Explaining Voter Registration Levels in the American States
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.1992.13.0.253-265Abstract
Previous research on political participation typically has centered upon voter turnout, modeling it as a function of socio-demographic and structural factors separately and in conjunction. Using aggregate-level data covering the 1980s, this paper updates and extends previous political participation research in the specific regard of voter registration. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between a state’s voter registration level and its degree of interparty competition. An index of interparty competition for the 1980-1989 period — based upon the Ranney index first employed for the 1948-1960 period and later extended by Bibby et al. to 1974-1980 — is presented here for the first time. However, interparty competition and several other demographic and structural factors that traditionally are cited as contributors to voter turnout are found here to be insignificant for predicting voter registration levels. A socio-demographic factor, racial composition, and a structural factor, the closing date for registration, emerge as the most important predictors of aggregate registration level.References
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