Strategies for Predicting Whether a Citizen Will Vote and Estimation of Electoral Outcomes.

This study reports on a new methodological technique for estimating turnout in preelection studies of voters and brings a new approach to the allocation of undecided voters. The estimation procedure utilizes a smaller number of predictors than past research, providing a more efficient method which can be used with telephone as well as personal interviews. A comparison of estimates based upon a likelihood index and probability weighting results in equivalent predictive power, and appropriate applications for each technique are discussed.
Michael W. Traugott is Senior Study Director at the Center for Political Studies at The University of Michigan. Clyde Tucker was Assistant to the Director of the CBS News Election and Survey Unit at the time this research was conducted; he currently works in Washington. The data utilized in this paper were made available by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. The data for the CPS 1980 American National Election Study were originally collected under a grant from the National Science Foundation. The data for the CBS News/New York Times surveys were originally collected by the New York Times and CBS News, and processed by CBS News and ICPSR under a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. Neither the collectors of the original data nor the Consortium bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here. Support from the computing facilities at The University of Michigan is gratefully acknowledged, as well as the research assistance of Frank Baumgartner. A version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, Hunt Valley, Maryland, May 20-23, 1982. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]