The Influence of Turnout and Constituency Diversity on Voting in Southern State House Races in the 1990s

In: American review of politics, Band 23, S. 141-166

Abstract

This research focuses on assessing the impact of participation on voting in southern state legislative elections in the 1990s. I find that higher levels of turnout lead to increased votes for the Republicans. While this was the case only in SC in the early 1990s, by the late 1990s, this pattern was consistent across 5 of the 10 states under study. These findings suggest that the relationship between participation & voting in state legislative elections in the South may be becoming similar to congressional elections (Campbell 1996). This study also focuses on the influences of constituency diversity on voting outcomes at the state house level. In recent years, most of the discussion regarding the influences of constituency characteristics has been centered around assessing the impact of creating numerous majority-minority districts during the 1990s redistricting (see Lublin & Voss 2000). This study moves beyond this debate to assess the influence of constituency diversity on aggregate voting outcomes, beyond majority-minority districts. Using a measure of constituency diversity (based on the work of William Koetzle (1998)), which measures the "political diversity" of districts, the findings support the contention that constituency diversity has a significant influence in structuring aggregate voting outcomes. 5 Tables, 1 Appendix, 29 References. Adapted from the source document.