Daniel Shea, 2009.

Local Parties and Electoral Mobilization (166)
Historically, parties were key to high turnouts.
US Youth Voting (VT) in Comparative terms
History of Voter Turnout in the US (167)
Methodological Questions:
Defining Voters
Defining Youth: 18-24 or 18-29 ?

Methodological Questions:
Defining Voters: VAP v. VEP
VAP: Voting Age Population
“Voting-age population…consists of everyone age 18 and older residing in the United States…”
VEP: Voting Eligible Population
Defined by those who are eligible to vote (“excludes: non-citizens and ineligible felons, and [includes] overseas eligible voters…”)*
Defining Youth: 18-24 or 18-29 ?
*
Source: M. McDonald, http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm.

Source: M. McDonald, http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm.

Defining Youth: ( 18-24 or 18-29 ?) Presidential Elections, 1927-2008

Defining Youth: ( 18-24 or 18-29 ?) Presidential Elections, 1927-2006
Source: CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Tufts University)

Youth Turnout (18-29): Massachusetts, Presidential Elections, 1974-2004 .

Youth Turnout (18-29): Mid-term Elections, 1974-2006 .
Source: CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Tufts University)

Youth Turnout: (18-24 and 18-29) Gender, Presidential, 1972-2004
Source: CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Tufts University)

Youth Turnout (18-29): Area, Mid-term Election, 2006 .
Source: CIRCLE (The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Tufts University)

What drove voter participation in the past?
Parties: specifically local parties) were key in the 19 th and early 20 th
Centuries.
Several recent studies found that local parties often play a critical role in reg. new voters and in GOTV (Frendeis et al. 1990; Shea and Green 2007)
But local parties declined during over the course of the 20 th C.

Party Variation and Youth Engagement Efforts
Methodology:
Green and Shea (2007) [Chapters 2 and 3] conducted a 2003 survey of 805 local party leaders.
Most see Youth Engagement (YE) as important, but only about half do it.

Perceptual and Contextual forces Shaping Youth Engagement
Studies focuses on “ perceptual and contextual forces that shape” a party’s willingness to … undertake youth-centered projects and the likely success of these efforts.”
We might assume certain types of parties in certain contexts will be more successful at YE than other orgs. (169)

Outline of Chapter: Focus on three key variables
1) Party Goals
2) Party Resources
3) Electoral Competition

Party Goals
What are local parties designed to accomplish? What distinguishes a “successful” from a “failed” party?
Two Differing Perspectives on Party Goals:
Rational-Efficient/Pragmatic
Responsible/Ideological
Rational-Efficient/Pragmatic:
Elite, no mass-base, focused on the “professional” goal of becoming more technically advanced. Even more so than winning elections, the objective is to aid candidates (invokes the “service” party concept).
Responsible/Ideological:
Goal is public policy change, elections should be won in order to elect officials who espouse the party’s policies.

Rational-Efficient/Pragmatic:
Elite, no mass-base, focused on the “professional” goal of becoming more technically advanced. Even more so than winning elections, the objective is to aid candidates (invokes the “service” party concept).
Responsible/Ideological:
Goal is public policy change, elections should be won in order to elect officials who espouse the party’s policies.

Grassroots Youth Mobilization: Difficult and Costly
Since, grassroots mobilization of new voters, esp new young people is difficult, time consuming … parties have begun to focus more on converting independent voters .

Party Strength (171)
Also, given the cost, author predicts, Strong Parties more likely than Weak parties to try to engage new, youth voters.

Electoral Competition:
Studies have suggested that Youth Voting is related to competitiveness
(Franklin 2004).
But is unclear why. Two theories:
1) Is it because parties are more aggressive reaching to voters
2) Or because voters feel uncertain about the outcome of the election

The Data
Data sets:
Survey of 805 county party leaders
Census data (which provide county specific variables).
County-by-county results form 2000 and 2004.
Voter turnout date form 27 states (purchased)

Dependent Variables: Effects (172)
Party has Youth Engagement Program
Willingness of Party to attract Youth Voters
Overall YE efforts (reg prog, GOTV)
Perceived success of progs
Independent Variables
Party Goals
Party Strength
Electoral Competition

Party Functions (Goals) and Youth Engagement
Party leaders asked to describe party type: Rational-Efficient or Responsible.
Results: parties are split. (Table 7.2)

Goals: clearly shape attitudes toward Youth Engage
Responsible Party more willing to engage youth than rational-efficient.
Party Strength (174)
Stronger parties are more likely to engage youth.
Electoral Competition
Data also suggests that there is a positive correlation between Electoral
Competition and youth engagement by parties.