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And the Beat Goes On: Further Evidence on Voting on the Form of County Governance in the Midst of Public Corruption
Author(s) -
Karahan Gökhan R.,
Coats R. Morris,
Shughart William F.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
kyklos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.766
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1467-6435
pISSN - 0023-5962
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6435.2009.00423.x
Subject(s) - ballot , legislature , corporate governance , voting , unit (ring theory) , language change , public administration , presidential system , political science , voter turnout , business , politics , law , finance , psychology , art , mathematics education , literature
SUMMARY ‘Operation Pretense,’ an FBI sting operation conducted in Mississippi during the 1980s, uncovered widespread corruption among the state's county supervisors. The revelations prompted the Mississippi legislature to authorize including on the November 1988 ballot a measure asking voters whether they favored switching to a more centralized ‘unit system’ of county governance or instead retaining the decentralized ‘beat system’ then in place in all but two of the state's 82 counties. We examine voters' decisions to participate in that election, in which 47 counties returned majorities for the unit system and 35 counties opted for the status quo. Controlling for participation in the 1988 presidential race and other relevant factors, we find that turnout rates for the beat‐unit choice were positively correlated with supervisor corruption. We also find that the corrupt counties' higher voter turnouts were driven mainly by supporters of the corruption‐prone beat system.