nach oben

Political Behavior

Erschienen in:

01.06.2013 | Original Paper

Voter Confidence and the Election-Day Voting Experience

verfasst von: Ryan L. Claassen, David B. Magleby, J. Quin Monson, Kelly D. Patterson

Erschienen in: Political Behavior | Ausgabe 2/2013

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

The scholarly literature provides mixed guidance on the question of whether DREs or optical scan systems inspire greater confidence. We bring new evidence to bear on the debate using a unique exit poll and a nationally representative survey, both of which examine a wide range of voting experiences. Having detailed information about voting experiences enables us to investigate both the direct effects of DRE/optical scan voting and the indirect effects through voting experiences. Doing so reveals new information about the relationships between voting technology, voting experiences, and voter confidence. Indeed, the type of machine one uses has very different direct and indirect effects on voter confidence—a finding that may help explain scholarly disagreement over voters’ reactions to different types of voting machines.

Nächster Artikel Direct Democracy: Protest Catalyst or Protest Alternative?

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Nur mit Berechtigung zugänglich

Evidence regarding the relationship between general measures of “trust in the government” and general measures of political participation is decidedly mixed (see Levi and Stoker 2000). However, when it comes to a particular form of trust—trust in the electoral process—Alvarez, Hall, and Llewellyn report, “preliminary evidence that suggests confidence in the electoral process affects turnout” (2008, 754).

George W. Bush. 2002. “Remarks by the President at Signing of H.R. 3295, Help America Vote Act of 2002” see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021029-1.html.

See the February 2008 electionline.org briefing “Back to Paper: A case study” at http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/EB21Brief.pdf. See also, Ian Urbina, “Influx of Voters Expected to Test New Technology” New York Times 21 July 2008, pA1.

See Directive 2008–01 at: http://www.sos.state.oh.us/SOS/Upload/elections/directives/2008/Dir2008-01.pdf.

Equivalently, DRE voting is positively associated with voting experience measures when compared to optical scan voting (Conrad et al. 2009; Herrnson et al. 2005, 2008a, b).

The demographic variables are included primarily as statistical controls to ensure that optical scan voters and DRE voters are comparable on other dimensions.

Summit County uses an ES&S Model 100 precinct count optical scan system and Franklin County uses an ES&S iVotronic DRE touchscreen voting machine.

Due to poll workers refusing (contrary to Ohio law) to allow students to conduct the exit poll in one polling place in Summit County, we only have 49 locations there.

The sampling design is modeled after the sampling done from 1982 through 2006 for the Utah Colleges Exit Poll (Grimshaw et al. 2004).

Appendix A in the online appendix contains question wording for the election experience items and Appendix B contains descriptive statistics for each exit poll variable. In order to use as many surveys with valid responses as possible, we use STATA’s “impute” command to fill-in missing cases—provided they were not missing on the confidence measure and had a valid comparison of the new and old voting systems. STATA’s impute command uses a linear combination of the variables to impute missing values. The number of missing observations on the independent variables is relatively small, most well under 5% of the sample. We also note that the pattern of results is the same even if imputation is not used.

Once the actual turnout for all precincts was available a summary was made so that the actual turnout for all strata was calculated and then this number becomes the numerator of the weight variable. The denominator is the actual number of polling places sampled in the strata by the number of completes at the polling place. This weight by turnout is then normalized by multiplying the ratio of the number of completes to the actual turnout. This accounts for the auxiliary and factual information of actual turnout on election day.

Our data have a Democratic bias, so we used an iterative rim weighting or raking process to calculate a weight based on the U.S. Senate results, multiplied it by the sampling weight described above to create a temporary weight used to adjust the data, then computed a weight based on the gubernatorial results. The process is repeated iteratively until the exit poll results for both races closely approximate the actual election results. But we also note that the results are the same if no survey weight is used.

LISREL uses a linear, maximum likelihood estimator to obtain SEM parameters. Therefore, these parameters retain the usual linear model interpretation (see Diamantopoulos and Siguaw 2000).

Our model is recursive. In part this reflects the cross-sectional nature of our data and limitations of the research design. However, we did use two-stage least squares to assess the possibility that voters’ preconceived ideas about the fairness of the election colored their election day voting experiences. Even when the predetermined variables in the model are used as instruments for voting experiences (combined into a single additive index), the pattern of results is identical.

Technically, LISREL estimates all of the Structural Equation parameters simultaneously. Our point is that demographic controls were included in the models, but they are not reported in Table 3. We omit the demographic variables for two reasons. First, our theoretical interest is not in the indirect effects of the demographic variables, they are included as statistical controls. Second, the overall effects of the demographic variables are generally the same as their direct effects—meaning the indirect effects are of little consequence in contrast to the pattern for optical scan voting. See Appendix E in the online appendix for the full models.

The sample size of the two CCES modules was 1,384 after removing non-voters and accounting for panel attrition.

More information about CCES sampling and fielding techniques is available at: http://web.mit.edu/polisci/portl/cces/.html.

Appendix C in the online appendix contains question wording for the election experience items and Appendix D contains descriptive statistics for each CCES variable.

In order to use as many surveys with valid responses as possible, we again use STATA’s “impute” command to estimate values for independent variables with missing data for all cases not missing on the dependent variable. And again we note that the pattern of results is the same even if imputation is not used.

Alvarez, R., & Hall, T. E. (2008). Electronic elections: The perils and promises of digital democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Alvarez, R. M., Hall, T. E., & Hyde, S. D. (Eds.). (2008a). Election fraud: Detecting and deterring electoral manipulation. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Alvarez, R. M., Hall, T. E., & Llewellyn, M. H. (2008b). Are Americans confident their ballots are counted? Journal of Politics, 70, 754–766.

Ansolabehere, S., & Charles Stewart, I. I. I. (2005). Residual votes attributable to technology. Journal of Politics, 67, 365–389.

Atkeson, L. R., & Saunders, K. L. (2008). Election administration and voter confidence. In B. E. Cain, T. Donovan, & C. J. Tolbert (Eds.), Democracy in the states: Experiments in election reform. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Bishop, G. F., & Fisher, B. S. (1995). Secret ballots” and self-reports in an exit-poll experiment. Public Opinion Quarterly, 59, 568–588.CrossRef

Bowler, S., & Karp, J. A. (2004). Politicians, scandals, and trust in government. Political Behavior, 26, 271–287.CrossRef

Brace, K. W. (2006). “Almost 55 million, or one-third of the nation’s voters, will face new voting equipment in 2006 election” election data services, Inc. Press Release. Accessed January 19, 2009 from http://www.electiondataservices.com/images/File/ve2006_nrpt.pdf.

Brace, K. W. (2008). Nation sees drop in use of electronic voting equipment for 2008 election—A first. Election Data Services, Inc. Press Release. Accessed January 19, 2009 from http://www.electiondataservices.com/images/File/NR_VoteEquip_Nov-2008wAppendix2.pdf.

Brady, H. E., Buchler, J., Jarvis, M., & McNulty, J. (2001). Counting all the votes: The performance of voting technology in the United States. Mimeo: Survey Research Center and Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

Cain, B. E., Donovan, T., & Tolbert, C. J. (Eds.). (2008). Democracy in the states: Experiments in election reform. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Carter, J., Gerald R. F., Lloyd N. C., & Robert H. M., et al. (2002). To assure pride and confidence in the electoral process: Report of the national commission on federal election reform, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Citrin, Jack. (1974). Comment: The political relevance of trust in government. American Political Science, 68, 973–988.CrossRef

Claassen, R. L., Magleby, D. B., Quin Monson, J., & Patterson, K. D. (2008). ‘At your service’: Voter evaluations of poll worker performance. American Politics Research, 36, 612–634.CrossRef

Coleman, J. J., & Manna, P. F. (2000). Congressional campaign spending and the quality of democracy. The Journal of Politics, 62, 757–789.CrossRef

Conrad, F. G., Bederson, B. B., Lewis, B., Peytcheva, E., Traugott, M. W., Hanmer, M. J., et al. (2009). Electronic voting eliminates hanging chads but introduces new usability challenges. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 67, 111–124.CrossRef

Diamantopoulos, A., & Siguaw, J. A. (2000). Introducing LISREL. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Easton, David. (1965). A systems analysis of political life. New York: Wiley.

Gerken, H. K. (2009). The democracy index: Why our election system is failing and how to fix it. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Grimshaw, S. D., Christensen, H. B., Magleby, D. B., & Patterson, K. D. (2004). Twenty years of the Utah Colleges exit poll: Learning by doing. Chance, 17, 32–38.

Hall, T., Quin Monson, J., & Patterson, K. D. (2009). The human dimension of elections: How poll workers shape public confidence in elections. Political Research Quarterly, 62, 507–522.CrossRef

Hansen, J. M. (2002). Sizing the problem. In C. Jimmy, R. F. Gerald, N. C. Lloyd, & H. M. Robert et al. (Eds.), To assure pride and confidence in the electoral process: Report of the national commission on federal election reform, (pp. 121–130). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Hasen, Richard. L. (2005). Beyond the margin of litigation: Reforming U.S. election administration to avoid electoral meltdown. Washington and Lee Law Review, 62, 937.

Herrnson, P. S., Bederson, B. B., Lee, B., Francia, P. L., Sherman, R. M., Conrad, F. G., et al. (2005). Early appraisals of electronic voting. Social Science Computer Review, 23, 274–292.CrossRef

Herrnson, P. S., Niemi, R. G., Hanmer, M. J., Bederson, B. B., Conrad, F. C., & Traugott, M. W. (2008a). Voting technology: The not-so-simple act of casting a ballot. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Herrnson, P. S., Niemi, R. G., Hanmer, M. J., Francia, P. L., Bederson, B. B., Conrad, F. G., et al. (2008b). Voter reactions to electronic voting systems: Results from a usability field test. American Politics Research, 36, 580–611.CrossRef

Hetherington, M. J. (2005). Why trust matters: Declining political trust and the demise of American liberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Heufner, S. F., Tokaji, D. P., Edward, B. F., & Cemenska, N. A. (2007). From registration to recounts: The election ecosystems of five midwestern states. Columbus: The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law.

Keeter, S. (2006). The impact of cell phone noncoverage bias on polling in the 2004 presidential election. Public Opinion Quarterly, 70, 88–98.CrossRef

Knack, S., & Kropf, M. (2003). Voided ballots in the 1996 presidential election: A county-level analysis. Journal of Politics, 65, 881–897.

Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000). Political trust and trustworthiness. Annual Review of Political Science, 3, 475–507.CrossRef

Magleby, D. B., Quin Monson, J., Patterson, K. D., & Makin, J. R. (2005). The effects of campaign volume on public confidence in elections. New Orleans, LA: Presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association.

McClendon, M. J. (2002). Multiple regression and causal analysis. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Merkle, D. M., & Murray E. (2000). A review of the 1996 voter new service exit polls from a total survey error perspective. In J. L. Paul, & W. T. Michael (Eds.), Election polls, the news media and democracy. New York: Chatam House.

Miller, A. (1974). Political issues and trust in government: 1964–1970. American Political Science Review, 68, 951–972.CrossRef

Miller, J., & Krosnick, J. (1998). The impact of candidate name order on election outcomes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 62, 291–330.CrossRef

Nichols, S. M., & Strizek, G. A. (1995). Electronic voting machines and ballot roll-off. American Politics Quarterly, 23, 300–318.CrossRef

Nye, J. S., Philip D. Z., & David C. K. (Eds.). (1997). Why people don’t trust government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Price, V., & Romantan, A. (2004). Confidence in institutions before, during, and after ‘indecision 2000. Journal of Politics, 66, 939–956.

Shocket, P. A., Heighberger, N. R., & Brown, C. (1992). The effect of voting technology on voting behavior in a simulated multi-candidate city council election: A Political Experiment of ballot transparency. Western Political Quarterly, 45, 521–537.CrossRef

Stewart, C. (2011, April 16–17). What hath HAVA wrought? Consequences, intended and not, of the Post-Bush v. Gore Reforms. Paper presented at the conference of “Bush v Gore, 10 years later: Election Administration in the United States,” Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine.

Tomz, M., & Van Houweling, P. R. (2003). How does voting equipment affect the racial gap in voided ballots? American Journal of Political Science, 47, 46–60.CrossRef

Titel: Voter Confidence and the Election-Day Voting Experience
verfasst von: Ryan L. Claassen
David B. Magleby
J. Quin Monson
Kelly D. Patterson
Publikationsdatum: 01.06.2013
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Political Behavior / Ausgabe 2/2013
Print ISSN: 0190-9320
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-6687
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-012-9202-4

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Weitere Artikel der Ausgabe 2/2013

From Fistfights to Firefights: Trait Aggression and Support for State Violence

Correct Voting in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Nominating Elections

Do All Associations Lead to Lower Levels of Ethnocentrism? A Two-Year Longitudinal Test of the Selection and Adaptation Model

Citizens, Representatives, and the Myth of the Decision-Making Divide

OLS is AOK for ACE: A Regression-Based Approach to Synthesizing Political Science and Behavioral Genetics Models

Inter-Institutional Dynamics: Assessments of the Supreme Court in a Separation of Powers Context

Premium Partner