A number of recent studies find that direct democracy increases voter turnout. In this article, we ask: Who does direct democracy mobilize to vote and how are they mobilized? We distinguish between long-term and short-term effects on voter turnout, noting that much of the current literature has focused on participatory theory. Copyright (c) 2010 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

This paper investigates patterns of geographic clustering in the county vote for the presidential elections of 2004 and 2008. Using local indicators of spatial association (LISA), the statistically significant areas of Democratic and Republican support are identified for both elections, thereby uncovering major sources of spatial autocorrelation in recent presidential voting. Most interestingly, the change in the presidential vote from 2004 to 2008 appears to be significantly more spatially dependent than the raw vote itself, suggesting that the so-called "Obama Effect" also exhibits a high degree of geographic clustering.

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This article looks ahead to the 2010 congressional redistricting cycle, and makes the case that the concern over the pernicious effects of partisan redistricting has been significantly over-exaggerated. Those attempting to use partisan control of the apparatus of state government to influence future elections operate under a number of significant constraints, from legal and political factors that inhibit the redistricting process and frequently result in compromise or litigation, to geographical and structural factors that dictate the extent to which electoral boundaries can be effectively manipulated to produce deviations from partisan symmetry. Evidence from the 1990 and 2000 redistricting cycles indicates that the benefits of partisan gerrymandering, where present, are extremely susceptible to subsequent electoral swings. This casts considerable doubt on the utility of partisan gerrymandering as a mechanism for instituting long-term electoral bias in congressional elections.

This study builds on existing literature demonstrating the conditional effects of contextual and conversion factors on the relationship between money and votes in state legislative elections. A conditional theory of the impact of spending in state legislative campaigns is developed, emphasizing that the effectiveness of expenditures should vary according to the number of "up for grabs" voters in a district, candidate quality, and strategic decisions about when to enter a race. Using an original data set of elections to state legislatures in nine states, the analysis provides evidence that the political and institutional context of a race has a significant impact on the effectiveness of campaign spending. Specifically, the percentage of registered independents in a district, the presence or absence of term limits on legislators, and the level of professionalism of a legislature each significantly condition the impact of money.