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Abstract: An FBI sting investigation, from 1984 through 1987, called "Operation Pretense" exposed extensive corruption amongst Mississippi's county supervisors. In response, Mississippi's legislature asked voters in the November 1988 general election to choose between the then-prevalent "beat system" of county governance and a more centralized "unit system" thought to be less corruption-prone. Voters opted for the unit system in 47 of Mississippi's 82 counties. We use spatial econometric techniques to examine voter turnout rates in that election. We compare spatial econometric and ordinary least squares models: both reveal that, ceteris paribus, revelations of supervisor corruption influenced voter turnout rates positively at the county level. However, we find no relationship between corruption and voters' beat-unit choices using spatial econometric techniques - suggesting that voters did not go to the polls to punish corrupt politicians, but were motivated by candidates' and parties' greater electioneering efforts to gain access to or to protect corruption rents.
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1.Introduction
Each county Board of Supervisors in Mississippi has five members elected to concurrent terms of four years. Under the "beat system," which was in place in all but two of the state's 82 counties before the November 1988 general election, individual supervisors exercised nearly unconstrained administrative control of their individual, geographically defined subcounty districts or "beats." Voters in each beat elect their supervisor, each of whom is responsible for buying and maintaining county vehicles, handling contracts with suppliers, controlling inventories, and directing the activities of county workers. Because the county school board and the sheriff are responsible, respectively, for overseeing the public schools and the criminal justice system (Karahan et al., 2006), building and maintaining county roads and bridges account for most of the beat supervisors' attention. In that setting relevant spending decisions are taken unilaterally by each beat's supervisor, meaning that, at best, the line between legislative and executive power is fuzzy. Given few checks and balances on supervisors' budgetary discretion, the beat system is susceptible to corruption because resource-allocation decisions at the beat level do not require approval by the county's four other supervisors.
Under the alternative "unit system" decisionmaking is more centralized, and governing powers are separated more sharply: legislative functions clearly are the responsibility of the five-member Board of Supervisors, while...