higher? JAMES MCKENZIE Texas Lyceum Fellow WHAT’S THE TAKEAWAY? In the 2016 presidential election, Texas’ voter turnout Texas’ voter turnout is among placed near the bottom of all the states, ranking 47th. In the lowest in the nation. Texas’ recent 2018 mid-term election, which featured a Low turnout can lead to policies closely contested US Senate race and concurrent favoring the interests of gubernatorial election, not even half of eligible voters demographic groups whose (46.3%) participated.1 members are more likely to vote. Low voter turnout is not a recent phenomenon in Texas. Tex- There are deterrents to as has consistently lagged the national average in presidential registering and voting that the elections for voter turnout among the voting eligible popula- state can address. tion (VEP). In fact, since 2000, the gap between Texas’ turn- out and the national average consecutively widened in all but Policies such as same-day registration, automatic voter one election cycle.2 Texans may be open to changes to address registration, mail-in early voting, low turnout. According to a 2019 poll by the Texas Lyceum on and Election Day voting centers Texans’ attitudes toward democracy, a majority (61%) agreed could help. that “significant changes” are needed to make our electoral system work for current times.3 VOLUME 10 | ISSUE 6 | SEPTEMBER 2019 2 DOES VOTER TURNOUT MATTER? This report addresses ways to boost voter Voter turnout is often considered the curren- participation in both population sets. cy of democracy, a way for citizen’s prefer- ences to be expressed. -
Voting for Parties Or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Di↵Erence?
Voting for Parties or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Di↵erence? Elena Llaudet⇤ Harvard University September 14, 2014 Abstract In this paper, I analyze the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) data to put the U.S. case in a comparative context and explore the impact of electoral institutions on voting behavior. I find that the U.S. is not unique when it comes to party defection, defined as voting for a party other than ones own. Furthermore, when focusing on countries with mixed electoral systems, I find that electoral institutions have a substantial e↵ect on the degree to which the vote choice is party or candidate- centered, and thus, they might, in turn, have an impact on the level of incumbency advantage in the elections. ⇤Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University and current post-doctoral fellow in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School ([email protected]). Elections in the U.S. have long been considered unique, with its candidate-centered pol- itics and high levels of incumbency advantage. In this paper, I aim to put the U.S. case in a comparative context and explore the e↵ect that electoral institutions have on the voting behavior of the electorate. In particular, I study whether electoral systems a↵ect the likeli- hood of party defection in lower house elections, a phenomenon defined as voting for a party other than one’s own. In addition, to the extent possible, I try to distinguish whether voters are casting a ballot for a di↵erent party for strategic purposes – voting for a party that has higher chances of winning than their preferred one – or to support a particular candidate due to the candidate’s personal attributes, such as incumbency status. -
VVSG Comments
Before the U.S. ELECTION ASSISTANCE COMMISSION In the Matter of ) COMMENTS SUBMISSION ) VOLUNTARY VOTING SYSTEM ) Pursuant to 84 FR 6775, Doc. No.: 2019-03453 ) GUIDELINES VERSION 2.0 ) Wednesday, May 29th, 2019 ) DEVELOPMENT ) EAC Offices, Silver Spring, MD PUBLIC COMMENTS SUBMISSION OSET INSTITUTE COMMENTS LED BY GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY EDWARD P. PEREZ REGARDING THE VOLUNTARY VOTING SYSTEM GUIDELINES VERSION 2.0 PRINCIPLES AND GUIDELINES Comment #1 Issue: Principles and Guidelines vs. Functional Requirements Reference: Overall VVSG 2.0 Structure The OSET Institute applauds the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (hereinafter, “EAC”) for making efforts to ensure that the future Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) certification program is more flexible and agile than it has been in the past. With increasingly faster advances of technology matched by newly emerging cyber-security threats, it is essential for the VVSG to support regular adaptation and modification. Toward that end, VVSG 2.0's initial distinction between "Principles and Guidelines" versus "Functional Requirements" is well placed and laudable. In order to deliver on the promise of such a distinction, the OSET Institute believes that the following programmatic requirements must be adhered to: • “Principles and Guidelines" reflect policy statements, and any modifications to the Principles and Guidelines should require approval of EAC Commissioners. • Functional Requirements (and VSTL test assertions) do not represent policy statements, and their modification should not require approval of EAC Commissioners. Functional Requirements are simply the technical means to operationalize or implement the achievement of policy goals represented in the Principles and Guidelines. • Functional Requirements must support the policy goals represented in the Principles and Guidelines. -
Randomocracy
Randomocracy A Citizen’s Guide to Electoral Reform in British Columbia Why the B.C. Citizens Assembly recommends the single transferable-vote system Jack MacDonald An Ipsos-Reid poll taken in February 2005 revealed that half of British Columbians had never heard of the upcoming referendum on electoral reform to take place on May 17, 2005, in conjunction with the provincial election. Randomocracy Of the half who had heard of it—and the even smaller percentage who said they had a good understanding of the B.C. Citizens Assembly’s recommendation to change to a single transferable-vote system (STV)—more than 66% said they intend to vote yes to STV. Randomocracy describes the process and explains the thinking that led to the Citizens Assembly’s recommendation that the voting system in British Columbia should be changed from first-past-the-post to a single transferable-vote system. Jack MacDonald was one of the 161 members of the B.C. Citizens Assembly on Electoral Reform. ISBN 0-9737829-0-0 NON-FICTION $8 CAN FCG Publications www.bcelectoralreform.ca RANDOMOCRACY A Citizen’s Guide to Electoral Reform in British Columbia Jack MacDonald FCG Publications Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Copyright © 2005 by Jack MacDonald All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 2005 by FCG Publications FCG Publications 2010 Runnymede Ave Victoria, British Columbia Canada V8S 2V6 E-mail: [email protected] Includes bibliographical references. -
The Effects of Secret Voting Procedures on Political Behavior
UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Voting Alone: The Effects of Secret Voting Procedures on Political Behavior Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/50p7t4xg Author Guenther, Scott Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California 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........................................ -
The Problem of Low and Unequal Voter Turnout - and What We Can Do About It
IHS Political Science Series Working Paper 54 February 1998 The Problem of Low and Unequal Voter Turnout - and What We Can Do About It Arend Lijphart Impressum Author(s): Arend Lijphart Title: The Problem of Low and Unequal Voter Turnout - and What We Can Do About It ISSN: Unspecified 1998 Institut für Höhere Studien - Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) Josefstädter Straße 39, A-1080 Wien E-Mail: offi [email protected] Web: ww w .ihs.ac. a t All IHS Working Papers are available online: http://irihs. ihs. ac.at/view/ihs_series/ This paper is available for download without charge at: http://irihs.ihs.ac.at/1045/ Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS), Wien Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna Reihe Politikwissenschaft / Political Science Series No. 54 The Problem of Low and Unequal Voter Turnout – and What We Can Do About It Arend Lijphart 2 — Arend Lijphart / The Problem of Low and Unequal Voter Turnout — I H S The Problem of Low and Unequal Voter Turnout – and What We Can Do About It Arend Lijphart Reihe Politikwissenschaft / Political Science Series No. 54 February 1998 Prof. Dr. Arend Lijphart Department of Political Science, 0521 University of California, San Diego 9500 Gilman Drive La Jolla, California 92093–0521 USA e-mail: [email protected] Institut für Höhere Studien (IHS), Wien Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna 4 — Arend Lijphart / The Problem of Low and Unequal Voter Turnout — I H S The Political Science Series is published by the Department of Political Science of the Austrian Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) in Vienna. The series is meant to share work in progress in a timely way before formal publication. -
Testing Proximity Versus Directional Voting Using Experimentsq
Electoral Studies 29 (2010) 460–471 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Electoral Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/electstud Testing proximity versus directional voting using experimentsq Dean Lacy a,1, Philip Paolino b,* a Dartmouth College, 211A Silsby Hall, HB 6108, Hanover, NH 03755, United States b University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle # 305340, Denton, TX 76203-5017, United States article info abstract Article history: A long-running debate about how voters use issues to evaluate candidates pits the prox- Received 3 July 2009 imity theory of voting against directional theory. Using surveys, both sides of the debate Received in revised form 18 February 2010 have found support for their preferred theory, but disagreement remains because of Accepted 6 April 2010 differing ways of analyzing the data. Lewis and King (2000) point out that these researchers make assumptions that bias results in favor of their theory. To avoid these Keywords: difficulties, our approach creates fictitious candidates with controlled positions, presents Issue voting these candidates to randomly-assigned subjects, and examines the relationship between Proximity ’ Directional subjects evaluations of these candidates and their ideological beliefs as a neutral test of Experiment proximity and directional theory. Our results provide reasonably strong support for proximity theory but little for directional theory. Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction voting, voters and candidates have ideal points on a logical ordering of different policies, and voters choose the An important tenet of democracy is that elections allow candidate whose ideal point is nearest to their own (e.g., voters to influence public policy. -
Evaluating the Impact of Drop Boxes on Voter Turnout
Evaluating the Impact of Drop Boxes on Voter Turnout William McGuire, University of Washington Tacoma Benjamin Gonzalez O’Brien, San Diego State University Katherine Baird, University of Washington Tacoma Benjamin Corbett, Lawrence Livermore Lab Loren Collingwood, University of California Riverside Voter turnout in the United States lags behind most other developed democracies. A popular approach for increasing turnout is to improve the ease of voting. While evidence indicates that vote by mail (VBM) requirements increase voter turnout, there is little evidence of the impact ballot drop boxes have on voting, despite the fact that voters in VBM states often prefer these boxes to voting via the postal service. All VBM states (currently Washington, Colorado and Oregon) require some provision for voting by drop boxes. This project examines the impact the installation of new ballot drop boxes had on voter turnout in Pierce County, the second largest county in Washington State. To identify the causal effects of these boxes on the decision to vote, we exploit the randomized placement of five new ballot drop boxes in Pierce prior to the 2017 general election. Voters selected to receive a new ballot drop box experienced an average reduction in distance to their nearest drop box of 1.31 miles. We estimate that this change in proximity to drop boxes increased voter turnout. Specifically, we find overall a 0.64 percentage point increase in voting per mile of distance to nearest drop box reduced. The effect, hence, is not a particularly large one. However, within the context of the very low turnout in Pierce County in 2017 and compared with alternative ways election officials have attempted to encourage more people to vote, this effect is not negligible. -
Electronic Voting: Methods and Protocols Christopher Andrew Collord James Madison University
James Madison University JMU Scholarly Commons Masters Theses The Graduate School Spring 2013 Electronic voting: Methods and protocols Christopher Andrew Collord James Madison University Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019 Part of the Computer Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Collord, Christopher Andrew, "Electronic voting: Methods and protocols" (2013). Masters Theses. 177. https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/master201019/177 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the The Graduate School at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Electronic Voting: Methods and Protocols Christopher A. Collord A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Science InfoSec 2009 Cohort May 2013 Dedicated to my parents, Ross and Jane, my wife Krista, and my faithful companions Osa & Chestnut. ii Acknowledgements: I would like to acknowledge Krista Black, who has always encouraged me to get back on my feet when I was swept off them, and my parents who have always been there for me. I would also like to thank my dog, Osa, for sitting by my side for countless nights and weekends while I worked on this thesis—even though she may never know why! Finally, I would also like to thank all who have taught me at James Madison University. I believe that the education I have received will serve me well for many years to come. -
Political Knowledge and the Paradox of Voting
Political Knowledge and the Paradox of Voting Edited by Sofia Magdalena Olofsson We have long known that Americans pay local elections less attention than they do elections for the Presidency and Congress. A recent Portland State University study showed that voter turnout in ten of America’s 30 largest cities sits on average at less than 15% of eligible voters. Just pause and think about this. The 55% of voting age citizens who cast a ballot in last year’s presidential election – already a two-decade low and a significant drop from the longer-term average of 65-80% – still eclipses by far the voter turnout at recent mayoral elections in Dallas (6%), Fort Worth (6%), and Las Vegas (9%). What is more, data tells us that local voter turnout is only getting worse. Look at America’s largest city: New York. Since the 1953 New York election, when 93% of residents voted, the city’s mayoral contests saw a steady decline, with a mere 14% of the city’s residents voting in the last election. Though few might want to admit it, these trends suggest that an unspoken hierarchy exists when it comes to elections. Atop this electoral hierarchy are national elections, elections that are widely considered the most politically, economically, and culturally significant. Extensively covered by the media, they are viewed as high-stakes moral contests that naturally attract the greatest public interest. Next, come state elections: though still important compared to national elections, their political prominence, media coverage, and voter turnout is already waning. At the bottom of this electoral hierarchy are local elections that, as data tells us, a vast majority of Americans now choose not to vote in. -
Referendum Campaigns: Changing What People Think Or Changing What They Think About?1 Michael Marsh
02305_17838_06_cha04.qxp 6/20/2007 2:01 AM Page 63 4 Referendum Campaigns: Changing What People Think or Changing What They Think About?1 Michael Marsh Cohen (1963: 13) made the well-known observation that the media do not so much tell people what to think as tell them what to think about. The same argument is often made with respect to parties in election campaigns as they try to ensure that the focus of the campaign will be on issues that are positive ones for them, or which they own (Schattschneider, 1960; Riker, 1986; Petrocik, 1996; Budge et al., 2001). Less common is to suggest that the same should be true of referendums. This argument can be found in Magelby (1989) and Darcy and Laver (1990) while de Vreese and Semetko (2004) provide an intensive empirical study of the Danish vote on the euro to show how far this happens. The pro-referendum side will try to persuade the public that the referendum is about something the public feels positive about while the anti-referendum side will explain the referendum in terms they think will provoke negative feel- ings. A successful redefinition of the issue may well provoke consider- able volatility in the campaign, and this is much more likely to happen in a referendum (LeDuc, 2002a, 2002b). Of course, the extent to which either side can do this will depend in part on the strength of the respec- tive campaigns. Overall, a weak campaign may leave the electorate sim- ply confused; a strong one should bring more clarity, and an unbalanced one should see voters’ perceptions reflecting the weight of the stronger campaign. -
"I Voted": Examining the Impact of Compulsory Voting on Voter Turnout Nina A
Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont CMC Senior Theses CMC Student Scholarship 2016 "I Voted": Examining the Impact of Compulsory Voting on Voter Turnout Nina A. Kamath Claremont McKenna College Recommended Citation Kamath, Nina A., ""I Voted": Examining the Impact of Compulsory Voting on Voter Turnout" (2016). CMC Senior Theses. Paper 1286. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1286 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you by Scholarship@Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in this collection by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE “I VOTED”: EXAMINING THE IMPACT OF COMPULSORY VOTING ON VOTER TURNOUT SUBMITTED TO Professor Manfred Keil AND Professor Eric Helland AND Dean Peter Uvin By Nina Kamath For Senior Thesis Fall 2015 November 30, 2015 Department of Economics ii iii Abstract Over the past few decades, falling voter turnout rates have induced governments to adopt compulsory voting laws, in order to mitigate issues such as the socioeconomic voter gap and to bring a broader spectrum of voters into the fold. This paper presents evidence that the introduction of mandatory voting laws increases voter turnout rates by 13 points within a particular country through an entity- and time-fixed effect panel model. Moreover, it includes a discussion of the implications of adopting mandatory voting policies within the United States, finding that compelling citizens to vote would have increased participation rates to over 90 percent in the past four presidential elections. iv Acknowledgements First, I want to thank my parents for their unconditional love, support, and encouragement. I would also like to thank Professor Manfred Keil, Associate Professor of Economics at Claremont McKenna College, for his valuable guidance and support in completing this senior thesis.