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1. Even if you Have Nothing Nice to Say, Go Ahead and Say it:
Two Field Experiments Testing Negative Campaign Tactics
Principal Investigators: Kevin Arceneaux, Temple University and David Nickerson, Notre Dame University
2. From the Horse's Mouth: A Dialogue
Between Politicians and College Students
Principal Investigator: Christopher Beem, The
Johnson Foundation
3.Young Voters and the Web of Politics:
Pathways to Participation in the Youth Engagement and
Electoral Campaign Web Spheres
Principal Investigators: W. Lance Bennett and Mike
Xenos, University of Washington
4. "Young Voters and the Web of Politics 2004: The Youth Political Web Sphere Comes of Age."
Principal Investigators: W. Lance Bennett and Mike Xenos, University of Washington
5."Best Practices in Nonpartisan
Youth Voter Mobilization"
Principal Investigator: Carolyn Darrow, Youth Vote Coalition
6."Civic Engagement and the Canvass"
Principal Investigator: Dana Fisher, Columbia University
7. "Easier Voting Methods Boost Youth
Turnout"
Principal Investigator: Mary Fitzgerald, Mary Washington
University
8. "Getting Out the Youth Vote in Local
Elections: Results from Six Door-to-Door Canvassing Experiments"
Principal Investigators: Donald P. Green, A. Whitney Griswold
Professor of Political Science, Yale University and Alan
S. Gerber, Professor of Political Science, Yale University
Project
9. "The Effects of an Election Day
Voter Mobilization Campaign Targeting Young Voters"
Principal Investigator: Donald P. Green, A. Whitney Griswold
Professor of Political Science, Yale University
10."Technology and Politics: Incentives
for Youth Participation"
Principal Investigators: Shanto Iyengar and Simon Jackman
11. "Voter Turnout Among College Students"
Principal Investigator: Richard Niemi,
University of Rochester
and Mike Hamner, Georgetown University
12.“Getting Out the Vote among Asian Americans and Latinos in Southern California ”
Principal Investigators: Ricardo Ramirez and Janelle S. Wong, University of Southern California
13. "Field Experiments Testing the Effects of Voter Contacting"
Principal Investigators: Daron Shaw, University of Texas and James Gimpel, University of Maryland
14. "Throwing a Better Party: Mobilizing
Institutions and the Youth Vote" & "The
Fountain of Youth: Political Parties and the Mobilization
of Young Americans"
Principal Investigator: Daniel M. Shea, Allegheny College
15. The Dangers of Self-Reports of Political Behavior:
Observational v. Experimental Evidence
Principal Investigator: Lynn Vavreck, University of California at Los Angeles
16. "How Postregistration Laws Affect
the Turnout of Registrants"
Principal Investigator: Raymond Wolfinger, University
of California, Berkeley
See also
"Mobilizing the Latino Youth Vote"
and "Getting
Out the Vote Among Asian Pacific American Young Adults
in Los Angeles County: A Field Experiment"on
the Race, Gender and Immigrant Status page. Also see "
The Political Participation of College Students, Working Students and Working Youth " on the Higher Education page.
"Even if you Have Nothing Nice to Say, Go Ahead and Say it:
Two Field Experiments Testing Negative Campaign Tactics"
Principal Investigators: Kevin Arceneaux, Temple University and David Nickerson, Notre Dame University
Project Summary
..................................
Considerable research indicates that personal contact from political campaigns can mobilize people to vote, but little attention has been given to the tone of the personal contact. Studies of tone have been confined to mass media campaigns and ignored the growing role grassroots techniques play in contemporary political campaigns. This paper weds the two literatures by asking whether personally delivered negative campaign messages are more effective than similar positive messages. Two randomized field experiments were conducted to determine the importance of message tone in campaign contact. Neither experiment uncovered a systematic difference between negative and positive messages on voter turnout, choice, or favorability ratings.
CIRCLE
Working Paper 27: From the Horse's Mouth: A Dialogue Between
Politicians and College Students
Principal Investigator: Christopher Beem, The Johnson
Foundation
Project Summary
..................................
Research shows that young people are leading the way
in volunteering, but falling behind in political participation.
In January 2004, college students in Wisconsin were invited
to join U.S. Representatives Tammy Baldwin and Mark Green
at The Johnson Foundation's Wingspread Conference Center
to discuss the disconnect between service and politics.
Findings from the meeting are contained in CIRCLE Working
Paper 27: From the Horse's Mouth: A Dialogue Between Politicians
and College Students.
The Working Paper suggests that one way to increase youth
involvement in politics may be to develop more models
that allow students the opportunity to engage in realistic
political exercises through their schools or other places
of civic education. Students noted that working in a soup
kitchen prepared them for service work, but it did not
prepare them to advocate for policies to decrease homelessness.
To work on these policies, students need opportunities
engage in the realities of politics, including partisanship,
without advancing one side or the other. Several other
recommendations and insights can be found in the paper.
...............................................................................................................
CIRCLE
Working Paper 20: Young Voters and the Web of Politics:
Pathways to Participation in the Youth Engagement and
Electoral Campaign Web Spheres
Principal Investigators: W. Lance Bennett and Mike Xenos,
University of Washington
Project Summary
..................................
This study examines the ways in which youth engagement
sites (such as Rock the Vote) and election campaign sites
(for house, senate and governor) appeal to young voters
and offer them pathways for involvement in the electoral
process. We examined archival web records of candidate
and youth engagement sites in the 2002 elections for the
nature and frequency of appeals to young citizens on various
issues, as well as interactive communication features
that enable visitors to different sites to communicate
and stay involved. The ways in which young citizens can
travel within the youth sphere and across the two spheres
are also examined through detailed analysis of site links,
and the presence or absence of features on youth engagement
sites that may help visitors search for campaigns that
match their political preferences. The general findings
suggest that there is much more that both campaigns and
youth engagement organizations can do to attract young
citizens and assist them in finding meaningful paths to
voting. Campaigns still offer relatively few appeals directly
to young voters, compared, for example, to appeals to
senior citizens. And there are no links out from campaigns
to the sphere of youth engagement sites, missing opportunities
to connect voting to surrounding political experiences
in society. As for the youth engagement sphere, there
is surprisingly little observable cooperation among the
various sites established by foundations and NGOs, resulting
in missed opportunities to create interest networks among
young citizens. Our network mapping analysis shows that
the existing networks of youth sites could be much more
easily traveled; the experience is more commonly that
of isolated, proprietary islands. Though some groups are
making attempts to reach out to other sites within the
youth web sphere, we believe that a good deal more linking,
as well as more prominent placement of links pages, would
better enable youth engagement groups to successfully
tap the networking power of the internet. Perhaps more
importantly, there were no observed efforts to match the
youth oriented political preferences that are clearly
signaled in the youth engagement sites with specific electoral
campaigns that may make similar issue appeals in the election
sphere. What currently pass for pathways from youth engagement
sites to election sites are links to voter registration
information and to generic search engines (such as that
run by the League of Women Voters) that only provide general
lists of campaigns and candidates by geographic region.
The potential of the web to create hyperlinked pathways
between these two political spheres -- or even within
the youth engagement sphere-- has not as yet been developed.
At present, young people cannot travel easily in the political
web sphere.
CIRCLE Working Paper 42: Young Voters and the Web of Politics 2004: The Youth Political Web Sphere Comes of Age
by Lance Bennett and Michael Xenos
Project Summary
..................................
This project involves a network-analysis of nonpartisan youth electoral engagement websites, plus some analysis of sites created by campaigns and parties. With regard to the nonpartisan sites, three trends stood out as the most promising. First, the size of the youth engagement web sphere has grown dramatically. In 2002, Bennet and Xenos were only able to identify 22 sites; repeating the same techniques in the 2004 cycle yielded a list of 35, as many new organizations and websites offered political commentary and information in a youth-targeted format. Second, in 2004 youth political websites showed marked increases in the amount of political information and issue discussion, as well as the use of interactive features unique to web communication. A few used features similar to those found on more popular dating and social networking websites to help connect younger citizens with those sharing common interests and preferences. Third, and most notable, our recent analyses of linking practices among youth political websites revealed
a much more densely networked environment than we found in our prior investigations. Many youth-oriented political websites are making a concerted effort to include more, and more prominently placed links to other organizations working toward the common goal of greater civic and political involvement among American youth.
With regard to campaign and party websites, the data were quite limited, but available evidence suggests moderate and predictable levels of development in issues-content and features, and no substantial changes overall in terms of efforts to reach out to younger voters through web communication. Other research finds that only 8% of all campaign sites in 2004 featured an appeal to younger voters. Political party websites, however, did feature youth-targeted content at a non-trivial rate of 27%, suggesting that mainstream political actors may be moving toward greater efforts to communicate through the web with its most avid and savvy users.
Youth
Vote Coalition's Best Practices Handbook in Nonpartisan
Voter Mobilization
Project Summary
..................................
The Youth Vote Coalition released a how-to guide on mobilizing
young voters entitled "Youth Vote Coalition's Best
Practices Handbook in Nonpartisan Voter Mobilization".
The handbook is a compilation of campaign experiences
from twelve Youth Vote Coalition field sites nationwide
and is based on research conducted by Youth Vote Coalition
and Yale University.
CIRCLE
Working Paper 26: Civic Engagement and the Cavass
Principal Investigator: Dana R. Fisher
Project Summary
..................................
Every summer, thousands of young people in the United
States work for non-profit organizations in what is called
the "summer canvass." Through the canvass, young
people spend their summer vacations recruiting and renewing
memberships for social movement organizations. CIRCLE
Working Paper 26: Civic Engagement and the Canvass
explores what motivates young people to become summer
canvassers. The research shows that canvassers are significantly
more civically engaged than the general population of
young people in the United States even up to a year after
their canvassing experience. The report also offers recommendations
for improving the effectiveness of the canvass program.
CIRCLE
Working Paper 01: Easier Voting Methods Boost Youth Turnout
Principal Investigator: Mary Fitzgerald, Mary Washington
University
Project Summary
..................................
Mary Fitzgerald, author of “CIRCLE
Working Paper No. 1: Easier
Voting Methods Boost Youth Turnout,” recently
found that states
implementing new, more convenient voting laws witnessed
increases in youth voter turnout. Most notably, she found
that
young people are considerably more likely to vote if they
are able
to register to vote on Election Day.
According to Mark Lopez, CIRCLE Research Director, the
report
“represents an important initial inquiry into alternative
voting methods such as unrestricted absentee voting, in-person
early voting, Election Day registration, and mail-balloting.
The findings hold great promise for reversing the decline
we have seen in youth voting.”
REFORMING OLD VOTING LAWS
In the hopes of increasing voter turnout, several states
have
reformed old laws to make voting an easier process. To
date,
more than two dozen states have implemented new, less
restrictive voting laws resulting in easy and convenient
ballot
casting. One reform, unrestricted absentee voting,
allows citizens to vote absentee, no explanation required,
once
they request an absentee ballot. Other states have some
type
of in-person early voting allowing citizens to vote at
the county
clerk’s office or at a satellite location usually
14-40 days prior to
Election Day. A final recent reform allows people to register
to
vote and cast a ballot on the same day and commonly at
the
same place.
APPROACHES THAT HOLD THE GREATEST PROMISE
Using aggregate state-level data combined with individual-level
data originating from the American National Election Studies
(ANES) survey (1972-2000), Dr. Fitzgerald examined the
effects
state voting reforms have on youth turnout and mobilization
by
political parties among young people. Her analysis reveals
that
some alternative voting methods indeed increase youth
voting
rates as well as increase the likelihood that young people
will be
contacted by a political candidate.
A key finding shows that Election Day registration increases
youth
voting activity in presidential years by an estimated
14 percentage
points, and an estimated 4 percentage points in mid-term
elections. Another reform that seems to have raised youth
turnout was mail balloting, especially in Oregon where
youth
turnout increased by an estimated 40 percentage points
during
presidential election years.1 Other promising approaches
included
allowing people to vote early in person at convenient
locations
and permitting voter registration at state motor vehicle
agencies.
According to the report, not all voting reforms have the
power to
mobilize potential youth voters on Election Day. Voter
registration
by mail and unrestricted absentee voting during presidential
years
apparently do not lead to increases in the number of young
people voting.
A separate analysis of the data revealed that alternative
voting
methods also increase the likelihood that a young person
will be
contacted by a political candidate. Young citizens are
11 percentage
points more likely to be contacted by a political party
in
states with Election Day registration in presidential
elections and
an estimated 18 percentage points in midterm elections.
A previous
study released by CIRCLE found that when people are mobilized
they are more likely to vote.
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS
According to Dr. Fitzgerald, “Some alternative
voting methods
have the real potential to alter the political landscape
by changing
the way that young people participate in elections, the
way that
political parties mobilize voters, as well as who participates
in
elections.” For example, Independent and third party
candidates
could enjoy increased support in states that have implemented
alternative voting methods that boost youth turnout. According
to the report, it is estimated that between 24 and 44
percent of
young people identify themselves politically as Independent.
Additionally, new voting laws that increase youth voting
could in turn encourage candidates to focus on policy
issues that are of
greater importance to young people.
However, the real potential of the alternative methods
may not be
truly realized unless more young people register to vote.
The U.S.
Census estimates that between one third to one half of
the youth
population is not registered to vote, resulting in large
numbers of
young people who cannot take advantage of these new, more
convenient voting reforms.
"Getting
Out the Youth Vote in Local Elections: Results from Six
Door-to-Door Canvassing Experiments"
Principal Investigators: Donald P. Green, A. Whitney Griswold
Professor of Political Science, Yale University and Alan
S. Gerber, Professor of Political Science, Yale University
Project
Project Summary
..................................
"Get
Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout",
a new book by Donald P. Green and Alan S. Gerber, is a
practical guide for anyone trying to mobilize voters or
organize at the grass roots. The book uses results from
CIRCLE-funded field experiments to show that old-fashioned,
door-to-door campaigning can be a surprisingly effective
and affordable get-out-the-vote tactic. Green and Gerber
have found that phone canvassing increases turnout by
an average of five percent points, and face-to-face canvassing
increases turnout by 8.5 points. Canvassing young people
also slightly increases turnout among adults living with
them. Read the
transcript from the CIRCLE/Brookings briefing featuring
Donald Green and a panel of respondents. Visit the The
Yale Civic Engagement Project for further information.
CIRCLE
Working Paper 21: The Effects of an Election Day Voter
Mobilization Campaign Targeting Young Voters
Project Summary
..................................
This working papers shows that personally contacting
young people on Election Day can significantly increase
youth voter turnout, but only if they've already expressed
interest in voting. The study provides evidence that will
be used this fall to make mobilization campaigns more
cost effective.
The study is an evaluation of an extensive experiment
conducted surrounding last fall's elections in New Jersey.
It was designed to see what gains could be made when young
voters contacted leading up to the election were urged
to vote on Election Day.
The study tracked 2,817 registered 18-25 year old voters
in 60 precincts randomly, who were contacted by phone
or door-to-door in the days leading up to the election.
The voters were randomly divided into two experimental
groups; one group was recontacted on Election Day, and
the other was not. The study found that turnout increased
from 16.9 to 27.5 percent among those who had earlier
said they intended to vote. An Election-Day call made
no difference to those who had previously refused to say
whether they planned to vote or weren't planning to vote.
"From a practical standpoint, these findings suggest
the importance of establishing pre-election contact with
young voters and of targeting Election Day reminders to
those who are most receptive to this type of message,"
said Yale University Professor Donald P. Green, who analyzed
the experiment.
State Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) volunteers
and staff in New Jersey spearheaded the get-out-the-vote
campaign during the state elections last fall. It was
a pilot program for the New Voters Project, which is undertaking
a major grassroots youth voter mobilization campaign this
fall of 2004 in six states.
CIRCLE
Working Paper 24 Technology and Politics: Incentives for
Youth Participation
Project Summary
..................................
One way to increase youth political participation and
interest in politics may be through interactive technology.
An exploratory study tested whether presenting campaign
information in an interactive, entertaining manner increases
youth political interest, efficacy, and participation.
To test this hypothesis the researchers conducted a randomized
experiment where students were divided into three groups-
two treatment groups and a control group. The first treatment
group received an "adult" version of a CD containing
extensive information about the 2002 California gubernatorial
election in an e-book format. The second treatment group
received a "youth" version of the CD with the
same information contained in the adult version but supplemented
with a variety of interactive games, contests and quizzes.
They found that young people who used the interactive,
youth version of the CD voted at a higher rate, showed
more interest in the campaign, and expressed greater faith
in the act of voting than young people who did not receive
the CD. The research was conducted by Stanto Iyengar and
Simon Jackman of Stanford University.
"Voter Turnout Among College Students"
Principal Investigator: Richard Niemi, University of Rochester and Mike Hamner, Georgetown University
Project Summary
..................................
This grant resulted in a CIRCLE Fact Sheet which reported on a survey of students at four-year colleges following the 2004 presidential election. Seventy-seven percent of students surveyed said they voted and 62% said they encouraged or helped someone else to vote. The full survey toplines and a press release summarizing findings are also available. The survey was conducted by Professor Richard Niemi of the University of Rochester and Professor Michael Hanmer of Georgetown University. It was administered by Schneiders/Della Volpe/Schulman with funding from CIRCLE. “Getting Out the Vote among Asian Americans and Latinos in Southern California ”
Principal Investigators: Ricardo Ramirez and Janelle S. Wong, University of Southern California
Project Summary
..................................
This study examined the effects of mobilization on political participation among Asian Americans and Latinos through the evaluation of two 2004 Southern California Get Out the Vote campaigns.
The Asian American component of the study focused on whether phone calls and different types of Get Out the Vote messages increase voter turnout among Asian Americans residing in Los Angeles County . The Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance Los Angeles (APALA-LA) instituted a campaign around a ballot proposition that sought to expand health care coverage as well as a general Get Out the Vote campaign. We tested the effects of two messages. Message 1 was a partisan message that explained Proposition 72, a measure that would require companies with over 200 employees to provide health insurance for workers and their families, and encouraged registered voters to support it and vote. Message 2 did not mention Prop. 72, but urged registered voters to vote on Election Day.
Bivariate analysis of the effects of partisan and non-partisan messages on Asian American turnout show inconsistent results. For study group I, which included Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese registered as Democrats and Decline to States in the San Gabriel Valley , the effects of both the partisan and non-partisan message actually appear to be negative. Other groups show no effect of a slight positive effect. Preliminary analysis suggests that in no case do the effects of phone calls appear to have had an overwhelmingly positive effect.
The Latino component of the study evaluated the Voces del Pueblo voter mobilization campaign organized by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO). As part of their larger effort in New York , Texas , and California , the Southern California campaign outreached to voters in Los Angeles County and Orange County , CA . The program targeted “low propensity” Latino voters. All voters targeted for mobilization received two non-partisan mail pieces on separate dates, encouraging them to vote, informing them of their basic voting rights, and providing them with the location of their polling place on Election Day. The findings in Los Angeles indicate that there was a sizable effect of live phone calls on the Voces-eligible target group. Actually receiving a phone call raised turnout among Voces-eligible voters by 13.2 percent, an effect that is significant at the .001 level. This rate of successful mobilization is larger than what has been found in other phone banks staffed by committed volunteers. The phone bank effort also appears to have succeeded among the non Voces-eligible target group. The treatment effect was more modest, estimated to raise turnout by 5.9 percent. This rate of mobilization is similar to that of other phone bank efforts. Given the randomization of assignment to treatment and call attempts over a span of three weeks, it appears that there is a possible ceiling effect of mobilization effort among active voters. This finding is to be expected given that the baseline voting rate among those who were not assigned to a treatment is over 80%. It makes sense that it is harder to raise the turnout levels among regular or frequent voters than among those segments of the electorate who are not regular voters. There is more room to increase voter turnout among those segments of the population with low voter propensity.
"Field Experiments Testing the Effects of Voter Contacting"
Principal Investigators: Daron Shaw, University of Texas and James Gimpel, University of Maryland
Project Summary
.................................. Understanding the mobilization of peripheral electorates in general, and minority groups in particular, has been critical to the study of U.S. party system change. Despite the fact that it is likely to play a major role in shaping the future of American political competition, however, little is known about the effects of different mobilization messages on under-mobilized groups. In this paper we use a field experiment to evaluate the effects of five direct mail messages on Asian American turnout in a high profile Texas state legislative election from 2004. Our results show that partisan direct mail messages presenting the incumbent in a favorable light and encouraging voters to turn out on Election Day have a mixed impact on turnout, but that those emphasizing the importance of voting for neighborhood interests greatly increases turnout among particular segments of the Asian American community.
CIRCLE
Working Paper 13: Throwing a Better Party: Mobilizing
Institutions and the Youth Vote
Principal Investigator: Daniel M. Shea, Allegheny College
Project Summary
..................................
Local political party chairs are not paying attention
to young people, even though an overwhelming majority
agree that the political disengagement by young people
is a serious problem and that parties can make a big difference
involving this group, according to a groundbreaking study
released today. The Republican and Democratic party chairs
say the main causes of the problem of youth participation
lies in deficient high school preparation, negative campaigning,
and the media.
These are among the findings of a new study—Throwing
a Better Party: Local Mobilizing Institutions and the
Youth Vote—which was conducted by the Allegheny College
Center for Political Participation and the Ray C. Bliss
Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.
The report commissioned by the Center for Information
and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).
The 805 party chairs surveyed for the study represent
counties containing 87 percent of the nation’s population.
Roughly nine-in-ten (88 percent) party leaders say youth
political engagement is a serious problem. A similar portion
(93 percent) feel local parties can make a big difference
in getting young people involved in politics. But very
few are doing anything significant to attract young voters
“There is both disturbing and optimistic news in
this report,” said Dr. Daniel M. Shea, Director of
the Allegheny College Center for Political Participation.
“They have the potential to play a major role in
rejuvenating participation in America. But many local
parties find youth mobilization difficult, so they are
ignoring this group. Traditional party activities aren’t
working for young people, but the party organizations
that are trying novel programs, such as unique social
activities, interactive web sites, and peer-to-peer outreach,
are having much better success.”
Where do party leaders place the blame for the disengagement
of young people?
• 71 percent do not think high schools do a lot to
prepare young people for citizenship,
• 70 percent think negative campaigning turns off
young voters, and
• 65 percent think that the media has done much to
turn young people away from politics.
The results were similar for Democrats and Republicans,
with the exception that Democratic Party leaders were
a bit more likely to blame candidates, and a bit less
likely to blame high school instruction. The high cost
of campaigns was not seen as a significant cause of youth
disengagement.
“A key indicator of how far off the radar screen
young people are is that few party chairs see them as
an important demographic for the ‘long-term success
of their party,’” said Dr. John C. Green, Director
of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the
University of Akron. “By comparison, senior citizens
were mentioned nearly three times as often as the most
important group over the long term. Winning the current
election is clearly overwhelming any focus on developing
a long-term, broad-based following.”
YOUNG VOTERS ARE LOW PRIORITY FOR POLITICAL PARTIES
Party Chairs Blame Schools, Negative Campaigning and
the Media
Only 8 percent of the party chairs identified young people
as the most important demographic for the “long-term
success of their party,” compared to 21 percent who
named senior citizens. Only 12 percent listed young people
second, and 18 percent listed them third.
Among the 41 percent of party leaders that claim to
have developed specific get-out-the-vote programs for
young voters, the vast majority of programs they cited
as examples might be dubbed “modest” and “traditional.”
A common example of a response given was “some people
in our party have spoken at area schools.” Only a
handful mentioned programs that might be considered significant.
“The political parties clearly must play a bigger
role if we’re going to reverse the trend of increasing
youth disengagement in the electoral process,” said
William A. Galston, the Director of CIRCLE. “The
good news is that party leaders on the front lines recognize
that this is a major problem and that they can do something
about it. The bad news is they aren’t making the
effort for young people and the future of our democracy.”
This unique telephone survey covered a random sample
of 805 Democratic and Republican county party chairs from
the 1,000 most populous counties—together accounting
for 87 percent of the adult population. Doctors Shea and
Green conducted the research in October 2003 to investigate
the vibrancy of local political parties. Specifically,
this study sought to determine how local parties are connecting
with young voters—what is working, and what is not
working. The University of Akron Center for Policy Studies
was contracted to conduct the poll.
A follow-up report, The
Fountain of Youth: Political Parties and the Mobilization
of Young Americans, details the most successful
efforts by political parties to mobilize the youth vote
at the national, state, and county levels.
The Dangers of Self-Reports of Political Behavior:
Observational v. Experimental Evidence
Principal Investigator: Lynn Vavreck, University of California at Los Angeles Project Summary
..................................
Political Scientists routinely rely on self-reports when investigating effects of political stimuli on behavior. An example of this is the work in American politics addressing whether campaign advertising mobilizes voters. Findings vary by methodology and are based on varying degrees of self-reports; yet, little attention is paid to the furtive complications that arise when self reports are used as both dependent and independent variables. In this paper, I demonstrate and account for the correlated yet unobservable errors that drive self-reports of campaign exposure and political behavior. I present results of a unique, randomized survey experiment involving approximately 1,500 respondents. Before the 2002 elections, I showed a professionally developed, nonpartisan, get-out-the-vote advertisement to a random sub-set of a randomly drawn national sample via televisions in their own homes. The analysis shows a great divide between actual results (using known treatment and validated vote) and results using respondent recall of these activities.
CIRCLE
Working Paper 15: How Postregistration Laws Affect the
Turnout of Registrants
By Raymond Wolfinger, Benjamin Highton, and Megan Mullin
Project Summary
..................................
Once Americans are registered, states have several ways
to ease their journey to the polls: mailing each registrant
a sample ballot and information about the location of
their polling place; providing a longer voting day; and
requiring firms to give their employees time off to vote.
Except mandatory time off, we found that each of these
provisions enhanced turnout, especially by the young and
less educated. For example, compared to a state with "worst
practices" the estimated turnout of high school dropouts
would be nearly eleven percentage points higher in a state
with "best practices" while the effect among
young registrants is nearly ten points. Because African-American
and Latino registrants are disproportionately younger
and less educated, they would benefit disproportionately
from universal adoption of such "best practices."
We estimate that if every state adopted postregistration
"best practices" overall turnout of the registered
would increase about three percentage points.
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