A01=Melanie Jean Springer
absentee voting
america
american south
Author_Melanie Jean Springer
Category=JPHF
citizenship
democracy
disenfranchisement
elections
electoral institutions
enfranchisement
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
federalism
franchise
government
history
jim crow
literacy tests
mississippi
nonfiction
participation
political science
politics
poll hours
reform
registration
suffrage
taxes
voter turnout
Product details
- ISBN 9780226114217
- Weight: 425g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 11 Apr 2014
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The United States routinely has one of the lowest voter turnout rates of any developed democracy in the world. That rate is also among the most internally diverse, since the federal structure allows state-level variations in voting institutions that have had-and continue to have-sizable local effects. But are expansive institutional efforts like mailin registration, longer poll hours, and "no-excuse" absentee voting uniformly effective in improving voter turnout across states? With How the States Shaped the Nation, Melanie Jean Springer places contemporary reforms in historical context and explores how state electoral institutions have shaped voting behavior throughout the twentieth century. Although reformers often assume that more convenient voting procedures will produce equivalent effects wherever they are implemented, Springer reveals that this is not the case. In fact, convenience-voting methods have had almost no effect in the southern states where turnout rates are lowest. In contrast, the adverse effects associated with restrictive institutions like poll taxes and literacy tests have been persistent and dramatic.
Ultimately, no single institutional fix will uniformly resolve problems of low or unequal participation. If we want to reliably increase national voter turnout rates, we must explore how states' voting histories differ.
Melanie Jean Springer is assistant professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
