Voting and Nonvoting: A Multi-Election Perspective

Prior attempts to differentiate between voters and nonvoters have focused on a single election, the implicit assumption being that voting or not voting in a particular election is indicative of a more general proclivity. This paper tests the impact of a number of factors that have emerged in earlier studies as predictors ofvoting participation, but uses participation over a series of 10 elections as the criterion. The model tested here demonstrates greater explanatory power than those previously tested, and follow-up analysis strongly suggests that this explanatory power is a function of the multi-election measurement of participation.