IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v18y2006i2p207-232.html

Low Voter Turnout in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa Hill

    (University of Adelaide, lisa.hill@adelaide.edu.au)

Abstract

America’s turnout problem is among the worst of any of the established democracies. Even a reform as sweeping as the NVRA (Motor Voter Act) has failed to remedy it. Adopting an empirically informed normative approach, the author proposes and defends an ambitious solution: compulsory voting. Anticipating considerable resistance to this proposal, the article explores likely cultural, practical, political and legal barriers to its introduction and, in some cases, suggests strategies for overcoming them. It is concluded that most of the likely impediments are not technically, but rather, culturally and politically intractable. Yet, compulsory voting could have many benefits. Not only could it improve turnout more effectively than any other measure, but it could also close America’s yawning SES voting gap, limit some of the problems associated with campaign finance and break the cycle of low efficacy, alienation, non-participation and exclusion that characterizes American politics. Finally, compulsory voting can serve and protect such important democratic values as representativeness, legitimacy and political equality.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Hill, 2006. "Low Voter Turnout in the United States," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 18(2), pages 207-232, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:18:y:2006:i:2:p:207-232
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629806061868
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629806061868
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629806061868?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mueller, Dennis C. & Stratmann, Thomas, 2003. "The economic effects of democratic participation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(9-10), pages 2129-2155, September.
    2. Franklin, Mark N., 1999. "Electoral Engineering and Cross-National Turnout Differences: What Role for Compulsory Voting?," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 29(1), pages 205-216, January.
    3. Abramson, Paul R. & Aldrich, John H., 1982. "The Decline of Electoral Participation in America," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(3), pages 502-521, September.
    4. Lisa Hill, 2002. "On the Reasonableness of Compelling Citizens to ‘Vote’: the Australian Case," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 50(1), pages 80-101, March.
    5. Highton, Benjamin & Wolfinger, Raymond E., 2001. "The Political Implications of Higher Turnout," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(1), pages 179-223, January.
    6. Clarke, Harold D. & Acock, Alan C., 1989. "National Elections and Political Attitudes: The Case of Political Efficacy," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(4), pages 551-562, October.
    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. repec:pri:cepsud:181farber is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Justin Mattias Valasek, 2012. "Get Out The Vote: How Encouraging Voting Changes Political Outcomes," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 346-373, November.

    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. Schäfer, Armin, 2011. "Republican liberty and compulsory voting," MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/17, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Bechtel, Michael M. & Hangartner, Dominik & Schmid, Lukas, 2018. "Compulsory voting, habit formation, and political participation," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 89714, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Ali Abdelzadeh, 2014. "The Impact of Political Conviction on the Relation Between Winning or Losing and Political Dissatisfaction," SAGE Open, , vol. 4(2), pages 21582440145, May.
    4. Benny Geys & Bruno Heyndels, 2006. "Disentangling The Effects Of Political Fragmentation On Voter Turnout: The Flemish Municipal Elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 367-387, November.
    5. Miguel Calvin & Pilar Rey del Castillo, 2023. "A Bayesian Networks Approach for Analyzing Voting Behavior," CESifo Working Paper Series 10855, CESifo.
    6. Aidt, T.S. & Eterovic, D.S., 2007. "Give and Take: Political Competition, Participation and Public Finance in 20th Century Latin America," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0714, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    7. Indra de Soysa & Jennifer Bailey & Eric Neumayer, 2004. "Free to Squander? Democracy, Institutional Design, and Economic Sustainability, 1975–2000," Macroeconomics 0412004, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Muro, Sergio & Chehtman, Alejandro, 2020. "Law or strategic calculus? Abstention in the Argentine Supreme Court," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    9. Danny Hayes & Seth C. McKee, 2009. "The Participatory Effects of Redistricting," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(4), pages 1006-1023, October.
    10. Harka, Elona & Rocco, Lorenzo, 2022. "Studying more to vote less. Education and voter turnout in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    11. Fredriksson, Per G. & Neumayer, Eric & Damania, Richard & Gates, Scott, 2005. "Environmentalism, democracy, and pollution control," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 343-365, March.
    12. Lo Prete, Anna, 2021. "Financial literacy, education, and voter turnout," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 202105, University of Turin.
    13. Florian Haelg & Niklas Potrafke & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2022. "The determinants of social expenditures in OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(3), pages 233-261, December.
    14. Dalibor Eterovic & Nicolas Eterovic, 2010. "Political Competition vs. PoliticalParticipation: Effects on Government's Size," Working Papers wp_006, Adolfo Ibáñez University, School of Government.
    15. Anna L. Harvey, 2001. "Partisanship As A Social Convention," Rationality and Society, , vol. 13(4), pages 462-504, November.
    16. Rodrigo Schneider & Diloá Athias & Mauricio Bugarin, 2019. "Does enfranchisement affect fiscal policy? Theory and empirical evidence on Brazil," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 389-412, December.
    17. Profeta, Paola & Puglisi, Riccardo & Scabrosetti, Simona, 2013. "Does democracy affect taxation and government spending? Evidence from developing countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 684-718.
    18. André Blais & Eric Guntermann & Vincent Arel-Bundock & Ruth Dassonneville & Jean-François Laslier & Gabrielle Péloquin-Skulski, 2020. "Party preference representation," Post-Print halshs-03230127, HAL.
    19. Drosdowski, Thomas, 2005. "Democracy Deficits, Inequality and Pollution. A Politico-Economic Analysis," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-323, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    20. George Tridimas & Stanley L. Winer, 2004. "A Contribution to the Political Economy of Government Size: 'Demand', 'Supply' and 'Political Influence'," Carleton Economic Papers 04-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:jothpo:v:18:y:2006:i:2:p:207-232. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.