Estimating Crowd: Electoral Adjustment and Spatial Effects of Turnout During Covid-19 Pandemic

Budi Arya ()
Additional contact information
Budi Arya: Department of Politics and Government, 59166 Universitas Gadjah Mada , Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Statistics, Politics and Policy, 2025, vol. 16, issue 2, 147-177

Abstract: While extensive scholarship has examined determinants of voter turnout, spatial dimensions of turnout – particularly during crises – remain understudied. This article investigates the rise in voter turnout during the 2020 mayoral election in Surabaya, Indonesia, one of the largest elections held amid the peak periods of Covid-19 infection. Utilizing spatial econometric models, it analyzes how geographical proximity to Covid-19 cases and electoral adjustments to reduce polling station crowding shaped voter behavior. The findings indicate that spatial effects, approximated via spatial autoregressive models, contributed to higher turnout during the pandemic. Moreover, electoral adjustments – specifically reductions in polling site population size – significantly influenced turnout. Although spatial effects were also observed in pre-pandemic elections, their magnitude increased during the pandemic. These results suggest that simple administrative interventions can reshape voters’ calculus during a public health crisis, offering insight into how turnout may evolve under exceptional circumstances.

Keywords: turnout; voting; spatial effect; Covid-19 pandemic; electoral adjustment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/spp-2024-0061 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:statpp:v:16:y:2025:i:2:p:147-177:n:1003

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyte ... journal/key/spp/html

DOI: 10.1515/spp-2024-0061

Access Statistics for this article

Statistics, Politics and Policy is currently edited by Joel A. Middleton

More articles in Statistics, Politics and Policy from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().