The Effect of the General Election on the New York City Mayoral Democratic Primary Voter Turnout

by Tayba Aziz, Emilia Decaudin, and Katlyn Palmatier

Background

Voter turnout is based on a variety of factors including morale, ties to the community, peer pressure, ease of registration, etc. (Davenport, 2010; Highton, 2000; Stockemer, 2017b) New York City is unique because the population is composed of people of all backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. This study will analyze voting data to determine what, if any, effects general presidential elections have on voter turnout in New York City Democratic mayoral primaries.

There are also two different types of elections that this study will analyze, general and primary. A general election is an election in which eligible voters across all parties can participate. Any U.S. citizen who is registered to vote can vote in the United States general presidential elections. U.S. citizens can register to vote if they’re above the age 18. Those convicted of a felony cannot vote while serving time. A primary election is an election in which voters within a party select a candidate to represent their party in a general election. New York State has closed primaries, meaning that only voters who are registered to a specific party can vote in primaries. Another way of categorizing elections is if there is an incumbent or open seat. An incumbent is an official who already holds office. If an official who is holding office does not, or cannot, run for another election, the election is open seat.

Research Question

Did the results of the 2016 General Election affect voter turnout in the 2017 Primary Election in NYC?

Hypothesis

The unusual results of the 2016 General Election led to a higher voter turnout in the 2017 Primary Election than the voter turnouts of previous primaries (1997-2013) that followed a General Election.

Methods

We will compare the turnout of NYC Democratic mayoral primary elections from 1997 to 2017 with the turnout of each previous year’s general elections, from 1996 to 2016, and determine if there is A. a relationship between the turnout in general elections with Democratic turnout in subsequent primary elections and B. if the 2016 Presidential general election affected turnout in the 2017 Democratic mayoral primary election to an unusual degree compared to previous years.

There are two main methods for measuring voter turnout. The first method measures “voter turnout as the percentage of registered voters who actually turn out [or vote]”. (Stockemer, 2017a) The second method measures “voter turnout as the percentage of a country’s voting age population that cast their ballot on Election Day”. (Stockemer, 2017a) This study will use the first method. We will be using the former method.

We will collect registration and turnout date from the New York City and New York State Board of Elections’ websites, as well as from ourcampaigns.com for data too old to be available on the previous two sites.

We will create a regression line using this data, and then analyze it with a t-test to determine if there is any significant difference between turnout in the sampled years.

References

Davenport, T. (2010). Public Accountability and Political Participation: Effects of a Face-to-Face Feedback Intervention on Voter Turnout of Public Housing Residents. Political Behavior, 32(3), 337–368. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-010-9109-x

Highton, B. (2000). Residential Mobility, Community Mobility, and Electoral Participation. Political Behavior, 22(2), 109–120.

Stockemer, D. (2017a). Electoral Participation: How to Measure Voter Turnout? Social Indicators Research, 133(3), 943–962. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1410-6

Stockemer, D. (2017b). What Affects Voter Turnout? A Review Article/Meta-Analysis of Aggregate Research. Government and Opposition, 52(4), 698–722. https://doi.org/10.1017/gov.2016.30