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Political Participation

The Influence of Initiative Signature Gathering Campaigns on Political Participation (II)

Submitted by admin on Fri, 06/20/2008 - 14:46.
in
Working Paper No.: 
45
Date Published: 
12/01/2005
Author(s): 
R. Michael Alvarez
Frederick J. Boehmke

Does direct democracy increase political participation?

The Influence of Initiative Signature Gathering Campaigns on Political Participation

Submitted by admin on Thu, 06/19/2008 - 14:18.
in
Working Paper No.: 
27
Date Published: 
01/01/2009
Author(s): 
Frederick J. Boehmke
R. Michael Alvarez

Does direct democracy increase political participation? Rather than focus on state-level effects of the initiative process, this paper studies the effect of signature gathering campaigns on participation within a state. To this end we test whether parts of the state that are subject to more intense signature gathering campaigns, measured by the number of signatures gathered per capita, experience greater levels of political participation. We examine three measures of participation: registration, turnout, and ballot rolloff.

The Perverse Consequences of Electoral Reform in the United States

Submitted by admin on Thu, 06/12/2008 - 12:46.
in
Author(s): 
Adam Berinsky
Journal: 
American Politics Research
pp: 
471-491
Date Published: 
01/01/2009

A number of electoral reforms have been enacted in the United States in the past three decades that are designed to increase turnout by easing restrictions on the casting of ballots. Both proponents and opponents of electoral reforms agree that these reforms should increase the demographic representativeness of the electorate by reducing the direct costs of voting, thereby increasing turnout among less-privileges groups who, presumably, are most sensitive to the costs of coming to the polls.

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