Voting Behavior of Active Duty Military Spouses: Trends in Interest and Participation

摘要

Despite the expansion of absentee voting protections as recently as 2016, Service member spouses have not enjoyed the same level of voting protections as Service members. Active duty military spouses, uniquely positioned between military service and civilian life, are arguably as important to the election process as their Service member counterparts. Thus, we examine the voting behaviors of this underserved and seldom studied subpopulation. Matsusaka's information theory-based economic model of voter turnout provides our framework for identifying determinants that shape the voting interest and participation of active duty military spouses. We analyze the Federal Voting Assistance Program's 2010 Post-Election Voting Survey of Active Duty Military Spouses utilizing logistic regression models. We found that voting interest and participation were increased among respondents who planned to vote, received more election information, voted within the previous 6 years, and who were older; however, voting interest and participation were not diminished by absentee status.