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We examine the relative performance of voting technologies by studying presidential, gubernatorial, and senatorial election returns across hundreds of counties in the United States from 1988 to 2000. Relying on a fixed-effects regression applied to an unbalanced panel of counties, we find that in presidential elections, traditional paper ballots produce the lowest rates of uncounted votes (i.e.,“residual votes”), followed by optically scanned ballots, mechanical lever machines, direct register electronic machines (DREs), and punch cards. In gubernatorial and senatorial races, paper, optical scan ballots, and DREs are significantly better in minimizing the residual vote rate than mechanical lever machines and punch cards. If all jurisdictions in the United States that used punch cards in 2000 had used optically scanned ballots instead, we estimate that approximately 500,000 more votes would have been attributed to presidential candidates nationwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problems of multicandidate races in U.S. presidential elections motivated the modern invention and advocacy of approval voting; but it has not previously been recognized that the first four presidential elections (1788–1800) were conducted using a variant of approval voting. That experiment ended disastrously in 1800 with the infamous Electoral College tie between Jefferson and Burr. The tie, this paper shows, resulted less from miscalculation than from a strategic tension built into approval voting, which forces two leaders appealing to the same voters to play a game of Chicken. Because the Burr Dilemma poses a significant difficulty for approval voting, this paper urges that researchers give more attention to “instant runoff” reform options, especially the alternative vote and the Coombs rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One mystery of U.S. politics is why the president's party regularly loses congressional seats at midterm. Although presidential coattails and their withdrawal provide a partial explanation, coattails cannot account for the fact that the presidential party typically performs worse than normal at midterm. This paper addresses the midterm vote separate from the presidential year vote, with evidence from generic congressional polls conducted during midterm election years. Polls early in the midterm year project a normal vote result in November. But as the campaign progresses, vote preferences almost always move toward the out party. This shift is not a negative referendum on the president, as midterms do not show a pattern of declining presidential popularity or increasing salience of presidential performance. The shift accords with ''balance'' theory, where the midterm campaign motivates some to vote against the party of the president in order to achieve policy moderation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For too long, research on retrospective voting has fixated on how economic trends affect incumbents' electoral prospects in national and state elections. Hundreds of thousands of elections in the United States occur at the local level and have little to do with unemployment or inflation rates. This paper focuses on the most prevalent: school boards. Specifically, it examines whether voters hold school board members accountable for the performance of their schools. The 2000 elections reveal considerable evidence that voters evaluate school board members on the basis of student learning trends. During the 2002 and 2004 school board elections, however, when media (and by extension public) attention to testing and accountability systems drifted, measures of achievement did not influence incumbents' electoral fortunes. These findings, we suggest, raise important questions about both the scope conditions of retrospective voting models and the information voters rely upon when evaluating incumbents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper documents and investigates a prominent but little discussed pattern in U.S. politics, which is the decline of third-party electoral support over the past century. We find evidence consistent with the claim that electoral support for third parties—mainly left-wing third parties—declined because the Democratic Party co-opted the left-wing policy position beginning with the passage of the New Deal agenda. We note first that most of the third-party voting in the pre-New-Deal era was for left-wing third parties and that this declined sharply during the 1930s and 1940s. We then show that after the New Deal the Democratic Party's electoral support was higher in areas that had traditionally supported left-wing third parties. Contrary to some claims in the literature, we find little support for the hypothesis that the decline of third-party voting was immediately due to electoral reforms such as the introduction of direct primaries and the Australian ballot, except possibly in the south. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of employment status on voting by formally modeling the effect of partisan government on workers’ economic interests. These interests are determined by model workers’ labor supply decisions, which are conditioned on their expected wage, unemployment benefits, and the probability of receiving a job offer or being laid off. Both probabilities are influenced by the party in power. The solution to the model implies that, relative to the employed, the higher the education level, the income, and the unemployment benefits of the unemployed the less likely they are to vote for the party associated with higher growth. The unemployment rate has the same impact. These hypotheses are successfully tested on NES 1972–2000 U.S. presidential elections data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a very important question for media researchers, political campaigners, and democratic theorists alike: Does negative campaigning demobilize the electorate? Using both aggregate-and individual-level turnout data and evidence on the nature or "tone" of virtually every U.S. Senate campaign between 1988 and 1998, we find that campaign negativism has a curvilinear effect on turnout, with most observed levels of negativism actually stimulating turnout. Only at extremely high levels does negativism in political campaigns generally suppress turnout. We find no consistent evidence that person-based criticisms of the opponent have any different effect than policy-based criticisms. However, we do find support for the hypothesis that partisans tend to be stimulated by campaign negativism while independents are more likely to be discouraged by such campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the so-called "perquisites/constituency service" hypothesis that purports to explain incumbents' electoral margins in congressional elections. First, it reviews the individual-level and aggregate-level studies, pointing out serious problems in measurements and methodology and concluding that existing literature does not and cannot support the thesis Second, using 1984 CPS/NES data, the paper models the voting decisions in 1984, finding that respondents' decisions were affected by shared partisanship with the incumbent, ideological compatibility, challenger spending, assessments of President Reagan, and (a dubiously measured) recollection of the incumbent's having done something for the district. Individual casework experience did not affect the voting decision. Third, with data gathered from over 200 House offices, the percentage of the vote won by incumbents in the 1982 election is modeled as a function of 1982 casework loads, staff allocation, mailings, and several baseline variables. The findings are that casework loads, trips home, and mailings did not affect the vote, but that district partisanship and ideology, redistricting, national electoral tides, and occasionally district education levels did. We conclude that, based on existing evidence, the perquisites and casework hypotheses have not been demonstrated and that to explore the theses further panel data are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Specifies a model of vote trading in which legislators' payoffs are a function of results and voting behavior in the United States. Description of a voting game; Vote trades in the voting game; Conclusion.

This county-level study examines factors associated with the rate of voided presidential ballots in the 1996 elections. Evidence indicates that voided ballots are significantly more prevalent in counties with higher percentages of African Americans and Hispanics. The relationship between voided ballots and African Americans disappears, however, in counties using voting equipment that can be programmed to eliminate overvoting. The rate of voided ballots is lower in larger counties and in counties with a higher percentage of high school graduates. The rate of voided ballots declines as the number of presidential candidates on the ballot increases, but only up to a point, and then rises with further increases. Lever machines generate the lowest rates of voided ballots among types of voting equipment, with punch card systems generating the highest rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many economic voting models assume that individual voters' reactions to incumbents are strongly conditioned by their perceptions of the performance of the macroeconomy. However, the direction of causality between economic perceptions and political preferences is unclear: economic perceptions can be a consequence of incumbent support rather than an influence on it. We develop the latter thesis by examining the dynamic relationship between retrospective economic perceptions and several measures of political preferences—approval, partisanship, and vote—in the 2000-2004 U.S. presidential election cycle using the ANES 2000-2002-2004 panel study to estimate structural equation model extensions of the Anderson and Hsiao estimator for panel data. Our findings confirm that the conventional wisdom misrepresents the relationship between retrospective economic perceptions and incumbent partisanship: economic perceptions are consistently and robustly conditioned by political preferences. Individuals' economic perceptions are influenced by their political preferences rather than vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent campaigns, candidates have sought to attract votes from the growing Latino electorate through ethnic cues. Yet, we know very little about the impact of appeals to ethnicity. This article examines the role that ethnic cues play in shaping the political opinions and choices of Latinos, as well as the response of non-Hispanic White Americans (Anglos). We take up the simplest of group cues, the ethnicity of the candidate. We argue that candidate ethnicity is an explicit ethnic cue that alters the political choices of Latinos through priming of their ethnic linked fate, but only affects Anglos through spreading activation of primed ethnic attitudes to national identity considerations. Evidence from an experiment that manipulated exposure to candidate ethnicity information provides evidence for these claims. Our results help to explain coethnic voting among Latinos and resistance to Latino candidates among Anglos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can majority parties control legislative outcomes by controlling the agenda, or are roll-call patterns simply the product of legislators' preferences? We argue that, holding members' preferences constant, the majority party's ability to set the agenda gives it the power to influence legislative outcomes. We present the implications of this view of party power formally and then explore them empirically in two quasi-experiments from American state legislatures. In both, agenda control varies while legislator preferences remain constant. Our consistent finding is that the majority party uses its control over the agenda to screen out bills that would split its own membership, devotes more floor time to bills that divide majority from minority party legislators, and ultimately uses agenda control to protect the policy interests of its members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Realignment theory has long offered the primary framework for understanding American political history, particularly as it relates to the party system. The ''System of 1896'' is central to the theory and holds that William McKinley's victory in that year ushered in a Republican-dominated era lasting until Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt's election in 1932. The 10 years of partial—and six years of total—Democratic control of Congress and the White House (1910-20) during this 36-year stretch (1896-1932) remains an anomaly among realignment theorists. I conduct content analyses of Democratic and Republican party documents and media commentary and find that World War I played a crucial role in the GOP's resurgence in 1920. This conclusion highlights realignment theory's failure to account for the important role of international events and contingency in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The founding debate of judicial politics—is Supreme Court decision making driven by law or politics? —remains at center stage. One influential line of attack involves the identification of jurisprudential regimes, stable patterns of case decisions based on the influence of case factors. The key test is whether the regime changes after a major precedent-setting decision, that is, whether the case factors are subsequently treated differently by the Supreme Court justices themselves so that they vote as though constrained by precedent. We analyze whether binding jurisprudential regime change actually exists. The standard test assumes votes are independent observations, even though they are clustered by case and by term. We argue that a (nonparametric) ''randomization test'' is more appropriate. We find little evidence that precedents affect voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fundamental questions about incumbent safety have been difficult to answer because of the absence of adequate measures of incumbent prospects and incumbent quality. If incumbents retire because they are vulnerable, high reelection rates do not necessarily mean that electoral accountability is absent. Moreover, if the electoral success of incumbents reflects their high quality, high reelection rates do not necessarily indicate pathology in the system. Using explicit measures of incumbent prospects and personal quality based on district informant ratings, we find evidence of strategic retirement by incumbents in the 1998 elections, when standard prospects measures show no evidence of strategic withdrawal by incumbents. We also find an impact of incumbent quality on vote share consistent with the idea that high quality incumbents are rewarded in the electoral process. Although many are skeptical about the implications of incumbent safety in House elections, our results suggest a more optimistic reconsideration of incumbent electoral security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do legislators remain at one point on the ideological spectrum for their entire careers, or do they update their ideological positions in response to the demands of constituents? Although theories of the electoral connection predict that legislators should adapt to voter demands, most empirical studies instead show that they maintain consistent positions in the face of changing political conditions. This article takes advantage of the natural experiment provided by California's 2003 recall election—held at the midpoint of the state's legislative session—to investigate the impact of a strong electoral signal that is isolated from other political changes. We show that after the results of the recall signaled a surge in support for the Republican Party, Democratic legislators, particularly those in the most competitive districts, moderated their voting behavior in an apparent case of ideological adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a widespread concern that imbalances in voter turnout across race and class have led to biased outcomes in American democracy. Yet empirical tests have generally found that the unrepresentative nature of the electorate has little effect on who wins and loses elections. We challenge this finding by arguing that existing research minimizes the chances of finding bias because it focuses largely on national elections where turnout is relatively high and where minority groups are generally too small a percentage of the population to sway elections. By focusing on city elections we find that lower turnout leads to substantial reductions in the representation of Latinos and Asian Americans on city councils and in the mayor's office. For African Americans district elections and off-cycle local elections are more important barriers to representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between black constituency size and congressional support for black interests has two important attributes: magnitude and stability. Although previous research has examined the first characteristic, scant attention has been directed at the second. This article examines the relationship between district racial composition and congressional voting patterns with a particular emphasis on the stability of support across different types of votes and different types of districts. We hypothesize that, among white Democrats, the influence of black constituency size will be less stable in the South, owing in part to this region's more racially divided constituencies. Examining LCCR scores from the 101st through 103rd Congress, we find that this expectation is largely confirmed. We also find that, among Republicans, the impact of black constituency size is most stable—albeit negligible in size—in the South. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for the relative merits of “influence districts” and “majority minority” districts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the link between presidential approval and congressional election outcomes is long established, scholars have generally ignored the role of a member's own voting record in mediating these effects. If voters truly use the congressional ballot to express support or opposition toward the President, then they should not reward or punish all of his fellow partisans equally. Instead, the degree of reward or punishment meted out by voters ought to depend on the member's level of support for the president's legislative initiatives. Using data from the 1993, 1994, and 1996 National Election Studies, we demonstrate two key points: that representatives’actual levels of support for the president are the single greatest predictor of their perceived levels of presidential support, and that perceived levels of presidential support interact powerfully with citizen presidential approval to shape attitudes toward congressional incumbents. These effects dwarf simple partisan heuristics in explaining congressional vote choice, suggesting that citizens are much more discriminating than is typically assumed in using the congressional vote as a referendum on presidential policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voters' decision criterion of last resort is their similarity to candidates or party leaders. Most normative theories would denigrate this form of reasoning. But the recent argument that voters can make up for information shortfalls by employing heuristics seems to require that the most poorly informed respond to these characteristics if they are to make anything other than a random decision. In this article I test the hypothesis that increasing dissimilarity of sociodemographic characteristics from a political figure (e.g., party leader) decreases a voter's expected utility from the election of that person. Secondarily, I ask whether decreases in a voter's store of policy information will necessitate greater reliance--a tendency to "fall back"--on this similarity/dissimilarity criterion. I draw on survey data from two Canadian federal elections with adequate variation in party leader characteristics. A model of vote choice is estimated by conditional logit. All voters are found to respond negatively to increasing sociodemographic distance from party leaders, net of partisanship, economic retrospections, policy, and uncertainty. Voters equipped for policy voting do not ignore these characteristics, and voters without policy information do not respond more strongly to their similarity or dissimilarity to party leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory suggests that majoritarian/plurality elections depress voter participation and that proportional election systems encourage greater voter mobilization and turnout. We examine the effect that cumulative voting (CV) has on turnout in local elections in the U.S. Variation in social/cultural context is largely held constant by our design while election system varies, allowing us to identify the unique effect CV has on turnout. We test if turnout is higher when CV is used in the same context as plurality rules. Consistent with expectations about institutional effects, turnout is about 5 percentage points higher under CV than in similar plurality elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Looks at the split-ticket voting attitudes of Americans during the presidential elections between 1964 and 1992. Explanation on the split-ticket voting of conservative districts and liberal districts; Factors which contributed to the decision of voters to vote for a Republican or a Democrat; Data analysis.

Discusses a study that examined the relationship of socioeconomic status with the voting behavior of immigrant minorities in the United States. Factors that contribute to the decline in the turnout rates for American elections; Political participation model of political scientist William Riker and Peter Ordeshook; Analysis of the data.

Deals with a study that tested the relationship of a senator's ideology with his position on foreign policy issues, using data on voting in the United States Senate from 1947 and 1993. Review of related literature about the effect of ideology on congressional voting; Information on a model of ideological voting on foreign policy; Results of the study.

Provides information on a study which tested the conditional party government thesis in the United States. Likelihood of party members to participate in a roll call vote when the question has been identified as important to the party; How party leadership signals affected member turnout levels; Evidence of cohesive partisan behavior in the Senate.

Presents a study which tested three models of voter decision making in a presidential primary in the U.S. Method of the study; Results and discussion; Conclusion.