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)
Turnout in municipal elections is even lower than that in presidential elections. Yet the problem has been largely ignored by academicians. In recent years, there have been court challenges under the 1982 Voting Rights Act to majority vote and other than single‐member districting provisions as requirements that are believed to dilute the political impact of minorities. The present analysis presents an overview of our knowledge to date, relating electoral districting and majority vote arrangements to black patterns of participation. It reviews the available literature, traces the associations that exist, identifies the problems in data collection and analysis that are present and sets forth a propositional inventory and set of conclusions that can serve as the basis for future research. The analysis incorporates original data and insights from the author's research and from cities in which he has served as a consultant.
Voter turnout in gubernatorial primary elections varies tremendously from state to state. This analysis hypothesizes that the highly variable turnout is the result of specific circumstances unique to each election and to each state. Using multiple regression analysis, turnout in gubernatorial primaries was examined from 1968 to 1980. The analysis identified five variables that contribute to the variance in turnout across states.
An analysis of the monotonic decline in turnout for American presidential elections since 1960. Data were obtained from surveys conducted by the Survey Research Center of the Center for Political Studies of the University of Michigan. After some common explanations for this decline were examined & rejected, it was discovered that the decline occurred mainly among low-income & low-education whites. Hypotheses that nonvoters abstain because of a desire for an alternative political system were examined, but appropriate data for testing them were unavailable; however, in the 1970s nonvoters were more likely than voters at all income levels to express dissatisfaction with the political system. Nonvoting whites are not always supporters of the Democratic party, & their voting behavior is unpredicatble. Their failure to vote may have an especially significant impact on Democratic party policies, & it implies that palliatives such as reform of voter registration laws may not significantly increase turnout. 4 Tables, 2 Figures. Modified AA.
In this article, we consider the relationship between voter turnout and voter evaluations of the candidates. Using thermometer data and the 1976 voter validation study, we investigate the magnitude of indifference, alienation, and satisfaction effects. Overall, we find candidate-based abstention in 1976 to be minimal, suggesting that nonvoting in American presidential elections must be understood in terms of factors unrelated to parties' choices of nominees.
