Kimberly Bynum

On The Impact of Personal Freedom on Voter Participation of Eligible Voters in Presidential Elections Kimberly Bynum

Abstract: This disseration extends the rational voter model to include a measure of personal freedom which captures certain motivations not previously accounted for in prior empirical studies of voter turnout in U. S. presidential elections. Fixed-effects estimations of a panel data set of publicly available data reflecting explanatory variables for the 50 states for the presidential election years 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016 suggest that this previously unaccounted for variable, personal freedom (PERSONAL-F), may exercise a negative and statistically significant influence on the expected benefits of voting and hence a negative and statistically significant impact on the voter participation rate. State-level empirical evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that, after allowing for a variey of other factors, greater personal freedom decreases voter participation, ceteris paribus. Dissertation Discovery Company and Jacksonville University are dedicated to making scholarly works more discoverable and accessible throughout the world. This dissertation, "On The Impact of Personal Freedom on Voter Participation of Eligible Voters in Presidential Elections" by Kimberly Diane Bynum, was obtained from Jacksonville University and is being sold with permission from the author. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation.