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Past voting turnout studies almost always have been static analyses. Usually they have described the relationship between participation rates and the demographic attributes, attitudes, and social experiences of members of the electorate. Since each such study ordinarily is based on a single cross-sectional survey or on statistics referring to the Election Day period alone, both turnout and its determinants are derived at the same point of time, only simultaneous correlations are possible, and the analyst cannot show how turnout is affected by temporally prior conditions.The development of multi-wave panel interviews in modern social research permits the study of attitude change, decision-making, and action over time. By re-interviewing the same respondents at intervals, political sociologists already have discovered much about how voters decide their candidate choices during the course of an election campaign. A panel design permits such process analysis not only of candidate preference but also of turnout and non-voting.

Diff's in voting turnout are the final outcome of continuous soc & psychol'al processes which underlie the expression & the execution of intentions. Men, older voters, & Uc voters express the highest rates of intention, are most likely to carry out an intention to vote, & are most likely to reverse an intention to abstain. In comparison, women, the young, & lower status citizens are weaker in the expression & fulfillment of turnout intentions. These diff's are due to the distribution of motivations, soc influences, & role prescriptions among groups in the electorate. The high-turnout groups are subject to those soc stimuli & att's which are associated with the highest intention rates, the strongest preserving effects on an intention to vote, & the strongest effects generating changes in intentions to abstain. Data were gathered by repeated interviews during the US election of 1950. Modified AA-IPSA.

Statistical relationships in 3 representative nat'l samples of the US electorate were studied through data secured by interviews, shortly after the Presidential elections of 1956 & 1960. TV leaves a more lasting impression than newspapers & radio when conveying reminders to vote. But recollection of TV messages does not appear to have a potency lacking to any other MM: each of them alike is associated with higher turnout than the absence of any recollection. Newspaper reading may be more effective than TV in affecting voting & the fulfilment of intentions to vote. Or, perhaps a more accurate statement is that newspaper reading & TV watching are associated with partly diff modes of life with diff pol'al patterns. When practiced jointly, newspaper reading & TV watching are associated with very high rates of turnout, but TV may `add' less to the combination than newspapers. The association between MM use & turnout distinguishes only between users & non-users: extra hours do not steadily increase voting probabilities. In the age of TV, radio listening has become statistically independent of turnout. Perhaps TV is more effective in stimulating increases in the voting of less pol'ly involved people, but the data are uneven & the same diff'ial effect (if any) may be true of newspaper reading. AA.

Writing about local elections in 1968, Charles R. Adrian and Charles Press report that, "It is not known whether … state and national voting-population characteristics fit municipal voting, too." Although a number of important studies of politics and elections in individual communities have emerged in recent years, the data are far from sufficient to permit more than the most speculative generalizations about the nature of the local electorate. This study draws back the curtain, albeit only a bit, on one aspect of local political participation—voting turnout. The data presented constitute, so far as we know, the first attempt at a comprehensive comparison among American cities with respect to turnout. As will be suggested and become obvious, the breadth of the data is not matched by their depth; data were received from only 80 percent of the 729 cities above 25,000 population in 1962, and we were able to utilize comparative turnout figures from only 282 of these. While relationships are suggested between turnout, political and governmental structure, and characteristics of the population, these relationships must be regarded more as leads to future research, than as clear and unambiguous findings.Previous work by the present authors has pointed to the importance of the political and social variables included in this analysis of American cities. Lee suggested in a study of nonpartisan elections and politics in California cities that nonpartisanship might tend to reduce voter participation. In a study of American cities, this hypothesis was confirmed in a preliminary analysis of the same data used in this article.

Voting turnout tends to be a joint household activity, with the members either voting or staying home as a unit. The amount of joint action greatly exceeds the f's which would occur if married men & women acted independently. Age & SC correlate with the family's collective behavior in the same way as they have long been known to correlate with the individual's turnout. When family consensus develops, it may result partly from the group's strong reinforcement of the individual's corresponding intentions & motivations; or agreement may result partly from the group inducing the individual to abandon contradictory intentions & predispositions. However, complete agreement in voting participation does not develop, because of cases of nonvoting wives. Generally the wives are more changeable than their husbands during the campaign, & also they are more changeable between elections. The data was gathered by interviews with voters during presidential & mid-term elections in the US. IPSA.