Who Votes Now?

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan E. Leighley ◽  
Jonathan Nagler
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Older Americans ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Political Views ◽  
Electoral Reforms ◽  
Blacks And Whites ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Election Studies

This book compares the demographic characteristics and political views of voters and non-voters in U.S. presidential elections since 1972 and examines how electoral reforms and the choices offered by candidates influence voter turnout. Drawing on a wealth of data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the American National Election Studies, the book demonstrates that the rich have consistently voted more than the poor for the past four decades, and that voters are substantially more conservative in their economic views than non-voters. The book finds that women are now more likely to vote than men, that the gap in voting rates between blacks and whites has largely disappeared, and that older Americans continue to vote more than younger Americans. The book also shows how electoral reforms such as Election Day voter registration and absentee voting have boosted voter turnout, and how turnout would also rise if parties offered more distinct choices. Providing the most systematic analysis available of modern voter turnout, this book reveals that persistent class bias in turnout has enduring political consequences, and that it really does matter who votes and who doesn't.

scholarly journals By the Numbers: Election Data

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Pamela Campbell ◽  
Katrina Stierholz
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Private Institutions ◽  
Delivery Methods ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Election Results ◽  
State And Local ◽  
The Many ◽  
Many Sources ◽  
Election Studies

Election-related information covers a broad range of topics—voter registration, voter turnout, opinion polls, election results, and campaign finance data—spanning national, state, and local levels. Who collects and provides all the data related to an election? Interestingly, many sources of election statistics are available online through private institutions (e.g., universities, research institutions) rather than government sources. This applies to both recent information and historical information.This article focuses on just a few of the many resources for election data. Three sources are briefly examined, followed by an in-depth look at one source: the American National Election Studies (ANES). These sources cover a broad range of subject matter and delivery methods. The Library of Congress offers other resources at its election statistics Web Guide (www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/elections/statistics.html).

The Three-Legged Stool of Voter Engagement

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-56
Author(s):  
Adelaide K. Sandler ◽  
Mary E. Hylton ◽  
Jason Ostrander ◽  
Tanya R. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Elected Officials ◽  
Allocation Of Resources ◽  
Community Members ◽  
The Past ◽  
Voting Decisions

Disparities in voter turnout have increased significantly over the past four decades. Members of historically oppressed groups, those who are low-income, and or who have lower levels of education vote at significantly lower rates than white, wealthy and or more educated community members. These disparities correlate directly to political power and the eventual allocation of resources by elected officials. Therefore, eliminating these disparities through targeted voter engagement with client groups is particularly important for the profession of social work. This article describes the conceptualization of voter engagement as a three-legged stool, consisting of voter registration, regular voting, and basing voting decisions on self-interest.Without attention to all three legs, the potential for generating political power collapses, resulting in minimal influence on elected officials.

Eviction and Voter Turnout: The Political Consequences of Housing Instability

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232922110507
Author(s):  
Gillian Slee ◽  
Matthew Desmond
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Additive Model ◽  
The United States ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Endogeneity Bias ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Housing Costs ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Impact

In recent years, housing costs have outpaced incomes in the United States, resulting in millions of eviction filings each year. Yet no study has examined the link between eviction and voting. Drawing on a novel data set that combines tens of millions of eviction and voting records, this article finds that residential eviction rates negatively impacted voter turnout during the 2016 presidential election. Results from a generalized additive model show eviction’s effect on voter turnout to be strongest in neighborhoods with relatively low rates of displacement. To address endogeneity bias and estimate the causal effect of eviction on voting, the analysis treats commercial evictions as an instrument for residential evictions, finding that increases in neighborhood eviction rates led to substantial declines in voter turnout. This study demonstrates that the impact of eviction reverberates far beyond housing loss, affecting democratic participation.

scholarly journals Philip Albert Theodor Kircher. Poverty Reduction Strategies. Gottingen Studies in Development Economics. Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang, 2002. xiv+275 pages. Paperback. Price not given.

2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-111
Author(s):  
Faheem Jehangir Khan
Keyword(s):  
International Development ◽  
Poverty Alleviation ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Development Cooperation ◽  
International Consensus ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
The World ◽  
The Rich

Poverty is one of the most depressing global problems in the world today. Therefore, there is a growing consensus among development organisations that poverty alleviation should be the primary goal of cooperation between the rich and the poor countries. This consensus is due to the awareness that a widening international income gap threatens the well-being of people in the rich countries. In this volume, the author, Philip Kircher, offers a comprehensive study on the evolution, the content, the different national accentuations, and the problem of the international consensus on poverty alleviation, and provides a systematic analysis of today’s donor strategies for development cooperation for poverty reduction. The study focuses specifically on the strategic positions of the World Bank, the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany, and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), as well as the positions presented by the governments of these countries in regard to development.

The Epicureans on Human Nature and its Social and Political Consequences

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Jan Maximilian Robitzsch
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
The Social

Based on certain passages in Colotes, Hermarchus, and Horace, the Epicureans may be thought to defend a social contract theory that is roughly Hobbesian. According to such a view, human life without the social contract is solitary and brutish. This paper argues that such a reading is mistaken. It offers a systematic analysis of Lucretius’s culture story in On the Nature of Things v as well as the Epicurean passages that at first sight seem to contradict the Lucretian account. The conclusion of such an analysis is not only that all extant evidence is internally consistent, but also that Epicurean social contract theory relies on a ‘dynamic’ conception of human nature: On the Epicurean view, agents have very different psychological motivations when coming together to form societies and when coming together to form political and legal states.

The Conditional Effects of Health on Voter Turnout

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Lyon
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
High Income ◽  
Poor Health ◽  
Conditional Effects ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Excellent Health ◽  
Reported Health ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Context: Voting is the central instrument of democracy, yet there are a number of impediments that affect citizens' ability to turn out to vote. Health is one such impediment. Methods: This study draws on 2012 and 2016 election data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and the American National Election Studies and uses objective validated measures of voter turnout as well as postelection data on respondents' reasons for nonvoting to examine the relationship between self-reported health and voter turnout. Findings: The results indicate poor health depresses turnout among low-income voters but not high-income voters. A low-income citizen in poor health is 7 points less likely to turn out to vote than a low-income citizen in excellent health is. In contrast, a high-income citizen in poor health is just as likely to vote as a high-income citizen in excellent health is. Moreover, low-income citizens in poor health are 10 points more likely to cite sickness as an impediment to voting than are otherwise similar high-income citizens who are also in poor health. Conclusions: The findings have implications for health policy and unequal electoral engagement and suggest that health may narrow the scope of US democracy as poor health pushes low-income citizens out of the electoral sphere while high-income citizens continue to turn out to vote regardless of their underlying health conditions.

The Electoral Allure of Direct Democracy: The Effect of Initiative Salience on Voting, 1990-96

2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Lacey
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Significant Relationship ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ballot Initiatives ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Election Studies

Do salient ballot initiatives stimulate voting? Recent studies have shown that initiatives increase voter turnout, but some methodological concerns still linger. These studies have either relied solely on aggregate data to make inferences about individual-level behavior or used a flawed measure of initiative salience. Using individual-level data from the National Election Studies, I find that ballot question salience indeed stimulated voting in the midterm elections of 1990 and 1994. In an election with moderately salient ballot questions, a person's likelihood of voting can increase by as much as 30 percent in a midterm election. On the other hand, consistent with most prior research, I find no statistically significant relationship between ballot question salience and voting in presidential elections.

The Impact of State Television on Voter Turnout

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune J. Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
The United States ◽  
Causal Effects ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Tv ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
The Impact

In an influential study, Matthew Gentzkow found that the introduction of TV in the United States caused a major drop in voter turnout. In contrast, the current analysis shows that public broadcasting TV can increase political participation. Detailed data on the rollout of television in Norway in the 1960s and 1970s are combined with municipality-level data on voter turnout over a period of four decades. The date of access to TV signals was mostly a side effect of geography, a feature that is used to identify causal effects. Additional analyses exploit individual-level panel data from three successive election studies. The new TV medium instantly became a major source of political information. It triggered political interest and caused a modest, but statistically significant, increase in voter turnout.

The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, 1945–85

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 481-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arend Lijphart
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Behavior ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Political Consequences ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
District Magnitude ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
System Variables ◽  
Number Of Parties ◽  
Western Democracies

A systematic analysis of the relationships between the main electoral system variables (electoral formula, district magnitude, and ballot structure) and electoral outcomes (the degrees of disproportionality and multipartism) in the 20 Western democracies from 1945 to 1985—representing 32 distinct electoral systems (an electoral system being defined as a set of elections held under basically the same rules)—shows that the effects of both formula and magnitude on proportionality are very strong, much stronger than Douglas W. Rae and subsequent researchers have suggested; that on the other hand, their effects on the number of parties participating in elections is surprisingly weak; and that ballot structure affects the degree of multipartism only in single-member district systems. These findings suggest that strategic behavior by politicians and voters plays a less important role in reducing multipartism than is usually assumed.

scholarly journals The Introduction of Voter Registration and Its Effect on Turnout

2006 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Ansolabehere ◽  
David M. Konisky
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Voter Participation ◽  
Participation Rates ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Registration Laws ◽  
Panel Estimates

Studies of voter turnout across states find that those with more facilitative registration laws have higher turnout rates. Eliminating registration barriers altogether is estimated to raise voter participation rates by up to 10%. This article presents panel estimates of the effects of introducing registration that exploits changes in registration laws and turnout within states. New York and Ohio imposed registration requirements on all of their counties in 1965 and 1977, respectively. We find that the introduction of registration to counties that did not previously require registration decreased participation over the long term by three to five percentage points. Though significant, this is lower than estimates of the effects of registration from cross-sectional studies and suggests that expectations about the effects of registration reforms on turnout may be overstated.

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