Who Votes: City Election Timing and Voter Composition

Low and uneven turnout is a serious problem for local democracy. Fortunately, one simple reform—shifting the timing of local elections so they are held on the same day as national contests—can substantially increase participation. Considerable research shows that on-cycle November elections generally double local voter turnout compared with stand-alone local contests. But does higher turnout mean a more representative electorate? On that critical question, the evidence is slim and mixed. We combine information on election timing with detailed microtargeting data that includes voter demographic information to examine how election timing influences voter composition in city elections. We find that moving to on-cycle elections in California leads to an electorate that is considerably more representative in terms of race, age, and partisanship—especially when these local elections coincide with a presidential election. Our results suggest that on-cycle elections can improve local democracy.

Off-Cycle and Off Center: Election Timing and Representation in Municipal Government

Who governs America’s cities: organized interests or mass publics? Though recent scholarship finds that local governments enact policies that align with citizens’ preferences, others argue that it is organized interests, not mass publics that are influential. To reconcile these perspectives, we show that election timing can help shed light on when voters or groups will be pivotal in city politics. Examining 1,600 large US cities, we find that off-cycle elections affect city policy responsiveness asymmetrically, weakening responsiveness on those issues where there is an active and organized interest whose policy objectives deviate from the preferences of the median resident. Here, we focus on public employees’ interests and find that local governments that are elected off cycle spend more on city workers than would be preferred by citizens in more conservative cities. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of interest groups and representation in local politics.

Off-Cycle and Out of Sync: How Election Timing Influences Political Representation

States exert significant control over many different types of electoral institutions that influence the tone and direction of political representation in American democracy. Yet almost nothing is known about the consequences of the institution that has the greatest singular impact on the turnout and composition of the electorate: election timing. We argue that off-cycle elections will tend to produce governments that are not well-aligned with the political preferences of their median constituent. To empirically test this expectation, we examine the relationship between election timing and mass–elite congruence across local school district governments. Leveraging variation in election timing across districts within the same state, we find that board members are more likely to hold political preferences that are aligned with their constituents when boards are elected in on- versus off-cycle races. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the study of representation and election timing, suggesting some possible avenues for future research.

The Element of Surprise: Election Timing and Opposition Preparedness

How can incumbent governments benefit when they control the timing of elections? The conventional wisdom is that incumbents gain an advantage by timing elections to coincide with favorable economic conditions. An alternative mechanism that has received less attention is the element of surprise: the incumbent’s ability to exploit the opposition’s lack of election preparedness. I theorize and empirically test this surprise mechanism using candidate-level data from Japanese House of Representatives elections (1955–2017). The results show that in surprise elections, opposition parties recruit fewer, lower-quality candidates, spend less money campaigning, coordinate their candidates less effectively, and ultimately receive fewer votes and seats. Evidence from fixed effects models and exogenously timed by-elections further suggest that surprise matters more in shorter, competitive election campaigns and helps incumbents more with confronting inter-party as opposed to intra-party electoral competition. These findings add to our understanding of how strategic election timing can undermine electoral accountability.

Endogenous and Exogenous Election Timing

This chapter examines the rules that govern election timing in democracies. It begins by distinguishing between constitutionally fixed (exogenous) and constitutionally flexible (endogenous) election timing, reviews which political actors can call early elections when endogenous election timing is permitted, and notes that early elections are heterogeneous and can be of two distinct types—either triggered by government failure or called for partisan advantage. Next, the chapter summarizes the current understanding of the consequences of election timing rules for four important political outcomes: gridlock resolution, the electoral performance of incumbents, the bargaining power of various political actors in negotiating governments and policy, and the rhythm of policy cycles. Together the findings reviewed in this chapter show that election timing rules are highly consequential: they shape election outcomes, accountability, and policy, with significant implications for governance and voter welfare.

Cabinet Durability and Fiscal Discipline

We argue that short government durations in parliamentary democracies increase public spending by driving a political budget cycle. We present a revision of the standard political budget cycle model that relaxes the common (often implicit) assumption that election timing is fixed and known in advance. Instead, we allow cabinets to form expectations about their durability and use these expectations to inform their spending choices. The model predicts that (1) cabinets should spend more as their expected term in office draws to a close and (2) cabinets that outlive their expected duration should run higher deficits. Using data from 15 European democracies over several decades, we show that governments increase spending as their expected duration withers and run higher deficits as they surpass their forecasted life expectancy.

Election timing as a predictor of electoral outcomes in public school bond elections in Missouri

This quantitative study sought to investigate the differences in the electoral outcomes of school bond elections in Missouri from 2009-2016 based on election timing. The researcher utilized election timing theory as a framework for the study. Data from Missouri school bond elections was compiled from online databases, the Missouri State Auditor's office, and archived newspaper reports. Results suggest that differences exist in electoral outcomes for school bond issues based on election timing. The study concludes with recommendations for Missouri school administrators, designed to aid in the successful passage of school bond issues.