Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T23:33:19.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reevaluating the Vote Market Hypothesis: Effects of Australian Ballot Reform on Voter Turnout

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2015

Daniel C. Reed
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This research reevaluates the effect of the Australian ballot reforms of the late nineteenth century on voter mobilization and turnout, challenging the “vote market hypothesis” regarding voter bribery by political parties. We propose that any subsequent declines in turnout were more directly affected by ballot design than by voter secrecy. In a regression analysis of voter turnout in statewide gubernatorial elections from 1870 to 1910, we find a significant decline in turnout in those states implementing “office bloc” reform ballots. However, the use of “party column” reform ballots did not lead to a decline in turnout. The results suggest that secrecy in voting does not fully explain the national turnout decline observed after passage.

Type
Articles
Information
Social Science History , Volume 38 , Issue 3-4 , Fall/Winter 2014 , pp. 277 - 290
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association, 2015 

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

Alvarez, R. M., Ansolabehere, S., Berinsky, A., Lenz, G., Stewart III, C., and Hall, T. (2008) “2008 survey of the performance of American elections.” Draft, May, no. 5.Google Scholar
Argersinger, Peter H. (1980) “‘A place on the ballot’: Fusion politics and antifusion laws.” The American Historical Review 85 (2): 287–306.Google Scholar
Bensel, Richard F. (2004a) The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bensel, Richard F. (2004b) “Ethno-cultural stereotypes and voting in large cities,” in The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press: 138–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Kousser, J. Morgan (1981) “Turnout and rural corruption: New York as a test case.” American Journal of Political Science 25 (4): 646–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Darcy, R., and Schneider, Anne (1989) “Confusing ballots, roll-off, and the black vote.” The Western Political Quarterly 42 (3): 347–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunn, Jacob Piatt (1910) Greater Indianapolis: The History, the Industries, the Institutions, and the People of a City of Homes. Vol. 1. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Engstrom, Erik J., and Kernell, Samuel (2005) “Manufactured responsiveness: The impact of state electoral laws on unified party control of the presidency and House of Representatives, 1840–1940.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (3): 531–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Eldon Cobb (1917) A History of the Australian Ballot System in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Heckelman, Jac C. (1995) “The effect of the secret ballot on voter turnout rates.” Public Choice 82 (1–2): 107–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heckelman, Jac C. (1998) “Bribing voters without verification.” The Social Science Journal 35 (3): 435–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heckelman, Jac C. (2000) “Revisiting the relationship between secret ballots and turnout.” American Politics Research 28 (2): 194–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herrnson, Paul S., Hanmer, Michael J., and Niemi, Richard G. (2012) “The impact of ballot type on voter errors.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (3): 716–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoechle, D. (2007) “Robust standard errors for panel regressions with cross-sectional dependence.” Stata Journal 7 (3): 281–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Key, V. O., Jr. (1949) Southern Politics in State and Nation. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Keyssar, A. (2001) The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Kleppner, P. (1982) Who Voted? The Dynamics of Electoral Turnout, 1870–1980. New York: Praeger Publishers.Google Scholar
Kleppner, Paul, and Baker, S. C. (1980) “The impact of voter registration requirements on electoral turnout, 1900–1916.” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 8 (2): 205–26.Google Scholar
Kousser, J. Morgan (1974) The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suffrage Restrictions and the Establishment of the One-Party South, 1880–1910. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Ludington, Arthur Crosby (2009) [1911] American Ballot Laws, 1888–1910. Reprint. Charleston, SC: BiblioLife, LLC.Google Scholar
Merriam, Charles E. (1908) Primary Elections: A Study of the History and Tendencies of Primary Election Legislation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Merriam, Charles E., and Overacker, Louise (1928) Primary Elections. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., and Herrnson, Paul S. (2003) “Beyond the butterfly: The complexity of U.S. ballots.” Perspectives on Politics 1 (2): 317–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, John F., and McCormick, Richard L. (1986) “Outlawing ‘treachery’: Split tickets and ballot laws in New York and New Jersey, 1880–1910.” The Journal of American History 72 (4): 835–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, W. H. (1993) “sg17: Regression standard errors in clustered samples. Stata Technical Bulletin 13: 19–23,” in Stata Technical Bulletin Reprints. Vol. 3. College Station, TX: Stata Press: 88–94.Google Scholar
Rusk, J., and J. Stucker (1978) “The effect of the southern system of election laws on voting participation: A reply to V. O. Key, Jr.,” in Silbey, J., Bogue, A., and Flanigan, W. (eds.) The History of American Electoral Behavior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 198–250.Google Scholar
Rusk, Jerrold G. (1970) “The effect of the Australian ballot reform on split ticket voting: 1876–1908.” The American Political Science Review 64 (4): 1220–38.Google Scholar
Rusk, Jerrold G. (2001) A Statistical History of the American Electorate. Washington, DC: CQ Press.Google Scholar
“United against Harrison: Effective organization of the Indiana democrats” (1892) New York Times, October 13.Google Scholar
Walker, Jack L. (1966). “Ballot forms and voter fatigue: An analysis of the office block and party column ballots.” Midwest Journal of Political Science 10 (4): 448–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Jack L. (1984) “Diffusion of public policy innovation among the American states.” The American Political Science Review 63 (3) (September 1969): 880–99.Google Scholar
Ware, Alan (2000) “Anti-partism and party control of political reform in the United States: The case of the Australian ballot.” British Journal of Political Science 30 (1): 1–29.Google Scholar
Ware, Alan (2002) The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and Transformation in the North. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar