State Turnout and Presidential Voting

Abstract

This article challenges Radcliff's recent claim that state-level voter turnout strongly influences state-level vote divisions for president. It is demonstrated that Radcliff's claim is an artifact of ignoring the contribution of the Voting Rights Act to southern electoral politics. When the analysis is restricted to nonsouthern states, least squares dummy variable (LSDV) pooled time-series cross-sectional analysis shows no evidence whatsoever of a turnout effect on the vote.