Abstention, Protest, and Residual Votes in the 2016 Election

Abstract

Objective We analyze the significant increase in the residual vote rate in the 2016 presidential election. The residual vote rate, which is the percentage of ballots cast in a presidential election that contain no vote for president, rose nationwide from 0.99 to 1.41 percent between 2012 and 2016. Method We use election return data and public opinion data to examine why the residual vote rate increased in 2016. Results The primary explanation for this rise is an increase in abstentions, which we argue results primarily from disaffected Republican voters rather than alienated Democratic voters. In addition, other factors related to election administration and electoral competition explain variation in the residual vote rates across states, particularly the use of mail/absentee ballots and the lack of competition at the top of the ticket in nonbattleground states. However, we note that the rise in the residual vote rate was not due to changes in voting technologies. Conclusion Our research has implications for the use of the residual vote as a metric for studying election administration and voting technologies.

Making Every Vote Count: The Important Role of Managerial Capacity in Achieving Better Election Administration Outcomes

“…Likewise, optical scanning at the precinct level can also indicate to the voter that they may have missed voting for an office. Older technologies such as lever voting machines are associated with lower residual vote rates on the top of the ballot but higher residual vote rates at contests lower on the ballot (Ansolabehere and Stewart ; Kimball and Kropf , ; Knack and Kropf ; Kropf and Kimball ; Stewart ; Stewart, et al ; Tomz and Van Houweling ).…”

Attitudinal Changes at the Presidential Elections in Romania Within the 30 Years Since the Fall of the Communist Regime

“…In the 30 years since the fall of the communist regime, Romania has gone through a period of transition from the communist grounded mentality to the liberal doctrine, so that the most conclusive analysis can be performed at the level of geographical-historical regions, accompanied by the analysis on counties [4], [8], [9], [11]. Thus, the article proposes to identify the evolution of the main poles that recorded strength points in the 1989 Revolution, of the counties with a lower wage level and of their close relationship with the social-democratic ideology, of the counties that represented almost always poles of liberalism, but also the main general direction on what voting concerns, of the historical regions of Romania.…”