Journal Articles
- Lisa Schur, Mason Ameri, Joseph Dietrich, Michael Herron, Douglas Kruse, Whitney Quesenbery, Melissa Rogers, Jean Schroedel, Daniel A. Smith, Cameron Wimpy. 2025. “Ensuring Voting Access Across the Electorate.” Journal of Election Administration Research & Practice 3: 3-10.
Abstract: This paper summarizes evidence on barriers that can limit access to voting faced by several key groups: people with disabilities, senior citizens, Native Americans, rural citizens, and young citizens. The barriers faced by these groups shed light on many common issues that limit access more generally. Common barriers include polling places that are hard to reach and navigate, difficulties in voting by mail, and insufficient access to voting information. Difficulties specific to particular groups include inaccessible voting systems and not being allowed to vote among some people with disabilities, intimidation and harassment of Native Americans, declining rural populations leading to fewer resources for voting systems, and high mobility among young voters. We review best practices, suggest improvements to election systems, and identify fruitful areas for new research. Partnerships with key organizations and individuals can facilitate efforts to make voting information and opportunities more readily available and accessible.
- Samuel Baltz, Alexander Agadjanian, Declan Chin, John Curiel, Kevin DeLuca, James Dunham, Jennifer Miranda, Connor Phillips, Annabel Uhlman, Cameron Wimpy, Marcos Zárate, Charles Stewart. 2022. “American Election Results at the Precinct Level.” Nature: Scientific Data 9(651): 1-12.
Abstract: We describe the creation and quality assurance of a dataset containing nearly all available precinct-level election results from the 2016, 2018, and 2020 American elections. Precincts are the smallest level of election administration, and election results at this granularity are needed to address many important questions. However, election results are individually reported by each state with little standardization or data quality assurance. We have collected, cleaned, and standardized precinct-level election results from every available race above the very local level in almost every state across the last three national election years. Our data include nearly every candidate for president, US Congress, governor, or state legislator, and hundreds of thousands of precinct-level results for judicial races, other statewide races, and even local races and ballot initiatives. In this article we describe the process of finding this information and standardizing it. Then we aggregate the precinct-level results up to geographies that have official totals, and show that our totals never differ from the official nationwide data by more than 0.457%.}
- Cameron Wimpy. 2021. “Political Failure and Bureaucratic Potential in Africa.” Journal of Policy Studies 36(4): 15-25.
Abstract: Recent scholarship theorizes that shortcomings in good governance are a result of political, not bureaucratic, failures. These challenges are no less important in the developing world, and they are particularly acute in many African countries where resources are scarce and political development is relatively limited. Although the impacts of public administration quality on governance outcomes in Africa are well established, the empirical relationship between political failures and bureaucratic capacity remains underexplored. In addition, political issues in developing countries often cause bureaucratic pathologies to vary across the additional dimensions of corruption, judicial independence, and political pluralism. Using a combination of unique datasets, I turn the recent theories on political failure into testable propositions for how these processes unfold in the African context. The findings are of interest both for improving governance in developing countries and adding to the growing body of literature examining the severity of the challenges posed by political failure in various contexts.
- Cameron Wimpy, Laron K. Williams, Guy D. Whitten. 2021. “X Marks the Spot: Discovering the Treasure of Spatial-X Models.” The Journal of Politics 83(2): 722-739.
Abstract: In recent years, political scientists have made extensive use of spatial econometric models to test a wide range of theories. In a review of spatial papers, we find that a majority of these studies use the spatial autoregressive (SAR) model. Although this is a powerful method that reveals inferences about diffusion processes, it is also highly restrictive and makes assumptions that often are not appropriate given the expressed theories. We contend that spatial-X (SLX) models are a better reflection of typical theories about spatial processes. Our simulations demonstrate that SLX models consistently retrieve the direct and indirect effects of covariates when the true data-generating process reflects other spatial processes. SAR models, however, tend to find phantom higher-order effects that are not present in the data. We further demonstrate how SLX models reveal heterogeneity in patterns of spatial dependence in countries’ defense burdens that SAR models cannot discover.}
- Guy D. Whitten, Laron K. Williams, Cameron Wimpy. 2021. “Interpretation: The Final Spatial Frontier.” Political Science Research and Methods 9(1): 140-156.
Abstract: The use of spatial econometric models in political science has steadily risen in recent years. However, the interpretation of these models has generally ignored the important substantive, and even spatial, nature of the estimated effects. This leaves many papers with a (non-spatial) interpretation of coefficients on the covariates and a brief discussion of the sign and strength of the spatial parameter. We introduce a general approach to interpreting spatial models and provide several avenues for an exposition of substantive spatial effects. Our approach can be generalized to most models in the spatial econometric taxonomy. Building on the example of the diffusion of democracy, we elucidate how our approach can be applied to modern political science problems.}
- Charles Stewart III, R. Michael Alvarez, Stephen Pettigrew, Cameron Wimpy. 2020. “Abstention, Protest, and Residual Votes in the 2016 Election.” Social Science Quarterly 101(2): 925-939.
Abstract: Objective. We analyze the significant increase in the residual vote rate in the 2016 presidential election. The residual vote rate, which is the percentage of ballots cast in a presidential election that contain no vote for president, rose nationwide from 0.99 to 1.41 percent between 2012 and 2016. Method. We use election return data and public opinion data to examine why the residual vote rate increased in 2016. Results. The primary explanation for this rise is an increase in abstentions, which we argue results primarily from disaffected Republican voters rather than alienated Democratic voters. In addition, other factors related to election administration and electoral competition explain variation in the residual vote rates across states, particularly the use of mail/absentee ballots and the lack of competition at the top of the ticket in nonbattleground states. However, we note that the rise in the residual vote rate was not due to changes in voting technologies. Conclusion. Our research has implications for the use of the residual vote as a metric for studying election administration and voting technologies.
- Kenneth J. Meier, Mallory Compton, John Polga-Hecimovich, Miyeon Song, Cameron Wimpy. 2019. “Bureaucracy and the Failure of Politics: Challenges to Democratic Governance.” Administration and Society 51(10): 1576-1605.
- Matthew W. Walker, Sarah A. Evans, Cameron Wimpy, Amanda Berger, Alexandria Smith. 2018. “Developing Smokeless Tobacco Prevention Messaging for At-Risk Youth: Early Lessons from ‘The Real Cost’ Smokeless Campaign.” Health Equity 2(1): 167-173.
- Chris McKallagat, Flávio D. S. Souza, Jenifer Whitten-Woodring, Cameron Wimpy. 2017. “Are Media at Work in Your Neighborhood? The Effect of Media Freedom, Internet Access and Information Spillover on Workers’ Rights.” Social Science Quarterly 98(3): 1078-1098.
- Cameron Wimpy, Guy D. Whitten. 2017. “What Is and What May Never Be: Economic Voting in Developing Democracies.” Social Science Quarterly 98(3): 1099-1111.
- Blake E. Garcia, Cameron Wimpy. 2016. “Does Information Lead to Emulation? Spatial Dependence in Anti-Government Violence.” Political Science Research and Methods 4(1): 27-46.
Abstract: This study examines whether acts of anti-government violence exhibit spatial dependence across state boundaries. In other words, to what extent can acts of anti-government violence in one country be attributed to violence in neighboring countries? Past research, which has largely focused on civil war or large-scale conflict contagion, finds that geographically proximate states are more likely to experience the cross-boundary diffusion of conflict due to action emulation. However, this assumes that actors are fully aware of conflicts occurring in neighboring countries. To address this, the article argues that the proliferation of communication technology increases access to information about events in neighboring states, thereby allowing emulation to occur and subsequently conditioning the potential for violence to spread. It tests this expectation by modeling the effects of a unique spatial connectivity matrix that incorporates both state contiguity and access to communication technology. An analysis of all acts of anti-government violence in 44 African countries from 2000 to 2011 supports the argument.}