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Voter Turnout in Undergraduate Student GovernmentElections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2005

Kimberly M. Lewis  and
Tom W. Rice
Kimberly M. Lewis
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
Tom W. Rice
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
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Extract

The research on voter turnout in America is impressive in quantityand quality, but it lacks breadth. National and state elections havereceived most of the attention, while the myriad of other elections,from municipal contests to policy referenda, have often beenignored. As a result, we know a great deal about turnout in stateand national elections, and much less about turnout in other races.The temptation is to generalize the state and national conclusionsto other elections, but this is risky. For example, in a recentaggregate-level study of small town elections in Iowa, Rice andSchlueter (2004) report a relationshipthat runs contrary to virtually all of the state and nationalliterature: education and turnout are negatively correlated; thatis, the citizens in better-educated communities vote in localelections at lower rates than the citizens in less-educatedcommunities. This finding exposes the limitations in ourunderstanding of voter turnout. If all we want is to speak withassurance about turnout in state and national elections, then thecurrent literature is very helpful. If, however, we want to be ableto speak more generally about turnout (and speak more specificallyabout turnout in elections other than state and national contests),then we need to study more types of elections.For a copy of the data, contact Professor Tom W. Rice,department of political science, University of Iowa, Iowa City,IA 52241 (tom-rice@uiowa.edu).

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PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , October 2005 , pp. 723 - 729
Copyright
© 2005 The American Political Science Association

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