The Australian Ballot Reform and Turnout in U.S. Congressional Elections, 1880-1930

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Fitzgerald, Keith

Keywords

Ballot Reform, Elections, American Political Development

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

Many of the features of our voting system relate back to State-level reforms of elections that date back to the Progressive era, when the secret official ballot system was introduced. It is the thesis of this paper that certain progressive era election reforms and the introduction of the Australian ballot reform specifically have fundamentally altered the nature of politics in the United States. Interpretations of late nineteenth century party politics have traditionally followed the progressive critiques that emphasize corruption and the absence of national centers of authority. Scholars have long pointed out the ability of the strong local parties to incorporate and mobilize large segments of the population into electoral politics. In this study, electoral turnout data for Congressional elections on a the county and district level between 1880 and 1930 are used in a regression model to show trends in turnout, and to determine if there is a significant relationship between decline in turnout at the mm of the century and the introduction of the Australian ballot reform. The data show that the Australian ballot reform had a significant negative impact on turnout in Congressional elections in the United States between 1880 and 1930.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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