IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v123y2005i3p363-392.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why chads? Determinants of voting equipment use in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Phillip Garner
  • Enrico Spolaore

Abstract

This paper provides an empirical study of the determinants of voting equipment choice in the United States. We document that, in contrast to widespread belief, voting machines of older types, such as lever and punchcard systems, are not used in counties with lower income – and newer machines, such as optical scanners and electronic machines, are not used in – richer counties. We provide an economic explanation for this and other regularities of voting equipment usage in the United States. In our economic framework (a) the adoption of a new technology is more likely in richer and larger counties, but (b) the adoption of a new technology is less likely the more advanced is the technology already adopted in the county. The adoption of more advanced optical and electronic machines in the 1980s and 1990s was less likely in richer and larger counties that had already mechanized and computerized in previous decades than in poorer and smaller – and hence not yet computerized counties. Estimates of historical determinants of voting equipment choice support our hypothesis. In particular, the probability of using punchcard machines in the 1990s is positively related to a county’s income in the 1960s, when punchcard machines were first introduced. When the effect of past income is controlled for, the effect of more recent levels of income on the probability of using punchcard machines becomes negative. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Phillip Garner & Enrico Spolaore, 2005. "Why chads? Determinants of voting equipment use in the United States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 363-392, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:123:y:2005:i:3:p:363-392
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-005-7167-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-005-7167-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11127-005-7167-0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Knack, Stephen & Kropf, Martha, 2002. "Who Uses Inferior Voting Technology?," MPRA Paper 27241, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. John R. Lott & Jr., 2003. "Nonvoted Ballots and Discrimination in Florida," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(1), pages 181-220, January.
    3. K. J. Arrow, 1971. "The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: F. H. Hahn (ed.), Readings in the Theory of Growth, chapter 11, pages 131-149, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Brezis, Elise S & Krugman, Paul R & Tsiddon, Daniel, 1993. "Leapfrogging in International Competition: A Theory of Cycles in National Technological Leadership," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1211-1219, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kelly Shue & Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2009. "Who Misvotes? The Effect of Differential Cognition Costs on Election Outcomes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 229-257, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mountford, Andrew, 1999. "Trade Dynamics and Endogenous Growth: An Overlapping-Generations Analysis," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 66(262), pages 209-224, May.
    2. Thomas Ziesemer, 2018. "Testing the Growth Links of Emerging Economies: Croatia in a Growing World Economy," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1-27.
    3. Ines Lindner & Holger Strulik, 2020. "Innovation And Inequality In A Small World," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(2), pages 683-719, May.
    4. Stolpe, Michael, 1995. "Technology and the dynamics of specialization in open economies," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 738, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Thomas Doring & Jan Schnellenbach, 2006. "What do we know about geographical knowledge spillovers and regional growth?: A survey of the literature," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 375-395.
    6. Haraguchi, Nobuya & Martorano, Bruno & Sanfilippo, Marco, 2019. "What factors drive successful industrialization? Evidence and implications for developing countries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 266-276.
    7. Raouf Boucekkine & Fernando Del Río & Omar Licandro, 2003. "Embodied Technological Change, Learning‐by‐doing and the Productivity Slowdown," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(1), pages 87-98, March.
    8. Foxon, T. J. & Gross, R. & Chase, A. & Howes, J. & Arnall, A. & Anderson, D., 2005. "UK innovation systems for new and renewable energy technologies: drivers, barriers and systems failures," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(16), pages 2123-2137, November.
    9. Agathe Gilain & Pascal Le Masson & Benoit Weil, 2018. "Managing Learning Curves In The Unknown: From ‘Learning By Doing’ To ‘Learning By Designing’," Post-Print hal-01900961, HAL.
    10. Gilberto Tadeu Lima, 2000. "Market concentration and technological innovation in a dynamic model of growth and distribution," BNL Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 53(215), pages 447-475.
    11. Mikhail Y. Afanasyev & Alexander V. Kudrov, 2021. "Economic Complexity, Embedding Degree and Adjacent Diversity of the Regional Economies," Montenegrin Journal of Economics, Economic Laboratory for Transition Research (ELIT), vol. 17(2), pages 7-22.
    12. van de Klundert, T.C.M.J. & Smulders, J.A., 1991. "Reconstructing growth theory : A survey," Other publications TiSEM 19355c51-17eb-4d5d-aa66-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. Stefanie Stantcheva, 2020. "Dynamic Taxation," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 801-831, August.
    14. Tiruwork B. Tibebu & Eric Hittinger & Qing Miao & Eric Williams, 2024. "Adoption Model Choice Affects the Optimal Subsidy for Residential Solar," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-19, February.
    15. Arantxa Jarque, 2010. "Hidden effort, learning by doing, and wage dynamics," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 96(4Q), pages 339-372.
    16. Johannes W. Fedderke & John M. Luiz, 2005. "Does Human Generate Social and Institutional Capital? Exploring Evidence From Time Series Data in a Middle Income Country," Working Papers 029, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    17. Tervala, Juha, 2013. "Learning by devaluating: A supply-side effect of competitive devaluation," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 275-290.
    18. Duniesky Feitó Madrigal & Alejandro Mungaray Lagarda & Michelle Texis Flores, 2016. "Factors associated with learning management in Mexican micro-entrepreneurs," Estudios Gerenciales, Universidad Icesi, vol. 32(141), pages 381-386, December.
    19. Jati Sengupta, 2002. "Economics of efficiency measurement by the DEA approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(9), pages 1133-1139.
    20. Yang, Yong, 2012. "Agglomeration density and tourism development in China: An empirical research based on dynamic panel data model," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1347-1359.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:123:y:2005:i:3:p:363-392. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.