Comment on “Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies”

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
National Election ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Eligible Population ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
Panel Effects ◽  
Election Studies

A recent article by Barry Burden inPolitical Analysisalerts us to a steadily increasing gap during presidential election years between self-reported turnout in the NES (National Election Studies) and “official turnout” figures based on the voting-age population (VAP), and points to declining response rates as a culprit. Changing the baseline from the VAP to the VEP (voting-eligible population) significantly changes these conclusions, and point to panel effects as a culprit. The rise in the gap was not linear, but it does emerge rather suddenly in 1996. Gaps between NES self-reported turnout and VEP estimates are higher in presidential election years than in off-years, and self-reported turnout is higher among long-term panel participants than among cross-section respondents in multielection panels.

Internal and External Effects on the Accuracy of NES Turnout: Reply

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Burden
Keyword(s):  
Selection Bias ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
National Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
External Effects ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
Panel Effects

In an earlier issue of this journal I brought attention to the fact that estimates of voter turnout in U.S. presidential elections from the National Election Study (NES) series have been increasingly biased. Although researchers had already noted that the NES overestimated turnout, I was concerned with the growing severity of the problem. While admitting that other factors were at work, my explanation centered on the representativeness of surveys, in particular that selection bias in the sample is correlated with the likelihood of voting (Burden 2000). Martinez (2003) and McDonald (2003) offer three possible additions to my argument. First, panel effects are responsible for particularly egregious discrepancies in a few presidential elections, particularly in the 1996 survey. Second, official turnout statistics that rely on the Voting Age Population (VAP) are themselves biased and lack perfect comparability with the NES. Third, the degree of misreporting might also depend on actual voter turnout.

Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies

2000 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 389-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Burden
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
National Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Bivariate Statistics ◽  
Question Wording ◽  
Linear Fashion ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
House Election ◽  
Election Studies

Though the overreporting of voter turnout in the National Election Study (NES) is widely known, this article shows that the problem has become increasingly severe. The gap between NES and official estimates of presidential election turnout has more than doubled in a nearly linear fashion, from 11 points in 1952 to 24 points in 1996. This occurred because official voter turnout fell steadily from 1960 onward, while NES turnout did not. In contrast, the bias in House election turnout is always smaller and has increased only marginally. Using simple bivariate statistics, I find that worsening presidential turnout estimates are the result mostly of declining response rates rather than instrumentation, question wording changes, or other factors. As more peripheral voters have eluded interviewers in recent years, the sample became more saturated with self-reported voters, thus inflating reported turnout.

Panel Effects in the American National Election Studies

1999 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry M. Bartels
Keyword(s):  
Cross Section ◽  
National Election ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
Dependent Variables ◽  
Panel Attrition ◽  
Panel Conditioning ◽  
Panel Effects ◽  
Different Characteristics ◽  
Election Studies

Parallel panel and fresh cross-section samples in recent National Election Study surveys provide valuable leverage for assessing the magnitude of biases in statistical analyses of survey data due to panel attrition and panel conditioning. My analyses employing a variety of typical regression models suggest that substantial panel biases are likely to be fairly rare in these data, even when panel and cross-section respondents have markedly different characteristics. However, two of the dependent variables considered here—campaign interest and turnout—do appear to be sufficiently sensitive to panel effects to warrant significant discounting or adjustment of panel data. I propose adjustments for panel effects in both cross-sectional and dynamic analyses, based upon variants of the “fractional pooling” (Bartels 1996) and “two-stage auxiliary instrumental variables” (Franklin 1990) methods.

scholarly journals Trump Voters and the White Working Class

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen L. Morgan ◽  
Jiwon Lee
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Election ◽  
Community Surveys ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
White Working Class ◽  
Election Studies

To evaluate the claim that white working-class voters were a crucial block of support for Trump in the 2016 presidential election, this article offers two sets of results. First, self-reports of presidential votes in 2012 and 2016 from the American National Election Studies show that Obama-to-Trump voters and 2012 eligible nonvoters composed a substantial share of Trump’s 2016 voters and were disproportionately likely to be members of the white working class. Second, when county vote tallies in 2012 and 2016 are merged with the public-use microdata samples of the 2012-to-2016 American Community Surveys, areal variations across 1,142 geographic units that sensibly partition the United States show that Trump’s gains in 2016 above Romney’s performance in 2012 are strongly related to the proportion of the voting population in each area that was white and working class. Taken together, these results support the claim that Trump’s appeal to the white working class was crucial for his victory.

scholarly journals Young Voters after the 2008 Election: A Disappearing Act?

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priscilla Southwell
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Barack Obama ◽  
National Election ◽  
Young Voters ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
2008 Election ◽  
Election Studies

<p>This study examines the decline in voter turnout among young voters between the 2008 and 2012 elections. Our findings suggest that those young voters who dropped out of the electorate in 2012 were more likely to express feelings of alienation, as measured by the American National Election Studies indices of trust and efficacy. Such “dropout” voters were also more likely to have voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. These findings are crucial, as the level of alienation in the 2016 election appears to be even higher, and may influence the outcome of the election.</p>

scholarly journals Compulsory Voting, Identity, and Nation Building - The Importance of the Compulsory Vote

Federalism-E ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-49
Author(s):  
Joel Holdaway
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
National Election ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Compulsory Voting ◽  
The World ◽  
Voting Age ◽  
Registered Voters ◽  
Registered Voter

One hundred twenty five euros. This is the fine that Belgian citizens are liable for if they abstain from voting more than once in a national election.1 Not surprisingly, voter turnout in Belgium is one of the highest in the world and amongst the top three in industrialized liberal democracies. Between 1978 and 1999, the average voter turnout for registered voters in Belgium was ninety-three percent and the average turnout for those of voting age was eighty-seven percent.2 This marks a clear departure from regimes such as France, wherein the registered voter turnout for the legislative elections during the same period was seventy-one percent3 [...]

The Municipal Voter: Voting and Nonvoting in City Elections

1971 ◽  
Vol 65 (4) ◽  
pp. 1135-1140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard D. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
National Election ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Municipal Elections ◽  
Socioeconomic Variables ◽  
Data Support ◽  
General Proposition ◽  
Election Studies

The few case studies of participation in local elections display distinct patterns, but the measurements lack comparability with each other or with national election voting studies. By application of the methodology, variables, and categories of the presidential election studies to a Toledo city election, the composition of the electorate is compared with that in presidential elections and some sharp contrasts which appear to have significant implications are observed. Some data calculated from Merriam and Gosnell's classic Non-Voting reveal some developments since 1923. From two prominent characteristics of municipal elections, nonpartisan form and low turnout, a few hypotheses about participation in city elections are deduced and examined. The data support the general proposition that most of the psychological, demographic, and socioeconomic variables display comparable amplitudes in city and presidential elections, but their significance is much greater in city elections, because the low voting level makes their impact proportionately greater.

Rights and Tolerance Support in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1992–2016

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 424-445
Author(s):  
Clem Brooks ◽  
Kyle Dodson
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
White Identity ◽  
National Election ◽  
Large Influence ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Voter Choice ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Evidence

Do attitudes toward issues such as abortion, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) rights, and tolerance of diversity matter to U.S. voters and elections? Scholarship on rights and tolerance support has failed to take into account the potentially confounding influence of racial resentment as a factor behind voter choice. This is a serious limitation that we seek to address with American National Election Studies data for presidential elections from 1992 through 2016. We bring together for the first time rights and tolerance support and racial resentment, alongside further consideration of anti-immigrant sentiments and white identity. Racial resentment and anti-immigrant sentiments shape the behavior of voters, but there is new evidence for the large influence of rights and tolerance attitudes, including with respect to the 2016 presidential election. The results suggest a growing dependence of Democratic candidates on high levels of rights and tolerance support. We discuss implications for theory and research on voter choice.

Does Survey Participation Increase Voter Turnout? Re-examining the Hawthorne Effect in the Swedish National Election Studies

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Persson
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Treatment Effect ◽  
Causal Effect ◽  
Data File ◽  
National Election ◽  
Hawthorne Effect ◽  
Long Term Effects ◽  
High Propensity ◽  
Survey Participation ◽  
Election Studies

A Hawthorne effect found in election studies is that pre-election survey participation increases voter turnout. Using the Swedish National Election Studies, Granberg and Holmberg (1992) showed evidence in support of this effect. However, their findings have been criticized and more recent studies have failed to find any treatment effect of pre-election survey participation (cf. Mann 2005). This study re-examines an updated version of Granberg and Holmberg's time-series cumulative data file covering eight additional election studies (for a total of 14 election studies from 1960 to 2010). These studies have an experimental component, since half of the sample was randomly assigned to be interviewed before the election and the other half after the election. By comparing validated turnout in the pre-election sample with the post-election sample, it is possible to estimate the causal effect of survey participation on voter turnout. The results show that participating in the pre-election survey indeed has a significant and positive effect on voter turnout. Moreover, this article evaluates whether the treatment effect is unevenly distributed in the population. Results show that citizens with a low propensity to vote are more affected by taking part in election studies than citizens with a high propensity to vote. The study also estimates the long-term effects of survey participation. Results show that participating in an election survey can have significant effects on voter turnout several years later.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document