Voter Turnout Among the American States: Systemic and Individual Components

Almost all modern states subscribe to the principle of universal adult suffrage, but in no state is the actual voter participation universal. As individuals differ from one another in their likelihood of voting at a particular election, so do groups in their rate of voting. For example, in the 1960 presidential election, which had the highest overall voter turnout in recent history (64 per cent), less than 26 per cent of the adult population in the state of Mississippi cast their ballots. The persistence of inequality of such a magnitude calls for an explanation.' The main objective of this study is to examine the sources of variation in the voter turnout among the American states. More specifically, its goal is to evaluate the relative importance of socioeconomic, legal and political factors for turnout variation among the states in the 1960 presidential election by combining information about individual behavior obtained from survey data, with information about the state obtained from the 1960 census, from aggregate election statistics, and from published election rules.

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