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Voting in the Cold November Rain? Effects of the Weather on Turnout in Austria

Fri, October 1, 4:00 to 5:30pm PDT (4:00 to 5:30pm PDT), TBA

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the effects of weather conditions on voter turnout in Austria in 78 Federal and State elections over four decades.

While a number of variables, such as the citizens' economic resources, level of political information, partisan mobilization, or political efficacy can explain how likely voters are to turn out to vote (Blais 2006), other factors can discourage individuals from voting by increasing the cost of voting (Blais 2019). Living farther away from a polling station (Brady 2011) or the difficulty of registering to vote (Braconnier 2017) have been shown to increase the cost of voting and in turn reduce turnout.

One factor that is regularly discussed in the news media shortly before an election is the weather. How do the outside conditions on election day affect the electorate's likeliness to vote? Scholars have provided evidence for several countries, returning mixed results: Particularly rainfall on election day can encourage citizens to vote (Norway – Lind, 2020; Italy – Lo Prete and Revelli, 2014) as well as prevent voters from partaking in the election (Spain – Artés, 2014; Netherlands – Eisinga et.al., 2012; United States – Gomez et.al., 2007).

With this contribution, we explore for the first time the effect of weather on turnout in Austria, a country with traditionally high voter turnout and alpine weather conditions in the temperate climate zone. Elections in Austria can take place at any time of the year, which allows for examining the impact of various forms of weather. Our paper tests the statistical relationship between observed voter turnout and election day weather conditions, using municipality-level data from 12 federal elections (1979-2017; 27,061 municipal results) and 66 state elections (1979-2018; 15,875 municipal results).

Drawing on ECMWF's reanalysis weather data (ERA5, Hersbach 2020), which allowed us to derive weather conditions and their anomalies for each municipality on the 78 election days, we model turnout using a regression model. Controlling for population size, election year, season, and institutional factors such as compulsory voting, we show that the weather does have a significant effect on voter turnout. Rainfall leads to a decrease in turnout in both federal and state elections, warmer temperatures increase turnout, with a stronger effect of this for federal elections. Our results show that the weather on election day significantly influences turnout levels by increasing or decreasing the costs of voting. The paper contributes to the literature on electoral participation and turnout and also speaks to the general public.

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