There is no such thing as the effect of turnout

Jo Thori Lind

EPCS 2022

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Motivation – turnout

▶ High turnout important for the legitimacy of any democracy

▶ Electoral turnout varies between countries, election types, and
over time

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Motivation – turnout

▶ High turnout important for the legitimacy of any democracy

▶ Electoral turnout varies between countries, election types, and
over time
▶ Also varies across groups of voters
▶ Middle aged, well off, highly educated voters have high
turnout

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Motivation – turnout

▶ High turnout important for the legitimacy of any democracy

▶ Electoral turnout varies between countries, election types, and
over time
▶ Also varies across groups of voters
▶ Middle aged, well off, highly educated voters have high
turnout
▶ Grants more political power to this group

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Example – Turnout and the left

▶ Conventional wisdom:
Left wing parties gain from high turnout
▶ Marginal voters tend to vote for the left
▶ Large number of papers finding this correlation

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Motivation – Increased turnout

▶ What is the effect of increased turnout?

▶ Parties in power
▶ Outcomes of referenda
▶ Implemented policies

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Motivation – Increased turnout

▶ What is the effect of increased turnout?

▶ Parties in power
▶ Outcomes of referenda
▶ Implemented policies
▶ Simple empirical approach: Compare elections with varying
turnout
▶ Mueller and Stratmann (2003):
High turnout ⇒ More even distribution; lower growth
▶ Fumagalli and Narciso (2012):
High turnout ⇒ Increased spending and deficits
▶ Fisher (2007):
No clear effect on support for left wing parties

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Turnout – The empirical challenge

▶ Not random who votes

▶ Not random who votes when

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Turnout – The empirical challenge

▶ Not random who votes

▶ Not random who votes when
▶ High turnout at a given election correlated with a number of
things
▶ Salient issues
▶ Important election
▶ Charismatic candidates
▶ Scandals
▶ Hard to distinguish turnout from voter preferences

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Empirical approaches
Find a shock to turnout in some elections/areas

▶ Rainfall
Gomez et al. (2007), Artés (2014), Persson et al. (2014), Arnold and
Freier (2016), Lind (2020), Rudolph (2020), Munley et al. (2022)
▶ Electoral rules and technology
Finseraas and Vernby (2014), Fujiwara (2015), Aggeborn (2016)
▶ Timing of elections
Anzia (2011, 2014)
▶ Health shocks
Godefroy and Henry (2016), Frank et al. (2020), Giommoni and Loumeau
(2021)
▶ Threats
Montalvo (2011), Getmansky and Zeitoff (2014)
▶ RCTs (experimental treatments)
Nickerson (2008)

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There is no such thing as the effect of turnout

▶ Comparing observed turnout gives little information

▶ Shocks to turnout affects specific groups
▶ Not the effect of “increased turnout”
▶ The effect of increased turnout in group X

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A stylized model of turnout

▶ Two parties, left wing L and right wing R

▶ Voters differentiated by income y ∼ F (·)
▶ Expected utility of voting u(y ) with u ′ (y ) > 0
▶ Vote if u(y ) + ϵ ≥ 0 with ϵ ∼ G (·)
▶ In income group y , a fraction ℓ(y ) votes for party L

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Political outcomes

▶ Total turnout
Z
G (u(y )) dF (y )
y ∈Y

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Political outcomes

▶ Total turnout
Z
G (u(y )) dF (y )
y ∈Y

▶ Vote share of party L

Z
SL = ℓ(y )G (u(y )) dF (y )
y ∈Y

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Political outcomes

▶ Total turnout
Z
G (u(y )) dF (y )
y ∈Y

▶ Vote share of party L

Z
SL = ℓ(y )G (u(y )) dF (y )
y ∈Y

▶ Advantage or disadvantage of party L

Z
S∆ = [2ℓ(y ) − 1]G [u(y )] dF (y )
y ∈Y

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What is increased turnout?
A uniform increase

▶ All groups increase their turnout by a uniform fraction

▶ Turnout increased by fraction τ in all income groups y
Z
SL = ℓ(y )[G (u(y )) + τ ] dF (y ).
y ∈Y

▶ Effect of “increased turnout” on party L’s advantage

 Z
∂S∆ 
= [2ℓ(y ) − 1] dF (y )
∂d τ =0 y ∈Y

▶ Shock has larger effect on larger groups, otherwise no effect

▶ Is even this the best experiment?

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What is increased turnout?
A uniform shock

▶ A uniform shock d to the utility of voting, so utility u(y ) + d

▶ Increase in turnout for voters with income y

∂ 
G (u(y ) + d) = g (u(y ))
∂d d=0
▶ Vote advantage of party L
 Z
∂S∆ 
= [2ℓ(y ) − 1]g [u(y )] dF (y )
∂d  d=0 y ∈Y

▶ Stronger effect in groups with more marginal voters

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What is increased turnout?
A differential shock

▶ Often shocks have larger effects on some groups

▶ A uniform shock dδ(y ) to the utility of voting,
so utility u(y ) + dδ(y )
▶ Increase of

∂ 
G [u(y ) + dδ(y )] = δ(y )g [u(y )]
∂d d=0
▶ Vote advantage of party L
 Z
∂S∆ 
= [2ℓ(y ) − 1]δ(y )g [u(y )] dF (y )
∂d d=0 y ∈Y

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What is increased turnout?
Empirical implementations

▶ Shocks to turnout used in the literature has larger effect on

some groups than others
▶ The associated δ(y ) varies with y
▶ Can even change sign
▶ Rainfall keeps poorer voters from voting
▶ Rainfall seems to increase turnout among the rich (Lind 2020)

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What is increased turnout?
Summary

▶ Uniform increase
 Z
∂S∆ 
= [2ℓ(y ) − 1] dF (y )
∂d τ =0 y ∈Y

▶ Uniform shock
 Z
∂S∆ 
= [2ℓ(y ) − 1]g [u(y )] dF (y )
∂d d=0 y ∈Y

▶ Differential shock
 Z
∂S∆ 
= [2ℓ(y ) − 1]δ(y )g [u(y )] dF (y )
∂d d=0 y ∈Y

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Data – administrative records

▶ In the 2015 municipal election, 27 municipalities used

computerized systems to record voters.
▶ Includes the largest municipalities so 1.7 million voters (out of
4 million)
▶ Over-representation of big municipalities
▶ Also data for 2013 Parliamentary elections
Somewhat fewer municipalities
▶ Perfect matching over time
▶ These data can be merged with other administrative registers
using unique personal IDs (‘personnummer’)
▶ Socio-economic background
▶ Location of residence

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Turnout by voter attachment

1.00

Always voted
0.75
Share

0.50

0.25
Voted once

Never voted
0.00

0 25 50 75 100
Income percentile

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Conclusion

▶ There are clearly effects of changing turnout

▶ This effect depends heavily on how and why turnout changes
▶ There is no single effect of changing turnout
▶ Rather each change has its own identity and its own effects
▶ Important to explore who is affected by a given instrument
▶ External validity limited

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