Voter Turnout in U.S. Presidential Elections: An Historical View and Some Speculation

PS - Political Science and Politics

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 480-490

  Nardulli, Peter F ^a   Dalager, Jon K ^a   Greco, Donald E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84937275234     PISSN: 10490965     EISSN: 15375935     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/420828     Document Type: Article

References (2)

1. The turnout rate used here is computed as: total votes/eligible voters. Eligible voters were determined by age, race, and sex determinations on a state by state basis. Some states allowed African-American men to vote long before passage of the Civil War Amendments and some states recognized the right of women to vote well before 1920. Finally, a few states allowed people younger than 21 years old to vote before 1970. The data set used here was constructed to conduct long-term analyses of U.S. electoral behavior. Because Alaska and Hawaii were not added to the union until 1959, the data set does not include them. All references to U.S. totals should be read as reflecting totals for the continental U.S. only.
2. We collected actual city data for twenty of these cities, usually as far back as 1860. The exceptions were Phoenix, Oakland, San Diego, Miami, Atlanta, Buffalo, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, and Fort Worth. In the latter cities we used county totals to represent the city.