Russel Sage Foundation

Relatively few citizens vote in the typical local election, with turnout often below ten percent of eligible voters. Voters in local elections differ from non-voters and are more likely to be white, well-off, well-educated, older, and advantaged. One implication is that those needing government support may have the least say in what government does. Political scientist Zoltan Hajnal will investigate the potential of local election timing reform to make democracy more representative. Should jurisdictions hold local elections on the same day as statewide contests, or should stand-alone elections be held on other days? While we know that the former can double turnout, we do not know the extent to which increased turnout translates into a more even democracy. Does higher turnout associated with on-cycle elections yield a more representative electorate by race, class, and age? Are on-cycle elections associated with increased local office holding by under-represented racial minorities? And are they associated with shifts in local spending that more closely mirror the preferences of the public? Hajnal has acquired data on local election timing in California, Florida, and several other states and has merged the entire local election voter file with commercial data from Catalist, which identifies the race, income, age, and partisanship of every local voter for the last 15 years and will allow him to analyze which voters participated in which elections. In addition, Hajnal has downloaded the names of every candidate running for local office in California over the last 15 years. Using those names, he can estimate their race/ethnicity and compare minority candidate success rates in on- vs. off-cycle contests. Finally, he has merged the timing and turnout data with Census of Government data containing annual measures of local government taxing and spending. He will exploit variation in when cities and states change their election timing for all local elections in Florida and California over 15 years to examine how election composition differs within the same city, depending on when votes are cast.