This paper reports on the impact of the Rural Income Maintenance Experiment on participation in the electoral process. Paradigms of the left and of the right predict dramatically different consequences of universal income supplement, the left wing seeing such a program as essential for minimal democratic processes while the right sees in universal income supplements the seed for the destruction of democratic institutions. The empirical data reported here, based on the two statewide elections that took place during the course of the experiment, show that families receiving negative income tax payments were neither pushed toward nor withdrawn from participation in electoral processes. Race, education, age, and nonpolitical community involvement so dominated the predictors of participation that the income changes induced by the experiment had little observable impact. Neither the size of the transfer nor the availability of the transfer were found to be significant. (Author)