Other analyses, which look at whether it makes a difference if incumbents are on the ballot or not, return inconclusive results (e.g. In the 2020 Presidential elections, 51% of electorates between 18-24 years voted as compared to 76% of those between 65-74 years. In 2014, nearly 59 percent of Maine voters turned out to vote, which was tops in the nation. 6 Mandatory Voting and Electoral Participation in Brazil, 19862006, Nine Second-order National Elections: A Conceptual Framework for the Analysis of European Election Results, Institutional Stimuli and Individual Response as Explanations of Turnout: The 2009 EP Election, A Deeper Look at the ProportionalityTurnout Nexus, Competition and Turnout Revisited: The Importance of Measuring Expected Closeness Accurately, Does Electoral Manipulation Discourage Voter Turnout? 5, Table 5 Summary of the Effect of Development on Electoral Turnout. In the 2020 election particularly, the rapid changes in how elections were administered, due to the pandemic, resulted in particularly heated discussions over election reforms and their effects. Grofman and Selb Reference Grofman and Selb2011). Public Opinion Quarterly 56: 77 - 86. The Hub caught up with Honig to discuss the impacts on turnout, voter behavior, and the logistics of holding elections during a pandemic. Fourth, my study highlights that the influence of many of the predictors of turnout that have been recently added to turnout studies such as corruption or income inequalities vary from study to study; thus my study suggests more context-specific analyses. Because the CPS already has a rich set of demographic information about each voter and has been conducted for decades, this is often the best source of data. The vote is one of civic obligation that citizens must follow for their civil liberties and rights. It might underestimate turnout if the number of non-eligible residents (e.g. In this Middle Eastern country, around 25 per cent of the inhabitants are non-nationals (e.g. More than half of those ages 45 to 64 also cast a ballot. Henderson and McEwen Reference Henderson and McEwen2010). In contrast, the empirical record for other predictors of electoral participation such as the electoral system type, the number of parties or electoral closeness does not provide any clear relationship. One consequence of the secret ballot is the inability to directly tie demographic factors to an actually recorded vote. Does it signify that the literature has not evolved over the past decade? Corrected registration figures. If your target persona for GOTV is young people, I have bad news. In the over 130 models in which the variable is used, it is positively and statistically significantly related to turnout in all but four cases (e.g. Voter turnout in counties with a 75% nonwhite population declined by 1.5% more in states that just adopted strict ID laws than in states that did not. High voter turnout is often considered to be desirable, though among political scientists and economists specialising in public choice, the issue is still debated. Since then, every presidential election has seen a higher turnout of women than mentypically a 3-4% gap. This meta-analysis proceeds as follows. Data for the voting-age population and the number of individuals who voted in national parliamentary elections can be retrieved from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2013). There are a lot of factors that affect voter turnout in the United States race, income, education, electoral competitiveness, the list goes on and on. VAP turnout can either underestimate or overestimate turnout. Advertisement They also controlled for other state laws . This indicates that lowering the voting age might not be as detrimental as some studies assume (e.g. Often, states and news sources will provide turnout numbers that use registration as the denominator. However, it is much higher than mayoral elections, which can get a 26% average turnout rate. Table 3 indicates that neither of the two hypotheses applies. Similar to other variables discussed, development is operationalized by multiple indicators in the sample at hand, ranging from various measurements of GDP per capita (e.g. Education and its relation to turnout are among the most widely studied and crucial factors of voting rates. With different states instituting voting laws, voter turnout seems to be on the decline, Therefore, the Judiciary Act of 1789 was ruled unconstitutional and therefore established the basis of judicial review. In The Republicans Should Pray for Rain: Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections the authors sought to answer a two part research question. The estimated VEP in 2020 was 239.4 million, compared to an estimated VAP of 257.6 million. Political participation can be Dahlberg, Stefan Race and ethnicity are significant factors in this. } Why would early voting decrease turnout? Levine and Lopez Reference Levine and Lopez2002). Gherghina, Sergiu 115 By 2012, 52.7 percent of this group was registered to vote. In the 10 studies that employ the indicator, 17 of 28 models returned the expected negative relationship between non-automatic voter registration and lower turnout (e.g. Younger people are less likely to turn out to vote than when they turn old. Australia uses Alternative Voting (AV), AV is where voters are asked to rank their preference for the candidates from 1, 2, 3 etc. and In the 2012 United States Presidential election 58.2 percent of the registered voters turnout out to vote (IDEA). The VRS, which is administered every November in even-numbered years, asks respondents whether they voted in the most recent election. Two other factors are commonly cited as having an impact on turnout: literacy and urbanisation. Third, I summarize the status of turnout studies and provide some avenues for future research. This manual search limited the overall number of articles to 135 and returned slightly over 600 regression models, which make up the corpus of this meta-analysis. I adopt a somewhat different research strategy. district magnitude, dummy variables for various electoral system types), ethnic fractionalization, female empowerment (e.g. The study's authors controlled for a wide variety of factors known to affect voter turnout -- age, education, income, marital status, etc. However, measuring turnout can be more difficult than it first appears, which means that understanding how and why it fluctuates can also be difficult. 2019. Second, I want to find out whether new predictors of turnout have come to the fore over the past 10 years. 8 More indirectly, close elections should trigger more media coverage and party canvassing two additional factors which should boost turnout (Sderlund et al. This steady decline has been ongoing since experiencing a significant increase in voter turnout from 1948 through 1960. 4 Tyburski, Michael D. dummies for various types of elections), incidences of protest (also change in incidences of protest), inflation, income inequalities (e.g. Lucas, Jack In contrast, Blais (Reference Blais2006) was rather more prudent. Hostname: page-component-6f888f4d6d-s2b6t In the final part of this section, I also discuss some additional institutional variables that do not feature frequently in turnout models, such as registration requirements, but which might also have some importance in explaining macro-level electoral participation. These databases are ProQuest Political Science, PAIS International, EBSCO International Political Science Abstracts and International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS). For example, some studies are international in scope and use a global perspective (e.g. What Affects Voter Turnout? Burgess, Katrina Mrkenstam, Ulf This more nuanced finding might stem from the fact that my analysis includes more studies and models, in particular more cases from non-Western countries. "useRatesEcommerce": false, How a leaders proposed policies affect one personally is a huge determinant in supporting or opposing them. Although election-specic factors other than turnout have the greatest inuence on who wins an election, variation in turnout signicantly affects vote shares at the county, national, and Electoral College levels. "displayNetworkMapGraph": false, The state of the economy could play a . First, they're considered a measure of the health of a democracy, so higher turnout is always better than lower turnout. The number of parties that win seats is another relatively widely used indicator in turnout models (e.g. Can particular election reforms such as Election Day registration, vote-by-mail, early voting, photo ID, etc., have an effect on voter turnout? Differences between voters and non-voters on other issues such as foreign policy are much less pronounced. Republic of Ireland uses AV voting, Rain: Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections, Brad T. Gomez, Thomas G. Hansford and George A. Krause tackle on an idea that many believed to be a true statement for many decades. Researchers for the National Bureau of Economic Research found that between 2008 and 2016, voter ID laws had "no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any specific group . Hence this meta-analysis illustrates that neither of the two hypotheses seems to apply. Socio-economic characteristics also affect voter turnout. We look at the relationship between age and voter turnout in further detail in the section What age group is more likely to vote?, Read Next: The SMS Strategy Guide to Improve Young Voter Turnout. A Review Article/Meta-Analysis Reference Stokes, Dunning, Nazareno and Brusco, Reference Burns, Lehman Schlozman and Verba, Reference Stockemer, LaMontagne and Scruggs, $$N\,{\equals}\,{1 \over {\mathop{\sum}\nolimits_{i\,{\equals}\,1}^n {p_{i}^{2} } }}$$, The European Voter: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, Individual Characteristics, Institutional Incentives and Electoral Abstention in Western Europe, The Introduction of Voter Registration and Its Effect on Turnout, NGOs and Political Participation in Weak Democracies: Subnational Evidence on Protest and Voter Turnout from Bolivia, Do Political Parties Matter for Turnout: Number of Parties, Electoral Rules and Local Elections in Brazil and Bolivia, Decline of U.S. Voter Turnout: Structural Explanations, The Paradox of Proportional Representation: The Effect of Party Systems and Coalitions on Individuals Electoral Participation, People Who Have Their Tickets But Do Not Use Them: Motor Voter, Registration, and Turnout Revisited, The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation, Explaining Voter Turnout: A Meta-Analysis of National and Subnational Elections, Strategic Campaigning, Closeness, and Voter Mobilization in U.S. Presidential Elections, Violence, Bribery and Fraud: The Political Economy of Elections in Sub-Saharan Africa, Voter Turnout in the Indian States: An Empirical Analysis, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, The Return of the American Voter? A third type of study (e.g. Jrme, Bruno The only component of the formula which is missing across countries is the percentage of disenfranchised individuals. Analysts say Maine and other states with consistently high voter-turnout rates, such as Minnesota and Wisconsin, typically have a better-educated electorate as well as fewer impediments between the voter and the ballot box. Lets look at them next. I suggest three directions for future research: (1) studies should be more context specific; (2) they should engage in systematic comparisons; and (3) they should focus on measurement. Henderson and McEwen Reference Henderson and McEwen2010). 8 Fieldhouse, Edward A. mname Finally, some regional or local studies (e.g. We saw the three cleavages affecting voter turnout, which were a mix of internal and external factors. Both modernization theories (e.g. Ease of voting. A document, which was not created right after the Revolution War, was won by the colonies over the British Empire. Gavri, Alexandru POLI 6001 Research Design In the 2012 elections, Black voters had the highest turnout overtaking White voters for the first time in history. This results in inconsistent measurements across states due to inconsistent practices, policies, and/or laws around the maintenance of their voter registration lists. 2019. Contact email: daniel.stockemer@uottawa.ca. In 2008, average voter turnout in the United States was about 40 percent. Nonprofit fundraising guide Our analysis found that youth voter turnout was highest (57%), and had the largest increases over 2016, in states that automatically mailed ballots to voters. Finally, the meta-analysis confirms that more stringent registration laws lower turnout. The level of citizens' anger toward government policies and politicians during a crisis connects to the "angry voter effect," which hypothesizes that anger stimulates voter mobilization more than any other emotion. Your work focuses on the effects this pandemic has had on . Over the years there has been significant, meticulous research done to try to pinpoint the cause of the decline in voter turnout over years. socioeconomic status: how much money you and your family make . The comparatively low turnout among minorities can at least partially be attributed to such laws. Brown and Wedeking Reference Brown and Wedeking2006; Wagner et al. Figure 2 shows turnout rates in the 2020 election for each state. The likelihood of a person voting is directly related to their income and wealth, making them two crucial factors in determining voter turnout. For example, Elgie and Fauvelle-Aymar (Reference Elgie and Fauvelle-Aymar2012) argue that data availability should guide the selection of any of the two measures; Geys (Reference Geys2006) indicates that there is no decisive argument in favour of one or the other alternative. This is a presentation to help explain the impacts of certain factors that affect voter turnout. If you are targeting this group, you will need more persistent canvassing, persuasion, and GOTV strategies (guides given below). System Status, What affects voter turnout is a question dear to many political campaigns and pundits. The biggest jump was recorded in Hawaii,. Call Center Campaigns Lower turnout, in turn, benefits organized groups in politics. Camacho, Mximo Cancela and Geys (2016) highlight that there is variation in the predictors of turnout between different levels (e.g. Women vote, and they play a major role in deciding elections. Endersby and Krieckhaus Reference Endersby and Krieckhaus2008), whereas others employ a regional or even country-specific focus (e.g. the local, regional, national and sub-national level). Age and voter turnout. We care about turnout levels for two reasons. first-order versus second-order elections). ", Riker, William H., and Peter C. Ordeshook. In fact, 56 per cent of the models reject the notion that close elections are beneficial for turnout. Theoretically, there are strong arguments why proportional representation in large districts should trigger higher turnout. Others (e.g. Circumstantial and election-specific variables are the least frequently used variables in turnout models. Rational choice theories would predict that the greater the likelihood that an individuals vote will count, the smaller the gap between the two leading candidates or parties (Grofman Reference Grofman1993: 94). Other proxy variables for important elections confirm this finding. Comunicado de prensa. For each category, I try to cluster all relevant indicators according to their encompassing concepts (e.g. Hi! As a result, estimates of turnout rates based on surveys will be higher than those based on administrative records. electoral manipulation, World Bank corruption indicators), crime rates, economic contraction, economic growth, development (e.g. The literature somewhat supports the majoritarian perspective. There are no federal regulations governing political parties in the United . Elections that occur in odd-numbered years and at times other than November typically have significantly lower turnout rates than the ones shown on the graph. American Journal of Political Science 40: 498 - 513. is the square of each partys proportion of all seats. Understanding what affects voter turnout means knowing the root cause to tackle when strategizing mobilization campaigns. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting.". number of people per square kilometre), presence of regional parties, presence of regional languages, possibility of e-mail voting, possibility of mail voting, ratio number of registered voters to the number of voting stations, redistricting, respect for human rights, size of the electorate, size of indigenous populations, size of the geographical unit in which the election takes place, size of the parliament, size of the state product in the energy sector, size of young voters in the electorate, social stratification, time to next election, trust in parties, type of welfare state, unicameralism, unemployment, union density, voter registration laws, voting machines, weekend voting, years of membership in international organizations such as the EU, years of democratic experience, years of universal suffrage. Other variables such as weekday or weekend voting are included in only a few studies. According to the United States Election Project, which tracks voting trends, only 36 percent of registered voters cast ballots during the 2014 election cycle, the lowest turnout in a general. Informative: When you identify supporters and share information about your campaign with them. First, the fact that the influence of many factors (e.g. This review article has fulfilled several purposes. Voter turnout is an area that is near and dear to me because the opportunity to voice our opinions through voting is a civil responsibility and ultimately our first opportunity to be involved in the political system. However, VAP includes individuals who are ineligible to vote, such as non-citizens and those disfranchised because of felony convictions. I am a writer at CallHub, showing political campaigns, businesses, and not-for-profit organizations how to embed tech into communications. For example, seven studies use population density or urbanization in their turnout models. However, RV turnout and VAP turnout are different measures of electoral participation. 2013. 2017. McGregor, R. Michael Yamamura Reference Yamamura2011) introduce various measures of ethnic fractionalization. The importance of confidence in the American Voter fatigue. We saw the three cleavages affecting voter turnout, which were a mix of internal and external factors. For instance, the county in which voters live may affect wages and voter turnout, although wages may affect . This is assuming that with age, one tends to become more. We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. In order to achieve their american dream they have to start somewhere, whether it's mowing lawns, working in construction, or illegally working in a restaurant. Sometimes we want to measure the turnout rates of groups of voters, or study the factors that lead individual citizens to vote. Now lets look at other determinants of what affects voter turnout. In the 2016 election, 63% of women and 59% of men reported voting. This explainer was last updated on April 28, 2021. Many partisan advocacies and groups have protested against such laws, citing discrimination against minorities. The highest turnout was among over 65 . With the number of voters determined, we can now discuss the selection of the denominator to calculate the turnout rate. Political Campaign Tools Third, the recent wave of turnout studies has brought new variables to the fore, such as religion, thus increasing the list of possible predictors for macro-level turnout. Table 1 Summary of the Effect of Compulsory Voting on Turnout. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The literature has brought to the fore many new and possibly important predictors of turnout (e.g. The majority of these studies report a negative effect that is, turnout is higher in rural regions (e.g. Hence, it seems that the type of electoral system is no longer as strongly related to electoral participation as some studies assume (e.g. After my researches, I found on the voting precinct, 2.1 About Electoral System Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. A variety of factors can factor into calculations of voter turnout. charging that the law disproportionally affects minority voters. Involved in organizations and groups that engage in mobilization. the log of GDP per capita, or GDP per capita t1) (Steiner Reference Steiner2010), to indicators that gauge the literacy rate, average education, or mean income levels (Diwakar Reference Diwakar2008), to dummy variables for Western, rich or OECD countries (Stockemer and Scruggs Reference Stockemer and Scruggs2012). Essentially, in the USA, a person is more likely to vote if they have others in the family who also vote. Data on migration flows (i.e. In those countries where these groups are not allowed vote (e.g. "shouldUseHypothesis": true, In the end, I hope that this study has provided an overview of the turnout literature and a guide for future research. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. In fact, only electoral closeness features frequently in turnout models. This keeps on going until there is a majority. There is no single reason for the decline in levels of voter engagement, in terms of registration rates and turnout figures, in the UK or elsewhere, but we have received evidence about several factors that are likely to affect people's inclination to vote and also their likelihood to . Green, Donald P., and, Alan S Gerber. Reference Stokes, Dunning, Nazareno and Brusco2013) (see Table 2). What does this mean for the turnout literature? Jan Leighley, a political scientist from the United States, writes that about 80% of high-income earners vote, whereas only ~50% of lower-income groups do. Across all three indicators, less than half of the studies found a positive relationship between development and turnout. One's age, gender, and transportation to the polls is a factor. There are lots of other possible causes for lower voter turnouts. This figure is in stark contrast to many other wealthy democracies in the western world for the same election cycle (IDEA). The statistics mentioned above do not necessarily include the trans community. In contrast, 20 per cent of the electorate is not registered in the Bahamas. Donor Retention On the one hand, the majoritarian perspective, the power theory, posits that high income inequalities should negatively affect turnout (e.g. Voter turnout is not a topic that is new, but it has manifested itself more and more over the years, and it is now a huge topic of discussion in society. 9, Table 9 The Use of RV, VAP and VEP Turnout. These studies have focused on institutional factors such as the electoral system type or compulsory voting (Franklin 2004), socioeconomic factors such as the countrys level of development (Norris Reference Norris2002), as well as circumstantial and election-specific variables such as the competitiveness of the election (Anduiza Reference Anduiza2002). The easiest comparison is with the voting age population (VAP)-that is, the number of people who are 18 and older according to U.S. Census Bureau.
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what factors affect voter turnout