Sociology Commons^™

Gatekeepers To The Franchise: Election Administration And Voter Participation In New York, Ronald Joseph Hayduk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Political scientists continue to debate the causes, consequences and remedies for America's exceptionally low voter turnout. While scholarly investigation has focused on several factors which produce low voter turnout, the machinery that administers elections in the U.S. has been ignored. Nor have the political influences and environments that determine these agencies' procedures and their place in the electoral system been adequately analyzed. There is, nevertheless, good reason to believe boards of elections play a greater role in shaping participation than is generally appreciated. Evidence indicates that in conducting elections and in implementing electoral rules–such as voter registration procedures–boards of elections …