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We use new data on entries and exits of US daily newspapers from 1869 to 2004 to estimate effects on political participation, party vote shares, and electoral competitiveness. Our identification strategy exploits the precise timing of these events and allows for the possibility of confounding trends. We focus our analysis on the years 1869- 1928, and we use the remaining years of data to look at changes over time. We find that newspapers have a robust positive effect on political participation, with one additional newspaper increasing both presidential and congressional turnout by approximately 0.3 percentage points. Newspaper competition is not a key driver of turnout: our effect is driven mainly by the first newspaper in a market, and the effect of a second or third paper is significantly smaller. The effect on presidential turnout diminishes after the introduction of radio and television, while the estimated effect on congressional turnout remains similar up to recent years. We find no evidence that partisan newspapers affect party vote shares, with confidence intervals that rule out even moderate-sized effects. We find no clear evidence that newspapers systematically help or hurt incumbents. (JEL D72, L11, L82, N41, N42, N81, N82) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many of the nation's most respected advertising agencies have become reluctant to accept political campaigns as clients. And political candidates increasingly are choosing independent political consultants to direct their media campaigns. This paper analyzes the history of these trends and reports the results of a nationwide survey of 99 advertising agencies. Among firms that had not handled political accounts in five years or that planned to reduce political campaign involvement, the major reasons cited for avoiding political accounts centered on concerns that they may interfere with business client relations while creating an intolerable workload without commensurate profitability. The potential implications of replacing advertising agencies with political consultants are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates when a runoff election is desirable and when a plurality result is good enough. A runoff election increases the likelihood that the Condorcet winner will be elected but also entails additional costs. The metric for determining whether a runoff election is desirable will be the probability that the winner of the plurality election would win an ensuing runoff. Statistical models of voter behavior are developed that estimate this probability, which are verified with runoff-election data from United States elections. The models allow governments to make more informed choices in creating rules to decide when to hold runoff elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of nineteenth-century voting behavior have focused on how economic variables influenced elections during this period. Employing underutilized individual-level data from the 1870s, this paper argues that such studies overstate the influence of economic variables upon electoral behavior. Specifically, Democratic voters principally cast ballots on the basis of economic issues and divisions, while Republicans were primarily concerned with religious and cultural issues. These results suggest that the Democratic and Republican parties attracted voters on the basis of different policy dimensions, indicating that both ethnocultural and economic considerations affected both political parties, albeit in divergent ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the role of political ideology in shaping black voters' evaluations of political candidates' race and skin tone. Our findings challenge simplistic notions of black preference for descriptive representation. Instead, we argue that race matters to how black Americans evaluate candidates for political office, but that it does so in combination with both candidates' skin tone and voters' ideology. Specifically, our data from a set of randomized experiments show that black conservative Democrats, relative to their more liberal copartisans, express a stronger preference for black candidates relative to white counterparts and prefer darker-skinned candidates relative to lighterskinned ones. In exploring this result, we argue that conservative black Democrats, who are liberal economically but more socially conservative, use skin tone as a heuristic to help determine which candidate is most likely to match their party-atypical but race-typical political preferences. Thus, despite being less likely to support affirmative action policies, black conservatives are actually more prone to using race and skin tone heuristics in their evaluations of candidates for political office. These findings are substantively significant. As black voters have become much more ideologically diverse, their preferences with respect to candidate race and skin tone may have greater electoral consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the voter registration, turnout, and party registration in the 2008 general election for men with felony convictions in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, and North Carolina. The findings indicate that turnout among felons is much lower than previous research has shown. Ex-felon turnout in 2008 varied by state, averaging 22.2 percent. People captured and convicted for their first offense after the election voted at similarly low rates. Also contrary to the expectations of previous literature, the ex-felon population does not seem overwhelmingly Democratic. In North Carolina and Florida, two states for which the data are available, party registration varies by race. Among registered black male ex-felons, 71.7 percent in North Carolina and 84.2 percent in Florida are registered Democrats. Among whites, however, only 35.3 percent and 36.4 percent of ex-felons are registered Democrats in North Carolina and Florida, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite attempts to mobilize communities of color, gaps in turnout among racial and ethnic minorities persist (e.g., Abrajano et al., J Polit 70:368-382, ; Pantoja et al., Polit Res Q 54:729-750, ; Kaufmann, Polit Res Q 56:199-210, ; Ramirez, Ann Am Acad Pol Soc Sci 601:66-84, , Am Polit Res 35:155-175, ). Scholars are only beginning to understand how parties or independent groups seek to mobilize these communities. In this paper, we develop and test the Differential Contact Thesis, which holds that turnout differences between whites and minority groups are influenced both by lower rates of contact by the parties and the use of less effective methods of contact. To test this, we examine data from the 2004 National Annenberg Election Study (NAES), 2004 American National Election Study (ANES), and the 2004 Miami Exit Poll. Our results support the Differential Contact Thesis: even controlling for the initial likelihood to be contacted by the parties, racial and ethnic minorities were less likely to be contacted using the most effective techniques. To some extent, non-partisan contact seems to compensate for the inattention of the major parties toward minority voters, but this contact is less likely to mobilize voters than contact from the parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the creation of the National Negro Republican Assembly in the U.S. Black Republicans disapproved Barry Goldwater's political sentiments as it did not match the appeal for civil rights of the black Republicans. During the 1964 election, the National Negro Republican Assembly (NNRA) was enforced to support racial equality as George Fleming called the African American loyalists for unity. Furthermore, NRNA's vision of black advancement trumpeted with the leadership of Grant Reynolds, Political Action Chair for NNRA.

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This paper uses individual-level data to examine the impact of unions on turnout and assesses the consequences of dramatic changes in union strength and in the composition of union membership since 1964 for the composition of the U.S. electorate. We first estimate individual-level models to test for the distinct effects of union membership and union strength on the probabilities of members and nonmembers voting and then test whether the effect of individual union membership and overall union strength varies across income levels. We find that unions increase turnout of both members and nonmembers. By simulating what turnout would be were union membership at its 1964 level, we show that the decline in union membership since 1964 has affected the aggregate turnout of both low- and middle-income individuals more than the aggregate turnout of high-income individuals. However, while class bias has increased as a consequence of the decline, the change is surprisingly small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why did Mitt Romney face antagonism toward his Mormon religion in the 2008 election? Using experiments conducted in the real time of the campaign, we test voters' reactions to information about Romney's religious background. We find that voters were concerned specifically with Romney's religious affiliation, not simply with the fact that he is religious. Furthermore, concern over Romney's Mormonism dwarfed concerns about the religious backgrounds of Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee. We find evidence for a curvilinear hypothesis linking social contact with Mormons and reaction to information about Romney's Mormonism. Voters who have no personal exposure to Mormons are most likely to be persuaded by both negative and positive information about the Mormon faith, while voters who have sustained personal contact with Mormons are the least likely to be persuaded either way. Voters with moderate contact, however, react strongly to negative information about the religion but are not persuaded by countervailing positive information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role computer scientists have played in the development of electronic voting systems, which are typically known as direct recording electronic systems. A discussion of the requirements which are associated with the systems, the ways the systems work, and operations in the system which must be put into place in the systems prior to election day and during election day is presented. U.S. vendors that offer the systems and preventive measures that can be used to prevent corrupt practices in the systems are discussed.

The article presents an economic perspective of an article on the consequences of imposing a three or six-term restriction on service in the US House of Representatives, published in the December 1995 issue of "Social Science Quarterly." The only real area of concern, from this economic perspective, is that the focus of the paper is not as tight as it could be. The authors specify and employ a mathematical model, but the assumptions underlying the model are not sufficiently justified. Then, the authors discuss a number of implications of their model, but for the most part these implications are beyond the scope of the model. The model assumes without explicit justification that future party-specific election rates will be the same as those which prevailed in the period 1973-94, despite the potentially historic political realignment which occurred in the most recent election, and despite their own observation that the rate at which Republican candidates win open seats has been increasing. This is of particular concern when evaluating the relative impact of term limits on the political parties, since according to their own analysis the conclusions are largely driven by the assumptions made regarding party-specific election rates.

The 1980 and 1982 American national election studies include a new series of questions about individual partisanship. It is possible to create a 5-point scale of party support/closeness from these questions. The new measure performs reasonably as regards its relationship to other measures of partisanship, to its own continuity over time, and to dependent behavior. There is also a new question on independence, but this is best treated as a separate item rather than being incorporated in the party support/closeness scale. The new measure also performs well in measuring strength of partisanship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experimental research compares exposure to presidential ads via the Internet versus traditional channels in the 2000 presidential campaign. The results indicate that undecided voters exposed to Internet political advertising changed their vote choice to Al Gore, whereas undecideds who viewed the same spots on television changed their preferences in favor of George W. Bush. The political cynicism levels of neither group were affected by exposure, but there were significant differences in the types of information seeking and political activity intentions between the two groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors describe the use of internet-based surveys to predict the results of 72 races in the US elections of November 2000. The authors describe their results, the methods they used, including the use of both demographic and 'propensity score' weighting to correct for substantial biases in the raw, unweighted data, and the investments which were needed to achieve these results. They also caution readers not to assume that identical methods can be used with equal success in other countries or to measure all other variables, and stress the need for continuing research to improve online research methods in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A survey was conducted to examine the effects of negative political advertising -- advertising which seeks to degrade perceptions of an opponent. Respondents were constituents of a state Assembly district in which candidates employed negative appeals. Results indicate that negative political advertising evokes negative affect toward both the targeted opponent and the sponsor. A relationship between party identification and response to negative advertising suggests that a negative strategy is not likely to be effective for a minority party candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published evidence questions the voter involvement explantion of promotional spending effects in high involvement elections. This study replicates and extends the Soley and Reid (20) study which showed that promotional expenditures have as great an effect on votes received in congressional elections as party affiliation and incumbency. Using an expanded data base and a different analytical technique, the replication found that House and Senate election outcomes were significantly affected by promotional spending, but that spending effects varied by candidate type (i.e., incumbent and challengers) and party affiliation (i.e., major third and independent parties). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sizable literature in American politics documents increased levels of voter turnout among black citizens when coracial candidates are on the ballot or hold office. However, due to a paucity of black Republican candidates, existing research has been unable to identify whether increased participation occurs irrespective of the candidate’s partisanship. Using data from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find that, while the presence of a black Democratic House candidate was associated with increased black voter turnout, there was no association between black Republican candidates and black turnout. These results are robust to model specification, issues of statistical power, and contextual differences across districts. We report further evidence that black citizens’ perceptions of black candidates’ ideologies and character traits differed substantially based on the candidate’s party. Our results have implications for understanding how citizens engage in politics when salient political identities come into conflict. The results further suggest that Republican efforts to recruit black candidates are unlikely to mobilize black voters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data from a national survey of 465 American Muslims conducted just after the 2008 election season, the authors assess whether American Muslims are invested in the practices (political discussion, especially across lines of difference) and norms (tolerance) that many theorists suggest are crucial to the maintenance of liberal democracy. The authors find that American Muslims tend to be intolerant of acts against religion. The authors’ explanation draws on intergroup relations theory, finding that post–September 11, 2001, discrimination served an educational function boosting tolerance, and disagreement in Muslim social networks tends to depress tolerance unless it is with an in-group discussion partner. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article employs data gathered in a 2006 national survey to study how the American electorate evaluates a trade-off between competitive elections and winning to implement preferred policies. The results show that voters do not share in the prevailing elite consensus about the overriding virtues of competition. A multilevel model indicates that ideological extremism, partisanship, social trust, and several other individual-level variables have predictable relationships with preferences for winning or competition. In addition, electoral margin in the 2006 congressional district election interacts with support for winning or losing candidates. Voters supporting candidates who are soundly defeated take refuge in competition, whereas those supporting candidates who win decisively view victory as a means of implementing policy preferences. Additional analyses show that preferences for winning and competition influence various forms of political participation. By emphasizing public involvement in policy making, voters expressing a preference to win echo “responsible party government” critiques of the democratic shortcomings of the American political system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We investigate how material and symbolic campaign appeals may motivate segments of the electorate to be more engaged with the unfolding presidential campaign; this engagement is a first step toward bringing these populations into an electoral coalition. We pair two massive new data collections-the National Annenberg Election Study capturing public opinion across an entire campaign and The Wisconsin Advertising Project recording and cataloging the political commercials aired by campaigns-to examine how the candidates' choice of issues affects who gets into the game. We find evidence that appeals to symbolic interests are more likely than appeals to material interest to selectively engage targeted groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about the role of money in politics are commonplace. Although some critics point to the potentially negative impact spending has in elections, most recent scholarly evidence indicates that spending may actually promote greater participation in the political process. However, most of this research has uncovered this relationship in races for more visible offices; few studies have focused on whether the same linkage is present in low-information elections. For a variety of reasons, it is not altogether certain whether this relationship would exist for such offices. To test this proposition, we examine the impact of campaign spending on voter rolloff in 172 contested races for intermediate appellate courts (IAC) between 2000 and 2008. In contrast to other types of elections, combined candidate spending in these races had no effect on ballot rolloff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists are increasingly exploring the psychological underpinnings of voting behavior using field experimental techniques. Research in psychology demonstrates that gratitude expression reinforces prosocial behavior. This article reports the results of the three randomized field experiments designed to investigate the impact of gratitude expression on voter turnout. The experiments were conducted in a range of electoral settings, and the results suggest thanking voters for voting in a previous election boosts participation levels in subsequent elections. Moreover, the gratitude expression effect I observe appears to be distinct from social pressure and is robust across subgroups of voters, including minorities and women, and both low- and high-propensity voters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article offers information about potential electoral reform in the U.S. towards an opt-out voting process. Topics include the theoretical benefits of opt-out voting, the increase in political participation through the voting process, and arguments against changes to the election process. It is suggested that jurisdictions in the U.S. should conduct experiments about the effectiveness of opt-out voting.

Recent research in the area of campaign advertising suggests that emotional appeals can influence political attitudes, electoral choices and decision-making processes. Yet is there any evidence that candidates use emotional appeals strategically during campaigns? Is there a pattern to their use? For instance, are fear appeals used primarily late in the campaign by trailing candidates in order to get voters to rethink their choices? And are enthusiasm appeals used more commonly early on in order to shore up a candidate's base? We use affective intelligence theory-and supplement it with the idea of a voter backlash-to generate expectations about when candidates use certain emotional appeals (namely, anger, fear, enthusiasm, and pride) and which types of candidates are most likely to do so. We then test these ideas using campaign advertising data from several U.S. Senate races from 2004. Our research thus provides a link between research on campaign decision making-here the decision to 'go emotional'-and research focusing on the effects of emotional appeals on voters. [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]

One of the central questions surrounding the 2008 presidential election is the role of race in shaping electoral choice among non-Hispanic whites, and whether race played an equivalent role among Hispanics, whose willingness to vote for an African American candidate was raised as an uncertainty during the primary campaign. The authors argue that, beyond the usual association of racial sentiment with party preference, the effect of Obama's race on the 2008 election is significant, but substantially smaller among Latinos than among non-Hispanic whites. Although Latino voters often express racial sentiments that are indistinguishable from whites, there was a significant disconnect between those racial sentiments and Latinos' vote choice and evaluations of candidate Obama. The authors explore the explanatory power of explicit, indirect, and implicit measures of racial sentiment and find that an indirect measurement—the Racial Resentment Index—retains the greatest predictive validity, notwithstanding its conceptual challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Traditional theories of turnout are of limited applicability to college students: the concepts and measures associated with these theories were not designed with students in mind, and factors not considered by the traditional theories are relevant. We offer a new theoretical perspective for understanding college student turnout and test it using a new data set. Methods. We conducted a phone survey of college students following the November 2004 U.S. presidential election. We test our theoretical expectations using descriptive statistics and logistic regression models. Results. We find that the usual demographic factors are of little relevance. Turnout is, however, related to the same motivational factors that stimulate older voters, as well as to mobilization by parties. College-specific factors, such as distance between home and college, are also relevant. Turnout was also higher for students whose hometown or college town was in a battleground state. Conclusion. The results suggest new approaches to the study of young people and how and when they become part of the voting public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We demonstrate that the use of self-reported turnout data often results in misleading inferences about racial differences in turnout. We theorize about the mechanism driving report of turnout and, utilizing ANES turnout data in presidential elections from 1976 to 1988 (all years for which comparable validated data are available), we empirically model report of turnout as well as the relationship between reported and actual turnout. We apply the model to the two subsequent presidential elections in which validated data are not available, 1992 and 1996. Our findings suggest that African Americans turned out almost 20 percentage points less than did Whites in the 1992 and 1996 U.S. presidential elections—almost double the gap that the self-reported data indicates. In contrast with previous research, we show that racial differences in factors predicting turnout make African Americans less likely to vote compared to Whites and thus increase their probability of overreporting. At the same time, when controlling for this effect, other things equal, African Americans overreport electoral participation more than Whites. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines the electoral consequences of variation in voter turnout in the United States. Existing scholarship focuses on the claim that high turnout benefits Democrats, but evidence supporting this conjecture is variable and controversial. Previous work, however, does not account for endogeneity between turnout and electoral choice, and thus, causal claims are questionable. Using election day rainfall as an instrumental variable for voter turnout, we are able to estimate the effect of variation in turnout due to across-the-board changes in the utility of voting. We re-examine the Partisan Effects and Two-Effects Hypotheses, provide an empirical test of an Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis, and propose a Volatility Hypothesis, which posits that high turnout produces less predictable electoral outcomes. Using county-level data from the 1948-2000 presidential elections, we find support for each hypothesis. Failing to address the endogeneity problem would lead researchers to incorrectly reject all but the Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis. The effect of variation in turnout on electoral outcomes appears quite meaningful. Although election-specific factors other than turnout have the greatest influence on who wins an election, variation in turnout significantly affects vote shares at the county, national, and Electoral College levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which aims to investigate the political participation and the difference of level of perception of women on U.S. election in 2006 and 2008. The study made us of role model effect theory to explore the political participation of 18-23 years women voters in 2008 compared in 2006. Results indicate that 2008 women voters were more skilled to talk about politics than those in 2006. Results also show that women were less cynical on politics in 2008 election than in 2006.

The article explores the potential participation of governments, corporations and citizens of other countries in U.S. elections through the Internet. The author offers an overview of the laws involving foreign participation in elections. Some of the technologies and strategies that may alter the political environment in elections are discussed. Also noted is the interest in state sovereignty which is one of the concerns in extraterritorial electioneering.

Traditional studies of political participation assume an electoral environment in which voters decide between two White candidates, and find Latino citizens less politically engaged. Given the growth in the number of Latino candidates for office over the past 20 years, this article tests whether ethnicity impacts Latino voting behavior. I argue that the presence of a Latino candidate mobilizes the Latino electorate, resulting in elevated voter turnout and strong support for the co-ethnic candidates. Although some research provides a theoretical basis for such a claim, this article brings together a comprehensive body of empirical evidence to suggest that ethnicity is salient for Latinos and provides a coherent theory that accounts for the empowering role of co-ethnic candidates. Analysis of recent mayoral elections in five major U.S. cities reveals that Latinos were consistently mobilized by co-ethnic candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What motivates citizens to vote or abstain from voting? What determines vote choice? Models of turnout predominantly focus on a series of factors that affect perceptions of the benefits and costs of voting. The economy's influence on those perceptions has gone largely undeveloped. Models of vote choice routinely account for economic influences while ignoring turnout. This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the role of the economy as mobilizer and demobilizer. I argue that the economy has an impact on turnout decisions and that its impact is asymmetric. All else equal, the incumbent party is able to mobilize more supporters, relative to the non-incumbent party, in good economic times and more supporters are demobilized in adverse economic times. However, Democrats and Republicans are not sensitive to the same elements of economic performance. This is in part a function of the way in which the economy influences perceptions of the closeness of the impending election and of the candidates and their parties. Analysis of pooled data from ANES surveys for the twelve presidential elections from 1956 to 2000 confirms the validity of these arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have invested a great deal of effort in trying to estimate the impact of political campaigns on the public. While progress has been made, one fundamental problem continues to plague our attempts to study campaigns: the lack of good, detailed data about the behaviour of candidates. In the United States, for instance, the presidential battle is a national struggle that unfolds locally on the stages of fifty states, yet most data collection efforts have treated presidential elections as if they were national contests, conducted (implicitly) in an identical manner across the entire country. Using available (national) data as a baseline and theory to predict plausible variations from that baseline, the authors devise a method for simulating variation in presidential campaigns across states and over election years—one of the crucial missing pieces of the puzzle. Their method generates a range of plausible effects, which is often narrow enough to shed light on important hypotheses. It can be employed whenever data are available at a more aggregate level than is desirable. This method is then applied to assess the debate over the impact of attack advertising on turnout. This approach suggests that campaign negativism stimulated (rather than demobilized) turnout in presidential elections from 1980 through 2000. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Media reports of polls indicate how well public opinion polls have been integrated into campaign coverage. This article examines how polls were used in 2004. Although there were relatively limited methodological changes in how polis were conducted in 2004, there were changes in how the polls were treated in the media. Americans in 2004 were subjected to intense debates about polls and to as much reporting about "the polls" as there was of the polls themselves. The discussion of "the polls" in 2004 included claims of electability during the Democratic nominating process, increased reporting about methodological issues, and heightened political criticisms of "the polls." The article concludes with a discussion of the current state and the future of news polling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effects of negative political advertising in American elections. Studies of negative advertising have become unproductively bogged down on the question of whether or not more or less exposure to negative advertising leads to higher or lower turnout. I take a step back in the causal chain by looking at its effect on the kinds of information individuals bring to the voting decision. I present and test a theory that individuals lower in political sophistication gain little or no information from negative advertising. In contrast, higher sophisticates gain a great deal of information. The theory is tested in an experiment and through analysis of American National Election Study (ANES) data. The results are largely confirmatory. Analysis of the ANES data also illustrates that the effects of exposure to negative advertising on information levels differ from, and are more normatively troubling than, those of positive advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the ongoing quest to understand and potentially improve voter turnout, many analysts have focused their attention on political mobilization effects. Some scholars suggest that the failure to engage in widespread personal mobilization efforts has contributed to declining turnout and that a recommitment to mobilization by parties, candidates, and others would reverse the trend. This research explores the effects of face-to-face mobilization efforts in select precincts in a 2001 Boynton Beach, Florida municipal election. Controlling for their past voting history, the face-to-face mobilization effort did increase turnout by about five points. The results suggest that face-to-face mobilization efforts increase turnout—at a huge cost in hours worked—but do so mostly by encouraging intermittent voters to go to the polls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the coordination of the turnout and vote decisions for the U.S. House of Representatives in midterm elections by eligible voters. Definition of coordination; Factors influencing midterm election turnout; Consistency of interelection changes with the theory of surge and decline.

This article focuses on the two crises of election quantification in the U.S. In the first, the Census Bureau wanted to estimate counts in certain areas. They were convinced that this would provide a more accurate count than mailed forms. In the second, the U.S. 2000 elections, it became clear that poor, democratic, multi-ethnic areas were not going to have their votes well counted, since they were using outmoded vote-counting equipment, based on punch-card technology. In both cases, there were strong statistical reasons for preferring an estimate to a count. Still, in both cases, a party political divide aligned the purity of numbers with the Republican right and a faith in statistics with the Liberal left.

Examines the voter turnout of the Latino population in 1996 using a post-election survey in California, Florida and Texas. Use of multivariate models of Latino turnout; Lower validated Latino voting population turnout compared to aggregate turnout for the 1996 election; Need for mobilization efforts in eradicating the turnout gap in the Latino community.

Analyzes the effect of political expertise on principled political thought in the United States. Use of data from the 1990 and 1992 National Election Study surveys; Influence of core beliefs and values on social and political preferences; Use of principles as an expertise model for making public opinions.

Examines the accessibility of ideological and partisan orientations as factors affecting the political capacity of citizens in the context of a study conducted during the 1996 United States election campaign. Problematic capabilities of citizens; Use of ideology and partisanship as decision making devices; Attitude accessibility as a factor in the exercise of reasoning.

Examines the effect of abolishing the U.S. electoral college on voter participation. Issues that influence arguments for or against the electoral college; Discussion of a mathematical equation for voter participation; Voter participation determinants in 1964.

The choices confronting voters in an election involving three or more candidates, as in most recent U.S. presidential primary campaigns, can be conveniently structured in a candidate--issue matrix. Indeed, the news media often use this semigraphic display to summarize candidates' positions on key issues. This article introduces a set of techniques intended to derive the structure underlying the various candidates and their positions on issues in an election campaign. None of these new techniques-which might collectively be called candidate issue analysis-will generate information not already contained in a version of the candidate--issue matrix, Because of the arrangement of many such matrices, however, including virtually all of those found in the popular media, much of the underlying structure tends to be obscured so that the political implications are lost. The techniques of candidate--issue analysis also resemble certain existing techniques, particularly cumulative scaling and cluster bloc analysis. This chapter is not intended, however, as yet another application of existing modes of analysis to new subject matter. Rather, it is an effort to derive precisely those techniques that best exploit the substantive political information contained in a candidate--issue matrix.

Using data from the 1964, 1968, and 1972 American national election studies, this report raises serious questions about the validity of the "salience-of-politics" hypothesis that has been invoked to account for the dramatic growth of mass ideological consistency since the late 1950s. A reconceptualization of the consistency construct along liberal-conservative lines and a more refined analysis of the effect of education suggests that the rising level of educational attainment in the mass public may be the major factor explaining long-term trends in the structure of American political ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]