Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T23:19:36.467Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Voter Turnout and the National Election Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Barry C. Burden
Barry C. Burden*
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Department of Government, Littauer Center 228, North Yard, Cambridge, MA 02138-3001. e-mail: burden@fas.harvard.edu, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/∼burden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Though the overreporting of voter turnout in the National Election Study (NES) is widely known, this article shows that the problem has become increasingly severe. The gap between NES and official estimates of presidential election turnout has more than doubled in a nearly linear fashion, from 11 points in 1952 to 24 points in 1996. This occurred because official voter turnout fell steadily from 1960 onward, while NES turnout did not. In contrast, the bias in House election turnout is always smaller and has increased only marginally. Using simple bivariate statistics, I find that worsening presidential turnout estimates are the result mostly of declining response rates rather than instrumentation, question wording changes, or other factors. As more peripheral voters have eluded interviewers in recent years, the sample became more saturated with self-reported voters, thus inflating reported turnout.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , 18 July 2000 , pp. 389 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Society for Political Methodology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, Paul R., and Aldrich, John H. 1982. “The Decline of Electoral Participation in America.” American Political Science Review 76: 502–521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Barbara A., and Silver, Brian D. 1986. “Measurement and Mismeasurement of the Validity of Self-Reported Vote.” American Journal of Political Science 80: 771–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belli, Robert F., Traugott, Michael W., Young, Margaret, and McGonagle, Katherine A. 1999. “Reducing Vote Overreporting in Surveys: Social Desirability, Memory Failure, and Source Monitoring.” Public Opinion Quarterly 63: 90–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bianco, William T., and Poggione, Sarah. 1997. “The Pinocchio Effect: Self-Reports and Verification in the Study of Voter Turnout.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Bradburn, Norman M. 1992. “Presidential Address: A Response to the Nonresponse Problem.” Public Opinion Quarterly 56: 391–397.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brehm, John. 1993. The Phantom Respondents: Opinion Surveys and Political Representation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Brehm, John. 2000. “Alternative Corrections for Sample Truncation: Applications to the 1988, 1990, and 1992 Senate Election Studies.” Political Analysis 8: 183–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burden, Barry C. 1999. “Measuring Voter Turnout in the National Election Studies.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA.Google Scholar
Burnham, Walter Dean. 1986. “Those High Nineteenth-Century American Voting Turnouts: Fact or Fiction?” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 16: 613–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus. 1960. “Surge and Decline: A Study of Electoral Change.” Public Opinion Quarterly 24: 397–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Converse, Philip E., Miller, Warren E., and Stokes, Donald E. 1960. The American Voter. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Clausen, Aage R. 1969. “Response Validity: Vote Report.” Public Opinion Quarterly 32: 588–606.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fink, Arlene. 1995. How to Ask Survey Questions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Groves, Robert M. 1989. Survey Errors and Survey Costs. New York: Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katosh, John P., and Traugott, Michael W. 1981. “The Consequences of Validated and Self-Reported Voting Measures.” Public Opinion Quarterly 45: 519–535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, Michael P., and Popkin, Samuel L. 1999. “Measuring Turnout Rates Correctly: Turnout Rates Are Not Declining in Recent United States Elections.” Unpublished manuscript. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University.Google Scholar
Presser, Stanley. 1990. “Can Context Changes Reduce Vote Overreporting?” Public Opinion Quarterly 54: 586–593.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rusk, Jerrold G., and Stucker, John J. 1984. “Measuring Patterns of Electoral Participation in the United States.” Micropolitics 3: 465–498.Google Scholar
Schuman, Howard, and Presser, Stanley. 1981. Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Shaffer, Stephen D. 1981. “A Multivariate Explanation of Decreasing Turnout in Presidential Elections, 1960–1976.” American Journal of Political Science 26: 47–56.Google Scholar
Sigelman, Lee. 1982. “The Nonvoting Voter in Voting Research.” American Journal of Political Science 26: 47–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silver, Brian D., Anderson, Barbara A., and Abramson, Paul R. 1986. “Who Overreports Voting?” American Political Science Review 80: 613–624.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teixeira, Ruy A. 1987. Why Americans Don't Vote. New York: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Teixeira, Ruy A. 1992. The Disappearing American Voter. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Traugott, Santa. 1989. “Validating Self-Reported Vote: 1964–1988.” National Election Study Technical Report 34. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Traugott, Michael W., and Katosh, John P. 1979. “Response Validity in Surveys of Voting Behavior.” Public Opinion Quarterly 43: 359–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verba, Sidney. 1996. “The Citizen Respondent: Sample Surveys and American Democracy.” American Political Science Review 90: 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yalch, Richard F. 1976. “Pre-election Interview Effects on Voter Turnout.” Public Opinion Quarterly 40: 331–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar