Does a voter's decision to sit out an election depend upon where others stand?

Abstract

This analysis uses plausibly exogenous changes in electoral boundaries to investigate how voting participation is affected by local concentrations of voters who favor majority or minority parties. Novel instrumental variable and difference-in-differences models suggest that – even while accounting for overall electoral competitiveness – participation rates increase where there exist greater concentrations of voters who support majority parties, but a similar effect is not evident for less-popular, minority parties. Furthermore, this effect is driven by spending patterns of the dominant party in the local district.