Suchergebnisse

Electoral districting and the vote share needed for election are analysed in terms of structural features. Challenges to the majority vote requirement and electoral formats are based on claims arising under the 1982 Voting Rights Act that these arrangements dilute the influence of minority voters. Examines turnout and its racial breakdown to determine whether there is a relationship with the challenged mechanisms. (SJK)

We examine turnout in 324 democratic national lower house elections held in 91 countries, between 1972 and 1995. We rely on Freedom House ratings of political rights to determine whether an election is democratic or not. We distinguish three blocs of factors that affect turnout: the socio-economic environment, institutions, and party systems. We show that turnout is influenced by a great number of factors and that the patterns that have been shown to prevail in studies dealing with more limited samples of countries generally hold when we look at a larger set of democracies. But we also show that the socio-economic environment, which has been downplayed in previous studies, has a substantial impact on turnout. (European Journal of Political Research / FUB)

Political campaigns are just now learning how to put the Internet to best use. Low transaction costs and huge economies of scale tempt campaigns to move traditional activities online, but the effectiveness of virtual campaigns is unknown. This paper conducts 13 field experiments on 232,716 subjects to test whether email campaigns are effective for voter registration and mobilization. Both registration and turnout were unaffected, suggesting that email, while inexpensive, is not cost-effective. Adapted from the source document.

Role of ethnicity, electoral districting, and the vote share needed for election; based on data from six US cities, 1976-86.