Identifying the effect of mobilization on voter turnout through a natural experiment

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 192-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kentaro Fukumoto ◽  
Yusaku Horiuchi
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment

Social Capital and Voter Turnout: Evidence from Saint's Day Fiestas in Mexico

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Atkinson ◽  
Anthony Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Omitted Variables ◽  
Reverse Causation ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Community Activity ◽  
Community Activities ◽  
Percentage Points

Social capital and community activity are thought to increase voter turnout, but reverse causation and omitted variables may bias the results of previous studies. This article exploits saint's day fiestas in Mexico as a natural experiment to test this causal relationship. Saint's day fiestas provide temporary but large shocks to the connectedness and trust within a community, and the timing of these fiestas is quasi-random. For both cross-municipality and within-municipality estimates, saint's day fiestas occurring near an election decrease turnout by 2.5 to 3.5 percentage points. So community activities that generate social capital can inhibit political participation. These findings may give pause to scholars and policy makers who assume that such community activity and social capital will improve the performance of democracy.

Voter Turnout and Political Equality: Testing the ‘Law of Dispersion’ in a Swedish Natural Experiment

Politics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 172-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikael Persson ◽  
Maria Solevid ◽  
Richard Öhrvall
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
The Law

scholarly journals Vote centers and turnout by election type in Texas

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 205316801986422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeronimo Cortina ◽  
Brandon Rottinghaus
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Cumulative Impact ◽  
Clear Information ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Election Cycles

The use of vote centers—specific locations in a county where all voters will vote—is on the rise nationwide, as more than a dozen states used this process by 2018. More states are moving toward using voting centers to remedy the problem of low voter turnout, with the assumption that the centralization of voting to several core county locations will increase voter accessibility. What we have less clear information about is the effect of vote centers on turnout in individual elections across several cycles. Using a natural experiment in Texas—a state that has three fixed election cycles—we find vote centers have a small positive impact on traditionally lower turnout elections but no effect on higher turnout elections. The cumulative impact of vote centers has a small effect on turnout over time. These results suggest a more cautious assessment is needed when considering the use and impact of vote centers.

Election Administration and the Pure Effect of Voter Registration on Turnout

2011 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry C. Burden ◽  
Jacob R. Neiheisel
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Closing Date ◽  
Election Administration ◽  
Administrative Capacity ◽  
Local Election ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Negative Effect

Voter registration is thought to have a substantial negative effect on American voter turnout. The authors clarify this understanding in two ways. First, using a natural experiment in Wisconsin, they estimate the pure effect of registration, stripped of aspects such as the closing date. Registration lowers turnout by about 2 percentage points. Second, the authors argue that administrative capacities of local election officials are important moderators of how much registration affects turnout. Municipalities with less capacity are associated with bigger decreases in turnout. Researchers and policy makers should consider administrative capacity as a component in the equal application of voting laws.

scholarly journals The Loma Prieta earthquake and the cost of voting in the 1989 San Francisco municipal election: Evidence from a natural experiment

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316802110042
Author(s):  
Garrett Glasgow ◽  
Pavel Oleinikov ◽  
Rhoanne Esteban
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Earthquake Damage ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Loma Prieta Earthquake ◽  
Election Administration ◽  
Loma Prieta ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Municipal Election

On October 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the central coast of California. Three weeks later, on November 7, 1989, San Francisco held a municipal election. A dozen polling places had been destroyed or were otherwise inaccessible to the public due to the earthquake, so new polling places were selected for the affected precincts in the days leading up to the election. This case represents a credible natural experiment examining how changes in the costs of voting affect political participation, with the “as-if” random assignment of voters to the treatment group determined by earthquake damage to individual buildings rather than election administration decisions which could conceivably be related to turnout, such as precinct consolidation or the location of precinct boundaries. We use a difference-in-differences design, with the difference in turnout between the 1987 and 1989 municipal elections as the outcome variable. We find that voter turnout was 2.9 [5.1, 0.6] percentage points lower in precincts in which the polling place was relocated due to earthquake damage as compared to precincts that kept their original polling place.

Driving Saints to Sin: How Increasing the Difficulty of Voting Dissuades Even the Most Motivated Voters

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
John E. McNulty ◽  
Conor M. Dowling ◽  
Margaret H. Ariotti
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
New York State ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Political Methodology ◽  
York State ◽  
Cost Cutting ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Naturalistic Setting

The consolidation of polling places in the Vestal Central School District in New York State during the district's 2006 budget referendum provides a naturalistic setting to study the effects of polling consolidation on voter turnout on an electorate quite distinct from previous work by Brady and McNulty (2004, The costs of voting: Evidence from a natural experiment. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology, Palo Alto, CA). In particular, voters in local elections are highly motivated and therefore might be thought to be less affected by poll consolidation. Nevertheless, through a matching analysis we find that polling consolidation decreases voter turnout substantially, by about seven percentage points, even among this electorate, suggesting that even habitual voters can be dissuaded from going to the polls. This finding has implications for how election administrators ought to handle cost-cutting measures like consolidation.

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