Voting Behind Bars: Policy and Predictions of Total Enfranchisement for Incarcerated Voters in the United States
| dc.contributor.advisor | Dahmen, Nicole | |
| dc.contributor.author | Tabor, Courtney | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-01-09T22:44:47Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-01-09T22:44:47Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-01-09 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Nearly five million Americans remain disenfranchised because of their incarceration or felon status. Through this dissertation project, I study two legislative campaigns and conduct a nationwide experiment to better understand the roles of persuasion, framing, and labeling in support for the total enfranchisement of people in prison. Using these two real-world examples (Washington D.C. and Oregon legislation), I conducted two content analyses that coded public comments submitted to the respective legislative bodies examining the use of persuasion and framing tools in crafting their arguments. Findings indicate that comments in support use as many tools as possible all at once, essentially trying every tactic they must to persuade their audiences. Comments in opposition used a unified voice that included fear appeals, highlighting the risks of the bills, and naming the stakeholders they saw as to blame for those risks. Additionally, I found that D.C. was more diverse in tactics, whereas Oregonians used fewer tools, although Oregonians did use a wider variety of labels and referenced more issues outside of enfranchisement. Furthermore, while D.C. focused on their struggle for statehood and distance from prisons, Oregon focused on other bills on the legislative agenda (e.g., gun rights and sustainability) and from their own history (e.g., Measure 11). Supplementing the campaign analysis, I also conducted a nationwide 3 x 2 experiment (i.e., manipulated on persuasive appeals and topic-specific issue framing) using Amazon MTurk that recruited 192 participants. Through this experiment, I found that rational appeals, positive attitudes towards prisoners, low perceived proximal risk, and left-leaning political orientations are most likely to predict support for total enfranchisement. The role of rational appeals as predictive echoed the campaign analysis, as supportive public comments tended to have more rational appeals than those in opposition. The proximal risk finding is additionally interesting, as this variable was crafted to put a name to the “I don’t want those voters to flip my district” sentiment. Importantly, framing and labeling mechanisms were not significant, indicating a need for further research on the roles of these theories in this context. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/29155 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | |
| dc.subject | framing theory | en_US |
| dc.subject | labeling theory | en_US |
| dc.subject | persuasion | en_US |
| dc.subject | policymaking | en_US |
| dc.subject | political communication | en_US |
| dc.subject | voting rights | en_US |
| dc.title | Voting Behind Bars: Policy and Predictions of Total Enfranchisement for Incarcerated Voters in the United States | |
| dc.type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation | |
| thesis.degree.discipline | School of Journalism and Communication | |
| thesis.degree.grantor | University of Oregon | |
| thesis.degree.level | doctoral | |
| thesis.degree.name | Ph.D. |
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