Inter-Party Competition and Electoral Turnout: The Case of Indiana

Systematic longitudinal and cross-sectional quantitative analysis brings the power of statistics to bear on a significant political and historical question that has been subject to considerable speculation due to inadequate empirical grounding. The purpose of this study is to investigate one such question, the impact of inter-party competition on electoral turnout. Aggregate analyses of party competition and turnout that have used differing units of analysis have shown discrepant findings. In contrast, this study focuses on the relationship between competitiveness and turnout for counties in a state political system for elections between 1876-1968. Disagreement concerning the effect of inter-party competition on electoral turnout appears to be contingent on the particular political units that are used in analysis and the extent to which the relationship between competition and turnout for states as the unit of analysis, for instance, have been positive.' Unfortunately, these findings have not