A psychological and economic model of straight ticket, split ticket, single ticket, and nonvoting: Party identification and spatial voter choice in the American national election of 1984

This dissertation hypothesizes a psychological and economic model of voting behavior. The model posits that party identification (an implicit psychological model) and spatial voter choice (an implicit economic model) can predict straight ticket, split ticket, single ticket, and nonvoting. The psychological theory is represented by a party identification model. The economic theory is represented by the Downsian model of spatial voter choice, and a model of spatial candidate choice introduced in this model. Moreover, this dissertation hypothesizes that both theories represent a more complete model and is statistically different from the varying models of party identification and spatial voter choice. The parameters of the party identification and spatial voter choice coefficients are estimated by a logit model utilizing American National Election Series survey data from 1984. Results indicated that the full model significantly differs from each individual model. The implications are that voting and nonvoting decisions are viewed as a process representing a current tally of evaluations of psychological and spatial voter choice variables.