Studies indicate that as many as one-third of localities in the United States elect their leaders on partisan ballots. This would seem to violate the reformist idea that local government ought to be as insulated as possible from party politics. State and local governments continue to mandate changes to how citizens shall elect their local representatives, yet these changes are debated and enacted with little empirical evidence to support the arguments for or against such a change.

In this dissertation I address three broad research questions. First, what are the consequences of partisan local electoral systems on representation? Second, to what extent does local government performance affect voter behavior, conditional on the type of ballot voters engage with? Third, do partisan local elections provide more choices to voters through more frequent contested races? The answers to these questions will be of real value to scholars concerned with the realization of competent governance and representative democracy.

It has been difficult empirically to separate the type of office being evaluated from the ballot-type used to put those officials in power. In short, the type of ballot and type of office usually go together, making it difficult to discern which is pivotal. I resolve this methodological hurdle by examining what is perhaps the most ubiquitous type of governing body in the United States---school boards---and by learning from cases where the types of ballot used to elect school board members vary. Specifically, I focus on four states where the type of office (school board) is held fixed but their ballot type varies.

Politicians, reformers, and activists believe that election rules affect how local governments operate, yet we have little empirical evidence that speak to this relationship. Investigating the effects of electoral rules outcomes such as voter participation, competition, and representation in local government is a necessary first step to informing this debate. This project lays the groundwork for a future research agenda that seeks to understand how the increasingly polarized American body politic filters down from the national to local level.