Perceived Representativess and Voting: An Assessment of the Impact of “Choices” vs. “Echoes”

Abstract

The persistent decline in voting in presidential elections since 1960 has resulted in serious scholarly attention being given to nonvoting. Despite the quality of these studies, however, the ratio of what we know about nonvoting to what we do not know is rather low. In the hopes of improving this situation, I advance the hypothesis that one reason that individuals do not vote is that their interests are not represented by any of the major candidates. To test this hypothesis, I used the SRC election studies (1968)(1969)(1970)(1971)(1972)(1973)(1974)(1975)(1976)(1977)(1978)(1979)(1980) to construct measures of individuals' perceived distance from the major candidates on a variety of issues. Net of an extensive set of factors usually invoked to explain participation, increased distance from candidates significantly decreases the probability of voting. The implications of these results are discussed.

Voter Behavior in California’s Top Two Primary

“…And in particular, would they be less likely to vote in races where they were denied a chance to vote for a copartisan? Zipp (1985) found that voters who were not given at least one desirable candidate to vote for were less likely to turn out, and examining elections from 1972 thru 2008 Leighley and Nagler (2014) find some evidence to support Zipp's claim. Table 8 gives the abstention rate for orphaned voters in the State Assembly Race versus the abstention rate for non-orphans.…”

Incumbent positioning, ideological heterogeneity and mobilization in U.S. House elections

“…4 Adams and Merrill (2003) offer empirical support for their argument using data on U.S. presidential elections. Further, there is considerable empirical evidence that supports the link between participation and candidate positions (Zipp 1985;Plane and Gershtenson 2004).…”

To vote or not to vote: abstaining from voting in union representation elections

“…For example, when potential voters in an American presidential campaign were indifferent to the candidates they did not vote (Brody and Page, 1973). Those who perceived the candidates' views as equally distant from their own, regardless of the direction of that difference, were less likely to vote (Zipp, 1985). Further, as people perceived fewer differences between political parties abilities to solve problems, they were less likely to vote (Southwell, 1985).…”