Effects Of Voter Turnout

Effects of Voter Turnout: Natural Experiment vs. Field Experiment

What effects voter turnout? There have been many studies that can show empirical evidence as to what effects voter participation and how it is affected. I analyzed two very descriptive political science articles referring to voter turnout. One was a field experiment on the effects of personal canvassing versus other types of contact, such as direct mailing and telephone calls. The second article explained a natural experiment that analyzed voter turnout due to political knowledge and the causal effects of the better informed people on the propensity to vote.

In a study by political scientists Alan S. Gerber and Donald p. Green (2000), of Yale University conducted a field experiment to clarify whether there were any effects on voter turnout due to personal canvassing, contact by telephone, or even direct mailings. Their theory was that declining political participation rates falls under the claim that personal (face-to-face) requests to participate in voting is more effective than much newer mass modes of contact (Gerber and Green 2000). This is referring to campaigning brochures and telephone calls from large out-of-state telemarketing firms. Here the independent variable is the reported political contact, leaving the dependent variable to be represented by the actual voter turnout. Due to serious imperfections in survey-based analysis there is a wide open door for the suggestion of measurement errors. That being said, the unit of analysis will be recognized as the individuals from the results that were presented. Gerber and Green (2000) first took the measurements that had been conducted. These measurements also illustrated exactly how their data was collected and formulated. Second, a regression analysis was performed which confirms the results, but also enables them to perform other procedures that are needed to examine the sets of data at a higher level of proficiency. After this study was performed critical evidence showed that face-to-face canvassing had a significantly higher effectiveness on voter turnouts than the mailings and the telephone calls. Extracted from the limitation on the survey-based analysis, this study transmits a difference in variation amongst voter mobilization. Also, Gerber and Green (2000) suggest that additional research is definitely needed to be performed on this matter to see whether or not different settings and a variety of types of elections will uphold their results from their generalities.

In the second article covering the effects of voter turnout, in which I observed, I found a tremendous amount of clarity amongst the theory that people with a proficient knowledge in politics highly affect voter turnout on the matter of who has a higher propensity to vote. David Dreyer Lassen (2005) estimated the causal effects of being informed on voter turnout in a study that he conducted by using data from a natural experiment Copenhagen referendum on decentralization showing that there is sufficient evidence that shows a significant amount of statistical measures.

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