Electoral Competition and Electoral Systems in Large Cities

IT IS OFTEN ALLEGED that neither electoral competition nor voter choice is effective in an urban environment, and that "while the machines' influence has waned, they are still the major political force in most urban communities."' So far as local elections in large cities are concerned, however, we have almost no systematic or comparative information-nothing to compare with our data on national and state elections and political structures. This paper results from an attempt to assemble and analyse election returns and related data from several large cities. A general description of the political systems of these cities in contained in Section 1, and the analysis that follows is limited to the influence of electoral systems on electoral competition. The basic data for the study are election returns over the postwar period for mayor and seats in city councils in twenty-four of our largest cities. The election series were compiled from both newspapers and official sources, but primarily from newspapers. For most cities the series begin with the year 1945 or the closest election thereto. The cities include all those over 500,000 in population by the 1950 Census (with the exception of Washington), plus seven other cities of 300,000 or more.2 These cities are located in all sections of the country and comprehend a wide variety of electoral systems, governmental institutions, demographic characteristics, and patterns of political organization. The selection of cities studied