Reassessing the Theory and Measures of Non-Voting Political Participation in the American Electorate

Political participation scholarship often relies on conventional measures of non-voting activities and overlooks differences in voting and non-voting behavior. We call for a more contemporaneous account of non-voting political participation (NVP) and reevaluation of the theory regarding who engages in NVP. Using data from the 2020 American National Election Studies (ANES) survey (N=8,280), we develop an updated NVP scale and confirm NVP is more associated with ideology than partisanship. We also show that the probability of voting among weaker partisans and Independents is conditional on NVP. We replicate these findings with data from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study (N=61,000) and 1992-2020 ANES surveys (N=18,157), and conclude these patterns are not contingent on any specific NVP activity or unique to the 2020 election. The implication is that NVP can serve an important ideological function for those who do not identify with one of the two major political parties.