Date of Graduation

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts in Political Science

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Political Science

Advisor/Mentor

Maxwell, Angie

Committee Member/Reader

Parry, Janine A.

Committee Member/Second Reader

Stapp, Robert

Committee Member/Third Reader

Churchill, Hugh

Abstract

In 2001, Amendment 80 was implemented into the Arkansas Constitution. One part of this Amendment was changing statewide judicial elections from being partisan to nonpartisan. This research project seeks to analyze the impact of Amendment 80 on Arkansas Supreme Court elections. The research considers how three components of elections have been impacted by the Amendment which are diversity of candidates, level of competition, and voter turnout. Data collection was conducted for all Arkansas Supreme Court elections from 2002-2022. The information that was collected includes election records as well as descriptive characteristics of candidates including race, gender, raw vote, opposed versus unopposed, law school attended, and more. This project produced findings and figures that are based on the results of the research to further show the impact of Amendment 80. The main findings are that the candidates running in Arkansas Supreme Court elections are not diverse, there is competition in the majority of the elections, and turnout is relatively low.

Keywords

Nonpartisan Judicial Elections; State Supreme Court Elections; Amendment 80; Arkansas

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