The Role of Political Information in Union Certification Elections: Preliminary Evidence from Selected States
Michael Toma
This paper focuses a public choice lens on the rationality of voters in U.S. union certification elections in fourteen selected states between 1994 and 2001. These elections are characterized by conditions that are favorable for empirical tests of the rational voter model. The electorates are relatively small, the potential benefits can be significant, and the costs of voting are negligible. The empirical work yields three straightforward results. First, voter participation is negatively related to the size of the electorate. Second, the margin of victory is negatively related to the voter participation rate. Third, as the political climate becomes more liberal, the voter participation rate declines. This suggests that in labor-friendly states, there is less of an incentive to vote either for or against certifying a union to collective bargain on behalf of workers. Full Text
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