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Changes in the intensity of party competition drive changes in voter turnout, especially among young voters. The basic proposition has been established for elections in general (Franklin 2004) and for Canadian elections in particular (Johnston, Matthews and Bittner 2005). The details of the relationship, however, remain murky. Two related questions stand out. First, what mechanism links electoral competitiveness to the individual voter's turnout propensity? Strategic mobilization of supporters by parties and candidates seems a likely suspect (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993), but there is also evidence that voters take cues from competitive conditions directly (Cox and Munger 1989). Second, what rendering of electoral competitiveness in spatial and temporal terms is most relevant to variation in turnout? Previous work on Canadian elections has relied exclusively on contemporaneous measures of riding-level turnout (Endersby, Galatas and Rackaway 2002; Johnston, Matthews and Bittner 2005). What happens if we introduce measures aggregated to the province or nation and consider lags of electoral competitiveness?This paper addresses these questions through investigation of the spatial and temporal dimensions of competitiveness effects on turnout. The data for the analysis combines five waves of the Canadian Election Study (1988 to 2004) with indicators of electoral competitiveness measured at multiple geographical levels (riding, province, nation) and time points (current election, previous election). This multidimensional treatment not only speaks to the when and where of competitiveness, but also permits inferences about the mechanism(s) of the variable's impact on turnout. Current riding-level effects, for instance, imply an important role for the organizational efforts of parties, as an individual-level account of the relationship entails heroic assumptions about voter information. Lagged province-level effects, by contrast,are quite compatible with the low-information psychology of the typical voter. The analysis has payoffs both theoretical and practical. On the theoretical side, the paper promises to help sort out alternative accounts of the relationship between turnout and competitiveness, at the same time as it pushes the conceptual boundaries of competitiveness itself. On the practical side, the paper continues to illuminate the story of Canadian turnout decline, including treatment of the 2004 election. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on consistency of identification of political parties in Canada. Topics discussed include dependency on election results to measure partisan consistency, usage of Canadian survey data to measure partisan consistency and comparison of party identification and other ideological component across election cycles.

The article focuses on the patterns of voting of respondents in Canada according to the importance they give to voting in four different kinds of elections including federal elections, provincial elections and local elections. It states that the pattern of voting behavior over elections shows the predominance of those who are consistent in their behaviour.

This research is mostly interested in issue effect on vote choice. The same-sex marriage issue is used as a key element for both the 2004 and 2006 Canadian Elections, and we answer principally to three empirical questions: how many voted because of this issue? What has been the impact of this issue on parties? Do other issues were more important? In order to demonstrate the effect of same-sex marriage on Canadian vote choice, we use the Canadian electoral study data for 2004 and 2006. Multinomial analyses allow us to conclude that even if same-sex marriage has influenced vote choice, the result of the election would have been unchanged without this issue. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine voters' perceptions and evaluations of the Prime Minister's role in a major scandal, the "sponsorship scandal" that erupted in Canada in February 2004. We use the campaign waves of the 2004 and 2006 Canadian Election Studies (CES) and we focus on panel respondents who were interviewed in both waves. We analyze their perceptions of the Prime Minister's knowledge of the affair and their assessments of his handling of the issue and we ascertain how predispositions and level of information affected voters' reactions. We show that party identification strongly shaped voters' evaluations, and that the effect endured over two elections and was mostly direct, that is, largely unmediated by perceptions. There was little difference between the better and the less informed in 2004 but by 2006 the better informed were more prone to revisit their initial harsh judgments and to believe that the PM might have been unaware of the wrongdoing and had done a good job of dealing with the issue. Evaluations of the PM's performance were strongly influenced by perceptions of his awareness of the affair. Finally the verdict of the Commission of inquiry (that the PM should be exonerated from any blame) had only a marginal impact on voters' perceptions and judgments. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the role of issue ownership in individual vote choice in the 1997 & 2000 Canadian federal elections. As a correction to the original model, we find that issue ownership's effect on vote is conditional upon the salience of the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a proposal of a simple and direct test of the Receive-Accept-Sample (RAS) model. It deals with the 1988 Canadian election, which was fought over one central issue, which is the Free Trade Accord with the U.S. It focuses on the influential theory of opinion formation, formulated by John Zaller in 1992.

The article examines the reactions of voters to a corruption scandal that emerged just before the 2004 election in Canada. It summarizes the Canadian sponsorship scandal that emerged in February 2004. It discusses the results of the 2004 Canadian Election Study (CES). It explores the views on the amount of corruption to the level of political awareness, party identification, cynicism and socio-demographic characteristics.

We analyze the occurrence and frequency of election night corruption by examining the victory margins of races in Japan, Canada, and the United States. If election night corruption (the adjusting of vote totals late on election night when it is known how many votes are enought to secure a victory) occurs, we expect to see anomalous numbers of ultra close races. Our hypothesis is that election night corruption will be less likely in Canada and Japan because of the lesser levels of overall political corruption in Canada and the centralization and independence of the election bureaucracy in Japan. However, we find statistically significant evidence of election night corrution in both the United States and Canada. We also find that the net effect of the corruption benefits the Liberal Party in Canada and the Democratic Party in the United States. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the 1997 Canadian Election Study, we illustrate four different ways that a rolling cross-section can be used to assess the impact of media coverage on leader evaluations: first, a simple graphical analysis that compares trends in the balance of media coverage and average ratings of the leaders; secondly, a panel analysis and an end-of-campaign analysis of the impact of media attention on leader evaluations; third, a time-series analysis of the relationship between the tone of media coverage and mean leader evaluations; and, fourthly, individual-level analyses of the same relationship during the campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The study identifies the factors associated with the nomination and election prospects of white ethnic and visible minority candidates in three Canadian elections held between 1993 and 2000. Bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses identified how party affiliation, the geographic location of a riding, incumbency, local party competitiveness, riding cultural heterogeneity, campaign spending, minority competition, and a candidate’s racial or ethnic background influenced electoral outcomes for 3,634 candidates. Interviews were also conducted with minority politicians representing the five main parties, in order to delineate how party gatekeepers, access to campaign funds and volunteers and media coverage of their local campaigns, influenced their prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why do some declining industries easily receive the benefits of trade restriction whereas others not? How do elected officials determine industrial sectors to protect? While illuminating several factors that create inter-industry variations in protection, economists regard trade-policy outcomes as a function of lobbying and campaign contributions of import-competing sectors. To redress this gap, this paper analyzes the influence of electoral competition on the inter-industry structure of protection. I argue that all things being equal, sectoral variations in protection is explained by party unity, the extent to which parties act cohesively as strategic units and serve the interest of their core-partisan groups. Party unity, by shaping electoral values of party labels and personal reputations to reelection-minded politicians, determines types of electoral constituencies whom legislators are likely to target in policy decisions. The higher party unity over trade issues, the more likely is the incumbent-party to serve the interest of their core-partisan groups by protecting industries and sectors in their partisan strongholds rather than those in pivotal regions. These hypotheses will be tested with a variety of statistical methods, employing data on trade protection and district-level elections in the United States and Canada. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite limited electoral and governmental reward, third parties commonly contest elections under single-member-district plurality (SMD-p) electoral rules. Even under the strong party duopoly of the United States, third parties continually contest local, state, and national elections. In this paper, we relax the assumption that third party candidates are motivated solely by the rewards of office and examine the incentives for them to contest elections under variations in electoral volatility and competition. We propose a curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship between electoral competition and third party participation. When electoral competition is either very low or very high we expect the number of third party candidates to be high, due to increased opportunity to draw attention to policy issues or affect the election outcome. We expect a positive relationship between electoral volatility and third party candidacies, since high volatility signals a de-aligned electorate. We test our claims using district-level data in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States from 1980-2000. The results of negative binomial regressions indicate that third parties are more likely to contest elections when electoral uncertainty is high. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data on Canadian elections from 1980 to 2004, this paper explores voters’ responsiveness to changes in the amount of federal transfer payments received by their home provinces and whether this responsiveness exhibits a ‘negativity bias’. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using constituency level data from Canadian provincial legislative elections, the paper tests the relationship between party competition and voter turnout. Controlling for other factors, multiparty measures of competition are related to turnout. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships between Quebec and Canada and Scotland and the United Kingdom took very interesting turns in their respectivce regional legislative elections in 2007. The emergence of the SNP government in Scotland and the seeming decline of the PQ move Scotland and Quebec in different directions, the former towards a possible independence referendum and the latter toward possible greater autonomy within a federal structure. Minority governments in both places have important implications for the paradiplomatic activity of each and the relationships of central and regional governments to policy formation and directions. In this paper we examine the implications of these elections for both domestic and foreign policy options at the state and sub-state levels. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative study of the impact of party leaders and their personality traits on election outcomes is diverse and non-cumulative-it has followed a number of directions, and the literature is conflicted in almost all of these areas. One of the main branches within the leaders literature focuses on the evaluation of personality traits, and scholars are unable to agree about which traits voters take note of; whether traits actually affect election outcomes; if they do which are more important; and why or how traits are evaluated in the first place. When one looks more closely at the literature, it becomes clear that what is needed is a larger comparative analysis that incorporates election studies across time and space, in order to be able to make more definitive conclusions about the role of leader evaluations. However, one of the challenges to this endeavor stems from the nature of the data available. Different traits are included in different election studies over time, and often even where trait continuity does exist, the question format changes, making comparability over time and across space very difficult. This paper examines the impact of question format, using pooled data from election studies conducted in two countries, Canada and the United States. The analysis suggests that question format does indeed have an effect on respondents' evaluations of party leaders, but more research is needed before we can make conclusions about the implications of these effects for the comparative study of the role of leaders. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author attempted exit polling during advance poll voting and the general election in January 2006 to understand how and if party and candidate mobilization occurs. The polling was generally scuttled by Elections Canada and by other problems involved in trying to conduct exit polling remotely. The paper shares the problems that occurred and a few results reached by a very small N and offers suggestions to scholars who desire to exit poll in Canada in the future. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-election day voting is an increasingly important part of the Canadian electoral process. NED voters made the difference in a dozen ridings in 2004. This paper examines the dimensions of this trend and implications for electoral politics. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the Conservative Party?s performance in the 2004 Canadian election, concentrating on voters? perceptions, the impact of campaign information, and the party's role as the only viable alternative to the governing Liberals. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a formal model to predict the circumstances under which voters (in plurality elections) will abandon their most-preferred candidate to cast a PROTEST VOTE. We then test these predictions on survey data from Canada and the UK. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of healthcare has been dominant in recent Canadian elections and has remained a key issue on the policy agenda beyond elections. This paper aims to expose media framing effects on public perceptions of the actual state of healthcare. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the processes used to reach electoral reform recommendations in several Canadian provinces and analyzes those recommendations both comparatively across provinces, and in the context of the electoral reform literature. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of polls on perceptions of the race, preferences, and vote choice under three different electoral systems: pure plurality (Canada), pure PR (the Netherlands), and a mixed member proportional system with a threshold (New Zealand). We test the hypothesis that poll effects are greatest in Canada, where the incentives for strategic voting are strongest, and smallest in the Netherlands, where the incentives are weakest. The data come from the 1997 Canadian Election Study (CES), the 1998 Dutch Election Study (DES), and the 1999 New Zealand Election Study (NZES). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the performances of political parties in the 2008 general elections in Canada, and analyzes the election results. It focuses on the victory of the governing Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and how the election of Stephane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party at the end of 2006 helped in the victory of Harper. It focuses on the changes in the vote share and seat counts of different parties including Conservative, Liberal and New Democratic Party.

This article elaborates a rationale from which party identification is seen as a hindrance to rational behavior. Hypotheses are tested in the context of the 1988 Canadian federal election. Different measures of a rational vote choice are considered. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrants in Canada do not always vote Liberal. Analysis of a large sample survey taken during the 2006 election suggests immigrants are prone to vote for whichever party seems regionally dominant to express inclusion within mainstream society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past four years, the United States and Canada have both implemented new campaign finance laws that sharply restrict the influence of organized interests, particularly businesses and labor unions, in elections. In both nations, these new laws restrict groups' ability to contribute to politicians and air political advertisements on radio or television. In the United States, interest groups have responded by increasing their direct communication with their own members about politics. There is some evidence, as well, that Canadian groups have done this. This project explores the degree to which American and Canadian organized interests have learned political strategies from each other, either directly and indirectly, and it explores the applicability of groups' adaptations to campaign finance reform in each country. Through interviews with major American and Canadian interest groups and analysis of campaign finance data, it explores the degree of direct and indirect coordination by groups in the two countries. This project will help to researchers to understand the effects of campaign finance reforms in both countries, and it will assess the degree to which groups in the two countries share political information. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral competition has long been held as a required and essential component of a smoothly functioning democracy. This common wisdom suggests that representative responsiveness is likely to decrease as the level of general election competitiveness falls off. The closer the election the more uncertain the incumbent member of the legislature is about her ability to get reelected, which motivates her to work harder to win votes (i.e. campaign harder, spend more time in the district, secure more pork projects, modify voting behavior in the legislature, etc.). In turn these activities should increase voter satisfaction and efficacy. This final linkage is what we take up here. Namely, do voters in districts that have competitive elections demonstrate higher levels of efficacy and higher levels of satisfaction with the representative and with the legislature itself? Using survey data from the most recent elections in three western democracies with single member district systems (UK, Canada, and the U.S.) we find no such connection. Rather, the winner/loser dichotomy is primal. Electoral competitiveness has no measurable effect on voters either in terms of satisfaction with their representative or with more abstract variables like efficacy. This finding has important implications for democratic theory and for redistricting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of electoral systems, and ultimately electoral reform, are important to examine because choosing an electoral system is one of the most important institutional decisions for any democracy. The significance of electoral systems lay in the fundamental aspect that they translate the votes of the electorate into the legislative body that will form the government. The Canadian electoral system of First Past the Post (FPTP), a plurality voting system that was adopted from the British model, has been criticized as being undemocratic in its distribution of votes and allocation of power. The system of FPTP was adopted in a time when the composition of Canadian society was very different; the principles and values of the current Canadian population do not correlate with the present electoral system. Women and minorities, whom make up a significant percentage of the Canadian electorate, are not adequately represented in the legislative body that is, in theory, meant to protect all members of society. Different electoral systems create different incentives and disincentives for political parties to achieve equality in political representation. It is crucial to recognize how different electoral systems distribute political power and how certain electoral systems are designed to actively and consciously enhance the representation of women and minorities. Elections are the venues in which eligible citizens are free to choose which candidate they believe should hold political office and it is reasonable to consider that there exists a better electoral system for Canadian democracy than the current system of FPTP. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electoral competition has long been held as a required and essential component of a smoothly functioning democracy. This common wisdom suggests that representative responsiveness is likely to decrease as the level of general election competitiveness falls off. The closer the election the more uncertain the incumbent member of the legislature is about her ability to get reelected, which motivates her to work harder to win votes (i.e. campaign harder, spend more time in the district, secure more pork projects, modify voting behavior in the legislature, etc.). In turn these activities should increase voter satisfaction and efficacy. This final linkage is what we take up here. Namely, do voters in districts that have competitive elections demonstrate higher levels of efficacy and higher levels of satisfaction with the representative and with the legislature itself? Using survey data from the most recent elections in three western democracies with single member district systems (UK, Canada, and the U.S.) we find no such connection. Rather, the winner/loser dichotomy is primal. Electoral competitiveness has no measurable effect on voters (be they winners or losers). This finding has important implications for democratic theory and for redistricting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004, election turnout rates in the United States and Canada started to converge, in part due to an increase in interest which led to higher turnout in the United States, and in part due to a generational-induced decline in turnout in Canada. Based on the theory that higher rates of participation are commonly associated with lower socioeconomic bias in participation (Lijphart, APSR 1997), I will use National Election Studies data from both countries to examine whether the recent changes in turnout levels have resulted in lower turnout bias in the United States and higher turnout bias in Canada (using standard SES variables). Possible partisan consequences will be discussed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I examine advance voting in the 2004 Canadian election. Advance voters differ from normal voters, and some parties do better than others in advance voting. But, advance voting success does not predict victory and likely does not change outcomes. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Same-sex marriage, legalized in Canada in 2005, was an electoral issue for the 2004 and the 2006 Canadian Elections. Multinomial analyses allow us to conclude that even if this issue has influenced vote choice, the net effect on the result of both elections is almost nil. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The campaign polls during the 2004 Canadian federal election and the media coverage of those polls are examined to determine how the predicted outcome of the election could be so wrong. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]