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Registration Deadlines and Turnout in Context

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the effect of registration deadlines on voter turnout. The theoretical explanation considers how registration deadlines affect turnout when individuals influence the participation of others. The theoretical model leads to a novel empirical hypothesis, that deadlines can have both a direct and indirect effect on turnout through a behavioral contagion process. The paper reports empirical findings that confirm the theoretical expectations. These results have important implications for future research on registration deadlines and Election Day registration as the effects of these reforms depend on the specific social context in which they are adopted.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. This is not the only possible mechanism by which individuals lead one another to vote. Other observational studies have also found that individuals are an important source of political information (e.g. Leighley 1996; Lake and Huckfeldt 1998; Cassel 1999) and involvement in social groups has been found to enhance civic skills and efficacy which are also positively related to turnout (Beck, Dalton, Greene, and Huckfeldt 2002; McClurg 2004, 2006).

  2. Additional details of the simulation and alternative specifications are presented in Sects. A1 and A2 of the electronic supplementary material.

  3. As discussed in the electronic supplementary material, the probabilities were varied and the results were similar across a range of values.

  4. The thresholds were specifically drawn from a uniform distribution bound between zero and one. The parameters of the uniform distribution were chosen to match the minimum and maximum possible values of the neighborhood turnout rates. Section A2 of the electronic supplementary material reports alternative simulations which do not alter the substantive findings.

  5. Section A2 of the electronic supplementary material reports alternative simulations which allowed the contagion process to operate indefinitely (only stopped once no individual changed their behavior for several iterations). The simulations produced substantively similar results.

  6. Section A3 of the electronic supplementary material includes details of the data and measures and Sect. A4 of the electronic supplementary material discusses alternative analyses. The results shown in the electronic supplementary material support substantively similar conclusions.

  7. More specifically, competitiveness is the ratio of votes cast for the winner to the sum of votes cast for the winner and closest competitor.

  8. These are shown in the latter part of Sect. A4 of the electronic supplementary material.

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Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Randy Batsell, Keith Hamm, Mark Jones, Beth Miller, Mike McDonald, Bob Stein, Randy Stevenson and the reviewers and editors for helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, University of Alabama, Box 870213, Tuscaloosa, AL, 35487, USA

    Greg Vonnahme

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  1. Greg Vonnahme
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Correspondence to Greg Vonnahme.

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Vonnahme, G. Registration Deadlines and Turnout in Context. Polit Behav 34, 765–779 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-011-9174-9

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