To What Extent Does Compulsory Voting Increase Turnout?

• In Event: (Compulsory) Civic Duty and Turnout

Abstract

Despite the substantial body of research on compulsory voting’s relationship with turnout, much remains unknown about the extent to which different types of mandatory rules boost participation and how much states’ ability to enforce penalties might matter. It is also unclear whether compulsory voting can prevent long-term declines in participation rates. Further, all of the studies that strive for clean causal identification of the impact of compulsory voting on turnout are limited to a single country. With a focus on both breadth and causal identification, we assemble a rich new data set on voter turnout and compulsory voting, from which we have produced what we believe to be the most accurate and extensive cross-national measure of compulsory voting to date. We subject three theoretically-derived hypotheses to our data. The first expects that the positive impact of compulsory voting on turnout will be biggest where there are legal sanctions for abstention. The second puts forth that, in countries in which nonvoting can attract a legal punishment, the extent to which the state acts as a credible administrator that can execute sanctions for abstention will impact turnout. Our final hypothesis expects that the long-term secular decline in voter turnout observed in much of the democratic world can be mitigated only by enforced compulsory voting. We find support for each of our hypotheses.

Authors

• Shane P. Singh, University of Georgia

• Filip Kostelka, European University Institute

• André Blais, University of Montreal