Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-03T00:51:04.020Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Comment on “Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Michael D. Martinez
Michael D. Martinez*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Florida, P.O. Box 117325, Gainesville, FL 32611-7325. e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A recent article by Barry Burden in Political Analysis alerts us to a steadily increasing gap during presidential election years between self-reported turnout in the NES (National Election Studies) and “official turnout” figures based on the voting-age population (VAP), and points to declining response rates as a culprit. Changing the baseline from the VAP to the VEP (voting-eligible population) significantly changes these conclusions, and point to panel effects as a culprit. The rise in the gap was not linear, but it does emerge rather suddenly in 1996. Gaps between NES self-reported turnout and VEP estimates are higher in presidential election years than in off-years, and self-reported turnout is higher among long-term panel participants than among cross-section respondents in multielection panels.

Type
Replications and Extensions
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Spring 2003 , pp. 187 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © Political Methodology Section of the American Political Science Association 2003 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bartels, Larry. 2000. “Panel Effects in the American National Election Studies.” Political Analysis 8:1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, Robert, Chadha, Anita, and Montjoy, Robert. 2001. “Overreporting Voting—Why It Happens and Why It Matters.” Public Opinion Quarterly 65:22–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burden, Barry C. 2000. “Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies.” Political Analysis 8:389–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, Michael P., and Popkin, Samuel L. 2001. “The Myth of the Vanishing Voter.” American Political Science Review 95:963–974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar