State Politics & Policy Quarterly | Vol. 5 No. 2| How Postregistration Laws Affect the Turnout of Citizens Registered to Vote

Abstract

Volume 5• Number 2

Summer 2005

ROBERT J. LACEY
University of Massachusetts at Amherst

The Electoral Allure of Direct Democracy: The Effect of Initiative Salience on Voting, 1990–96

Do salient ballot initiatives stimulate voting? Recent studies have shown that initiatives increase voter turnout, but some methodological concerns still linger. These studies have either relied solely on aggregate data to make inferences about individual- level behavior or used a flawed measure of initiative salience. Using individual-level data from the National Election Studies, I find that ballot question salience indeed stimulated voting in the midterm elections of 1990 and 1994. In an election with moderately salient ballot questions, a person’s likelihood of voting can increase by as much as 30 percent in a midterm election. On the other hand, consistent with most prior research, I find no statistically significant relationship between ballot question salience and voting in presidential elections.

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