Stephen D. Shaffer

Policy Differences Between Voters and Non-Voters in American Elections

AN IMPORTANT concern in any polity is the extent to which citizens have a voice in public affairs. In representative democracies like America citizens have the opportunity to vote in free elections for public officials whom they most prefer for policy or other reasons. Yet many Americans do not exert the required initiative to register to vote. Barely half of the voting age population voted in the 1980 presidential election, and turnout for less important offices is even lower. Many have expressed the concern that certain types of individuals with specific policy preferences are less likely to vote, and that this may translate into the election of officials and the implementation of policies disapproved by these citizens or adverse to their interests. Pomper (1980: 179-205) after examining the history of race relations in the South especially argues that inability or failure to exercise the franchise can significantly harm the civil liberties and economic welfare of the uninvolved. Key (1961: 186) observes that the opinions of non-voters may have slight weight in the political process. Other studies also conclude that more politically active citizens influence public policy to be more consistent with their own policy preferences, which differ from the preferences of the inactive (Verba and Nie, 1972: 308). In this paper I examine the extent to which there are policy differences between voters and non-voters in presidential and midterm election years over a twenty-eight year time span.

The Policy Biases of Political Activists

The nature of policy differences between political strata are examined with survey data from 1952 to 1976. In identifying policy biases, one must consider the interaction between issue area, time period, and partisan grouping. Prior to 1966, a conservative bias on do mestic economic issues existed among the more active, due to the conservative bias of the higher SES and hyperactivity among conservative Republicans. After 1966, no consistent bias on domestic economic issues existed among the more active, due to hyperactivity among liberal Democrats as well as conservative Republicans. After 1966 a definite liberal bias existed among activists on black rights and social-cultural issues, because of the greater liberalism of the more educated, and hyperactivity among Democratic liberals. Foreign affairs patterns are more complex, though there is usually an inter nationalist bias among activists, due to the greater internationalism of the more educated.

Accountability and U.S. Senate Elections: a Multivariate Analysis

fundamental characteristic of a representative democracy is j~ ~ accountability of our public officials to the voters for their actions (Pitkin 1967). We shall examine the extent to which U.S. senators are held accountable for their actions by the voters. This is an especially interesting question in view of their lengthy terms of office which minimize voter opportunity to exercise electoral sanctions against them. We shall also determine the types of factors that voters hold offlcials accountable for, such as their perceived performance in office or economic conditions in their state which may be influenced by federal economic policy. In the absence of a concern for accountability, voters may be influenced by factors unrelated to a senator’s own actions in office, such as national trends, the electoral context, or characteristics of the state itself.

Voting in Four Elective Offices: A Comparative Analysis

CPS survey data from 1952 to 1978 are employed in a comparative analysis of the effects of three predictors on voting for House, Senate, gubernatorial, and presidential candidates. Among the findings are: party identification is equally important in voting for all four offices, and despite a declining effect it is still the most important predictor of voting; presidential coattails especially serve as a vote guide for the less informed, and are more important in federal than state elections; incumbency is most important to the moderately aware voter, and only since 1966 has it been most important in House elections.

Economic performance and U.S. Senate elections: A comment

This paper investigates the issue of economic performance and U.S. Senate elections analyzed by Bennett and Wiseman (1991) in a work published in this journal. Our study analyzes the electoral margins and election outcomes of U.S. Senate elections using state-level data involving only incumbents up for reelection in the 1976–1990 period (212 elections). The ordinary least squares and logit estimation results suggest that the effects of economic performance variables on incumbent senatorial elections are in general overshadowed by other factors known to be important in determining electoral margins and outcomes. In addition, the empirical results of the entire model are in general consistent with prior findings noted in the public choice and political science literature concerning the analysis of U.S. Senate elections. Therefore, we suggest that the findings raised in our study provide enough theoretical and empirical evidence to raise sufficient doubt regarding the robustness of the results suggested by Bennett and Wiseman (1991), and thus call upon other researchers to study further the relationship between economic performance and voting behavior in U.S. Senate elections.

Mississippi: Republicans Surge Forward in a Two-Party State

Mississippi entered the 21st century as a competitive two-party state far removed from its post-Reconstruction history of one-party Democratic domination. Yet Republican gains which had led to this emerging parity between the parties were not uniform across elective offices, as they had come first in federal elections and only later trickled down to state offices (Aistrup 1996). Mississippi voted Republican for president for the first time since Reconstruction in 1964 and 1972 (by landslide margins), narrowly backed Democrat and born-again southern Baptist Jimmy Carter in 1976, and henceforth has cast every one of its electoral votes for Republican presidential candidates. Enduring U.S. House gains began occurring in the Nixon landslide reelection year of 1972 with victories by Republicans Thad Cochran and Trent Lott. Cochran and Lott then replaced retiring conservative Democratic U.S. senators James Eastland in 1978 and John Stennis in 1988. Democrats remained competitive in U.S. house races at the century’s end, however, retaining two moderate conservative whites (Ronnie Shows and Gene Taylor) and one liberal African American (Bennie Thompson, representing the black majority “Delta” district) as congressmen. With the retirements of boll weevil Democrats Jamie Whitten in 1994 and Sonny Montgomery in 1996, conservative Republicans Roger Wicker and Chip Pickering took their places to maintain two House seats for the GOP.