Tr. Sass et Bj. Pittman, The changing impact of electoral structure on black representation in the South, 1970-1996, PUBL CHOICE, 104(3-4), 2000, pp. 369-388
For many years voting rights litigation has focused on elimination of at-la
rge elections and the creation of "majority-minority" districts - election
districts where a majority of the electorate are racial/ethnic minorities.
Numerous studies have analyzed the impact of district elections on minority
representation, particularly the election of blacks in the South. Most of
these studies have focused on a single time period, comparing the ratio of
black representatives to black population across cities with different elec
toral schemes. The present study combines data from six different data sets
to produce a panel of data covering five distinct time periods over a 26 y
ear span. Cross-sectional estimates of the effect of district elections in
each time period are compared to determine how the efficacy of district ele
ctions has changed over time. To control for possible selection bias, inter
-temporal models of the impact of changes in election structure on changes
in representation are also estimated.