In this research, I undertake an analysis of the relationship between aggregate voter turnout and income inequality within late-modern capitalist democracies to better understand the problem of declining voter turnout in these societies. I analyse this relationship at the sub-national level using provincial-level Canadian data and at the national level through a sample of twenty-one nations. At both levels, cross-sectional time-series regression analyses of pooled data are applied. Findings are interpreted through a citizenship lens; specifically the work of T.H. Marshall (1950) and Esping-Andersen (1990), as both social and political inclusion are fundamental and constitutive elements of citizenship. Initial findings include a statistically significant negative relationship between income inequality and voter turnout, for both provincial and federal general elections in Canada (1976-2011); this relationship is also found at the national level in a sample of older democracies (1980-2013). The relationship holds using various measures of income inequality including the Gini coefficient and a range of income ratios. However, once time is controlled for in the model this relationship seems to disappear. This suggests a lack of support for the theory that income inequality has a direct impact on participation in the exercise of political power. Rather, a more fundamental factor or factors seem to be causing these societal shifts. I discuss alternate ways of understanding this relationship, including how declining voter turnout and income inequality might be related to the broader socio-political and economic changes associated with economic globalisation and the global spread of neo-liberal fiscal policies. I conclude that to better understand the relationship between voter turnout and income inequality further research is required. / Graduate / 0630 / stewartl@uvic.ca

State laws disenfranchising felons and ex-felons have existed in many American states since before the Civil War. However, in the aftermath of the Civil War, new, more severe restrictions were passed as part of the Jim Crowe Era laws aimed at preventing black citizens from exercising their new rights. While many of these laws were eventually stricken down by Supreme Court decisions, felon disenfranchisement provisions survived scrutiny. This opened the door for white backlash against the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and ‘70s to manifest itself via the development of the massive prison industrial system over the last 40 years. This paper’s inquiry is focused on the political consequences of the huge racial discrepancies in criminal justice outcomes in the United States, specifically on whether the disenfranchisement of felons and ex-felons depresses turnout among eligible black voters. I use an analysis of black voter turnout and its relationship to the severity of state disenfranchisement laws from 1980 through 2016 to explore three hypotheses related to these effects. The results suggest that, when all or most ex-felons are disenfranchised, the resulting dilution of the political efficacy and power of the communities into which they re-enter depresses turnout among eligible black voters in those communities. Additionally, I find evidence of significant depression in eligible black turnout in Southern states, suggesting the need for further investigation into the perpetuation of racial inequalities in specific geographic loci in the United States.

abstract: A large amount of research examines the effect of partisan polarization on the institution of Congress, yet we know remarkably little about this political phenomenon’s precise effect on the political behavior of the American electorate. Some scholars argue that polarization is healthy for democracy because it allows political elites to send clear cues to the mass public, but other scholars postulate that polarization is bad for democracy. Decades of research on voter turnout resulted in a vast accumulation of knowledge on the subject. However, scholars must pay greater attention to data collection and measurement strategies because the prevalent technique to quantify voter turnout artificially deflates participation rates. I take two paths to uncover the effects of partisanship on the decision to vote. From the micro perspective, I utilize a variety of partisanship measures based on survey data. From the aggregate perspective, I argue that calculating voter turnout based on the voting eligible population (VEP) is a superior measurement strategy to other techniques. I adoopt a VEP measure of voter turnout for state-wide races (1994-2010). The results suggest that polarization is an important factor that increases voter turnout at both the individual and aggregate levels. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Political Science 2016

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / I address state voter identification laws and test to see if they cause lower voter turnout. My hypothesis states a significance that voter ID laws have in determining voter turnout in each state’s election. The focus is on each of the fifty states elections and examines them from 2000 through 2016. With voter ID laws being the independent variable and turnout a control variable, the study was able to determine a statistical significance between the two. There is no readily available data table for voter ID laws, the table created will advance any further research done within voter ID laws.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis examines the use of ballot initiatives at the state level to determine whether the presence of certain types of ballot initiatives cause an increase in voter turnout at the state level. This study is unique in that rather than focusing on individual level voting behavior to explain why an individual may or may not be more likely to vote with the inclusion of ballot initiatives, I focus on aggregate level data to answer the following questions: do certain types of ballot initiatives have an effect on voter turnout? If so, how large is the effect? Collecting data from all ballot initiatives that appeared in the United States from 1998-2014, my research disputes the conventional wisdom that ballot initiatives have any effect on voter turnout during a presidential election. However, my research shows a four percent increase in turnout when any initiative appears on the ballot and a nearly five percent increase in voter turnout when an initiative concerning same-sex marriage appeared on the ballot during a non-presidential year election.

Past studies concerning the effects of economic conditions on voter perceptions have tended to generalize their findings to the entire national electorate. Such generalizations fail to account for the different ideologies, lifestyles, and economic conditions that exist from state to state. In the current study, I compare the effects of subjective financial evaluations with the effects of objective economic indicators on voter perceptions and turnout in the state of Mississippi. The purpose is to determine the extent to which past findings on the national level hold up on the state level, with Mississippi as the subject of analysis. Using data from the Mississippi Poll and employing a logistic regression method, the findings show that Mississippian‟s perceptions of political figures are more strongly influenced by subjective financial evaluations. Voter turnout, on the other hand, was more strongly influenced by objective economic indicators than personal financial satisfaction.

This paper investigates economic inequality and voter turnout in a sample of 21 industrialized democracies using a pooled time series model of elections from 1970 to 1999. The findings demonstrate a connection between inequality and voter turnout wherein increases in inequality lead to reductions in voter turnout. The ramifications for democratic accountability and representative democracy are discussed.

In this study, I investigate how the issue of immigration affects Latino voter turnout. I hypothesize that U.S. Latino citizens who view immigration as highly important and helpful to the United States will be more likely to turn out to vote in midterm and presidential elections. In addition to a contextual analysis on elections in Arizona and California, I perform a probit regression analysis on survey data from Pew Hispanic's 2004 National Survey of Latinos on Politics and Civic Participation. The results are mixed with respect to the initial expectations. While respondents who view immigration as important and helpful are more likely to turn out than those who view immigration as important and hurtful, the results suggest that respondents who find immigration as unimportant may not be less likely to turn out. Further, there are some differences between Latino subgroups, although these differences are minor. Ultimately, the hypotheses presented in this study find moderate support.

Compared to most Western democracies, voter turnout in the United States is consistently lower. Individuals from disadvantaged groups such as the poor are also less likely to vote than more affluent citizens. To counteract these trends, American state governments since the 1970s have adopted election reform laws (early voting, no-excuse absentee or mail voting, and Same Day Registration [SDR] voting) to make voting easier for the citizen. Paradoxically, most research on election reform laws has found that these laws have a minimal effect on turnout, and do not reduce disparities between more and less advantaged voting groups. This study argues that past studies have not properly accounted for features of a state’s electoral system – combinations of voting reform laws, election administration, and history of turnout – that structure the impacts of these laws on turnout. The goal of this research is to re-evaluate the performance of these election reform laws by contextualizing the laws in a state’s electoral system. This study makes several unique contributions to the literature on election reform laws. First, convenience voting laws and state election administration are reframed as components of the overall accessibility of a state’s electoral system. Using a policy feedback framework, this reframing recognizes how citizens, political campaigns, and accessible electoral systems shape turnout. The study then evaluates the effects of accessible electoral systems on overall turnout, and turnout among the poor. Additionally, this project analyzes how these laws structure the mobilization strategies of political campaigns. Finally, this research utilizes two large datasets containing millions of respondents from all fifty American states (Catalist and the Cooperative Congressional Election Study) with advanced statistical methods to assess the effects of these laws at the individual level in the 2008-2014 midterm and presidential elections. After controlling for the accessibility of state electoral systems, this research finds that convenience voting laws do increase turnout, encourage participation from the least likely voting groups, motivate campaigns to mobilize voters, and reduce turnout inequality.

Voter participation among Saskatchewans citizens has decreased in both federal and provincial elections, especially in the past decade or so, and especially among 18-24 year olds. Provincially, turnout has fallen almost 20 percentage points over a four-year period. Saskatchewan voter turnout in federal elections has fallen almost 15 percentage points in a similar time period. The purpose of this thesis is to uncover potential factors that might help to explain why turnout has decreased so markedly. Though a number of factors exist to explain why fewer citizens are participating on election day, this thesis has worked to seek out the explanation in two forms. First, taking into account the civic literacy theory of Henry Milner, this thesis has examined Saskatchewans junior and senior high school curricula in an effort to find changes in the way civics has been taught. Marked changes have iv been found, and differences in the prescribed teaching of civics throughout the years point to the possibility that the way in which civics is taught to students may have an effect on whether they feel a duty or obligation to vote. Second, this thesis has, following the social capital theory of Robert Putnam, concluded through a brief survey of membership numbers in a small number of community and volunteer organizations as well as church attendance and volunteer levels that community involvement may also be a factor in deciding whether to vote. This thesis has concluded that more, duty-oriented civic education is needed in Saskatchewans junior and senior high schools in order to ensure that students leaving the education system feel an obligation to participate on election day and in the community more than they are presently.