Issue saliency and voting turnout in the 1996 general election : the case of Knox County, Tennessee

The purpose of this thesis is to determine why voter turnout was significantly higher in Knox County, Tennessee in the 1996 General Election than it was generally in the state and nation. My hypothesis is that a salient local issue, namely, the proposed unification of Knoxville and Knox County governments, produced extremely high levels of voter turnout despite the fact that interest in the Presidential Election was low. To test this hypothesis I employ data from a telephone survey of Knox County conducted before and after the 1996 election. The data show that interest in the unification issue was the leading determinant of voter turnout among the numerous attitudinal and demographic variables included in the survey. This finding supports the theory that salient issues can animate potential voters who would otherwise abstain from voting.