IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ecogov/v22y2021i1d10.1007_s10101-021-00249-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of California’s top-two primary system on voter turnout in US House Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel D. Bonneau

    (West Virginia University)

  • John Zaleski

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract

This paper evaluates one potential impact of California’s Proposition 14, which created a top-two primary system for all non-Presidential election races within the state. Our analysis is twofold, with the concern of each analysis placed on voter roll off when the result of the top-two primary placed a non-traditional pairing of candidates on the ballot.We focus on U.S. House races using data at the congressional district level to evaluate the impact of a non-traditional general election that omits one of the major parties from the ballot. Using major party registration of the political party omitted from the general election ballot, we find suggestive evidence that voter roll-off increases with these non-traditional contests. These elections do not effect voter turnout as a whole, but can increase voter roll-off by upwards of 7%.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel D. Bonneau & John Zaleski, 2021. "The effect of California’s top-two primary system on voter turnout in US House Elections," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 1-21, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:22:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10101-021-00249-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10101-021-00249-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10101-021-00249-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10101-021-00249-8?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. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    2. Jens Großer & Arthur Schram, 2010. "Public Opinion Polls, Voter Turnout, and Welfare: An Experimental Study," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 700-717, July.
    3. Amy King & Andrew Leigh, 2009. "Are Ballot Order Effects Heterogeneous?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(1), pages 71-87, March.
    4. Bendor, Jonathan & Diermeier, Daniel & Ting, Michael, 2003. "A Behavioral Model of Turnout," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 261-280, May.
    5. Alan S. Gerber & Donald P. Green & Ron Shachar, 2003. "Voting May Be Habit‐Forming: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 47(3), pages 540-550, July.
    6. Gerber, Elisabeth R & Morton, Rebecca B, 1998. "Primary Election Systems and Representation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 304-324, October.
    7. Peter Calcagno & Christopher Westley, 2008. "An institutional analysis of voter turnout: the role of primary type and the expressive and instrumental voting hypotheses," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 94-110, June.
    8. Pierson, Paul, 2000. "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 251-267, June.
    9. Green, Donald P. & Shachar, Ron, 2000. "Habit Formation and Political Behaviour: Evidence of Consuetude in Voter Turnout," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 561-573, October.
    10. Alan Gerber & Donald Green & Ron Shachar, 2003. "Voting may be habit forming: Evidence from a randomized field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00251, The Field Experiments Website.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sebastian Garmann, 2020. "Political efficacy and the persistence of turnout shocks," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 411-429, November.
    2. Robert A. Jackson & Matthew Pietryka, 2022. "The influence of becoming a parent on political participation in the United States," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 103(3), pages 565-580, May.
    3. Fosco, Constanza & Laruelle, Annick & Sánchez, Angel, 2009. "Turnout Intention and Social Networks," IKERLANAK info:eu-repo/grantAgreeme, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    4. Kai Jäger, 2020. "When Do Campaign Effects Persist for Years? Evidence from a Natural Experiment," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 836-851, October.
    5. Panova, Elena, 2015. "A passion for voting," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 44-65.
    6. Kevin Denny & Orla Doyle, 2009. "Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 17-35, January.
    7. Gaebler, Stefanie & Potrafke, Niklas & Roesel, Felix, 2020. "Compulsory voting and political participation: Empirical evidence from Austria," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    8. Martorana, Marco F. & Mazza, Isidoro, 2012. "Adaptive voting: an empirical analysis of participation and choice," MPRA Paper 36165, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Martorana, Marco Ferdinando, 2011. "Voting Behaviour in a dynamic perspective: a survey," MPRA Paper 37592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Martorana, Marco Ferdinando & Mazza, Isidoro, 2010. "Satisfaction and adaptation in voting behavior: an empirical exploration," MPRA Paper 29135, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2011.
    11. Henry E. Brady & Kay Lehman Schlozman & Sidney Verba, 2015. "Political Mobility and Political Reproduction from Generation to Generation," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 657(1), pages 149-173, January.
    12. Elizabeth A. Bennion, 2005. "Caught in the Ground Wars: Mobilizing Voters during a Competitive Congressional Campaign," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 601(1), pages 123-141, September.
    13. Jean-Victor Alipour & Valentin Lindlacher, 2022. "No Surprises, Please: Voting Costs and Electoral Turnout," CESifo Working Paper Series 9759, CESifo.
    14. Fosco, Constanza & Laruelle, Annick & Sánchez, Angel, 2009. "Turnout Intention and Social Networks," IKERLANAK 2009-34, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    15. Donald P. Green & Jennifer K. Smith, 2003. "Professionalization of Campaigns and the Secret History of Collective Action Problems," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(3), pages 321-339, July.
    16. Yoichi Hizen & Kengo Kurosaka, 2021. "Monetary Costs Versus Opportunity Costs in a Voting Experiment," Working Papers SDES-2021-1, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Feb 2021.
    17. Donald P. Green & Alan S. Gerber, 2003. "The Underprovision of Experiments in Political Science," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 589(1), pages 94-112, September.
    18. Valentina A. Bali & Lindon J. Robison & Richard Winder, 2020. "What Motivates People to Vote? The Role of Selfishness, Duty, and Social Motives When Voting," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    19. Eszter Czibor & David Jimenez‐Gomez & John A. List, 2019. "The Dozen Things Experimental Economists Should Do (More of)," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 371-432, October.
    20. Ronconi, Lucas, 2019. "From Citizen's Rights to Civic Responsibilities," IZA Discussion Papers 12457, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Voter roll off; Top-two primary; Voter turnout; Legislative election; Proposition 14;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D70 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - General

    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:spr:ecogov:v:22:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s10101-021-00249-8. 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.