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This paper provides an overview of major findings from our book-length manuscript focusing on the demographic, political and legal determinants of voter turnout in the US, 1972-2008. Using data from the American National Election Studies, 1972-2008, and the Current Population Survey, 1972-2008, we estimate the effects of demographic determinants of the vote--similar to Wolfinger and Rosenstone's analysis--but also consider the political and legal contexts and how they affect who votes and therefore the representativeness of the electorate.The paper would fit into a panel on voter turnout; demographics; electoral laws; issues and political behavior; or representation and American elections. Because we are finishing up the book project during the Fall 2009 semester, we can easily orient the paper to whatever type of panel it fits on. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central topic of this paper is the measurement of one variable, civic duty. This variable has become a mainstay in empirical research on individual voting behavior since the 1960s and it is one of the chief explanatory saviors of the rational choice model of voting. Nevertheless, the measurement of civic duty on the American National Elections Study is prima facie substandard. Question wording is one concern, as a number of scholars have demonstrated that seemingly small changes in question wording can have large effects on the answers individuals provide and the conclusions scholars draw. My primary concern is measurement validity, commonly defined as "whether a variable measures what it is supposed to measure" (King, Keohane, and Verba 1994). In survey research, the question is the instrument through which we measure a concept; if the wording is unclear, biased, or just plain bad, then any research that uses that indicator will also be flawed.In the paper, I will explain the controversies surrounding question wording and measurement validity; I will examine the existing body of work on civic duty; and I will empirical evaluate the validity of survey instruments that use different measures of civic duty in the United States and the United Kingdom. Possible explanations for the results, recommendations for further analysis, and the implications of these findings for research on voting behavior will also be discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the causes of midterm decline in US elections is an important area of study in political science. Though there has been a lot of work on midterm decline at the national level, there has not been a lot of research about how theories of midterm decline can be applied to the US federal system. This paper focuses on establishing a relationship between the president's party and gubernatorial elections using longitudinal hierarchical linear modeling. I find that the evaluations of the president can impact elections, and that there is an important effect of presidential punishment. These results indicate the need for more research about how theories of midterm decline specifically impact state level voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the relationship between civic duty and voter turnout. More specifically, I test the causal relationship between civic duty and voting and examine how election specific factors affect that relationship. Correspondingly, I perform logistic regression analysis of American National Elections Study (ANES) data from 1972-1992. The results suggest that civic duty is a strong motivation for voting, and that civic duty has a significant and independent effect on turnout. However, civic duty appears to be a more salient motivation for individuals who are less interested in the election, do not have a preferred outcome, and who are weaker partisans. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both pooled aggregate analysis of the American states (Kone and Winters, 1993) and cross-sectional individual-level analysis of election exit polls in the states (Niemi et al., 1995) established weak negative impacts of changing taxes on subsequent vote outcomes and voter behavior. Our research investigates the impact of legislated changes in the sales, income, and "sin" taxes on individual voting using exit polls from 43 states in 228 elections from 1982-2000 yielding about 315,000 respondents. We hypothesize conditions that affect the tax-vote linkage. We find stronger negative effects of changes in the sales tax on vote choice, but little or no impact of changes in either the income or sin taxes. Some other non-obvious findings of the paper include: Republican candidates defending tax records do worse than Democratic candidates, a trait that appears concentrated among open seat Republicans. By decomposing into types of taxes changed, it appears that Republicans are particularly sensitive to sales tax changes, especially if an incumbent, and open seat Republicans to their party-predecessor's income tax changes. Of the impact of tax changes on voters, there appears to be little variation in the impact of tax changes on lower or upper income classes nor by party identification of the voter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do people decide to turn out? More specifically, does the distance from a polling location increase or decrease their likelihood of voting? This central question guides the research I propose. Consistent with early work by Downs (1957), surveys indicate that the act of voting is not neutral; individuals must reallocate time from working, family, or leisure and exert energy to travel to a polling location, stand in line, cast a ballot, and proceed to the next destination. This process can inhibit the ability of some individuals to vote, implying that physical resources, in part, determine their likelihood of voting. Haspel and Knotts (2005) provide an excellent study addressing the effect of geographic distance on turnout in the Atlanta area during mayoral races. In this paper, I propose to expand on this work by examining voter roll information for much of the state of Mississippi, across several national and sub-national elections. These data allow for further heterogeneity in group characteristics to be explored, and indicate any change in turnout that may occur due to the type of election being held. Second, this paper will incorporate not only the distance that an individual lives away from their polling place, but the distance that they travel to work, including several other mitigating factors. This paper will further assess the impact of distance on voting and go beyond current studies to create more robust findings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of legislative extremism on contestation and vote share in the U.S. Studies indicate that incumbent ideological extremity varies across members. The authors claim that increased incumbent ideological extremity does increase the possibility of contestation and produce smaller vote shares for members coming from moderate districts. However, the increased incumbent ideological extremity decreases the possibility of contestation and increases vote shares for members from ideologically extreme districts.

The article examines the impact of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) on the core demographic characteristics of voter registration in the U.S. A brief description of the voting process in the country is presented, along with the key provisions of the NVRA. Advocates of the NVRA believed that lowering the barriers to voter registration would increase the number of eligible citizens and the diversity of the voting pool. The NVRA has raised the number of registered citizens and the percentage of the voting population.

Decades of research suggests that campaign contact, together with an advantageous socioeconomic profile, increases the likelihood of casting a ballot. Measurement and modeling handicaps permit a lingering uncertainty about campaign communication as a source of political mobilization however. Using data from a uniquely detailed telephone survey conducted in a pair of highly competitive 2002 U.S. Senate races, we further assess the influence of politics on participation. We conclude that vote history is the most important stimulant in voter mobilization but that holding this variable constant reveals some effect for campaign communication among intermittent voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses the relationships between a number of theoretically significant variables as empirical predictors of the Democratic and Republican primary vote in the U.S. from 1976 through 2004. Main predictors of the aggregate presidential vote as found by existing forecasting models; Theoretical factors that are likely candidates to improve the forecasting models as identified by studies on presidential nominations; Information on several studies that focused on predicting the primary vote with information from before the primaries.

A subtle controversy brews in the study of southern politics. Traditional theories regarding the growth of the southern Republican parties hypothesize that their development is a top-down process, starting first at the presidential level, spreading progressively down the federal electoral hierarchy to the state legislative and county levels (see Lamis 1990; Aistrup 1996; Bullock 1988). Recent research however, suggests a different process. John Aldrich (2000), found evidence of a different type of GOP party development process at the U.S. House level: One that occurs from the bottom-up (Aldrich 2000; Aldrich and Griffen 2000). This study uses partisan voting data at the precinct level in the South to test for top-down and bottom-up partisan voting patterns. Using a seemingly unrelated regression model, I find support for both models. As the top-down model posits, partisan presidential voting patterns have a consistently positive effect on partisan voting patterns for congressional and lower state house contests. Even though the bottom-up process is not as strong or pervasive as the top-down model, I find that partisan voting patterns at the lower state house level tend to influence those at the congressional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is the United States Senate a partyless institution dominated by individualism and minority obstruction or can the parties in the upper chamber coordinate their efforts during the legislative process? Based on the rules of the Senate, it is possible for an individual or a small minority of the chamber from either party to obstruct the legislative process. Further, because the seniority norm still exists in the Senate, leaders have traditionally lacked the ability to punish defectors through the committee assignment process. As such, there are relatively few theories of the Senate where the parties play a central role similar to their counterparts in the House. However, evidence tells a different story. Prior to 1946, levels of party unity were similar on procedural and final passage votes. After 1946, this began to change as the percent of procedural votes that were party unity votes began to increase while the same measure for final passage votes continued to decline. Even though the Senate lacks a unifying leader with powers akin to the Speaker, I will demonstrate that the parties can coordinate legislative strategy. In particular, the evidence suggests that the parties began to act as "procedural cartels" (Campbell, Cox, and McCubbins 2002; Cox and McCubbins 1993, 2001, 2002, 2005) through unified voting on procedural matters. This heightened degree of party unity began a decade before the "master of the Senate," Lyndon Johnson became majority leader and almost 30 years before the return of party power in the post-reform House. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]