The COVID-19 Pandemic's Effects on Voter Turnout

Matteo Picchio and Raffaella Santolini

No 14241, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of participating in public events, among them elections. We assess whether the voter turnout in the 2020 local government elections in Italy was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We do so by exploiting the variation among municipalities in the intensity of the COVID-19 outbreak as measured by the mortality rate among the elderly. We find that a 1 percentage point increase in the elderly mortality rate decreased the voter turnout by 0.5 percentage points, with no gender differences in the behavioural response. The effect was especially strong in densely populated municipalities. We do not detect statistically significant heterogeneous effects between the North and the South or among different levels of autonomy from the central government.

Keywords: mortality rate; voter turnout; pandemic; outbreak; COVID-19; Italian municipalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D81 H70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Forthcoming - published in: European Journal of Political Economy, 2022, 73, 102161

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Related works:
Journal Article: The COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on voter turnout (2022)
Working Paper: The COVID-19 Pandemic's Effects on Voter Turnout (2021)
Working Paper: The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Effects on Voter Turnout (2021)
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