No Surprises, Please: Voting Costs and Electoral Turnout

Jean-Victor Alipour () and Valentin Lindlacher

No 9759, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Can well-intentioned policies create barriers to voting? Election administrators in Munich (Germany) recruit new polling places and control precinct sizes to improve voting accessibility, creating variation in the assignment of citizens to polling locations. Event study estimates suggest that polling place reassignments cause a persistent shift from in-person to mail-in voting and a transitory drop in total turnout of 0.4 percentage points (0.6 percent). The results are consistent with inattention to reassignments, causing some voters to miss requesting mail-in ballots and temporarily abstain from voting. Reassignments depress turnout more in elderly-heavy precincts and when distance to the polling location increases.

Keywords: voter turnout; election administration; inattention; polling places; event study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D73 D83 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pol and nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9759

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