Title :

Place of registration and place of residence: the non-linear detrimental impact of transportation cost on electoral participation

Author(s) :

Fauvelle-Aymar, Christine [Auteur]
LAboratoire d'Economie Publique [LAEP]
François, Abel [Auteur]
Laboratoire de recherche en gestion et économie [LARGE]
Lille économie management - UMR 9221 [LEM]

Journal title :

Public choice

Pages :

405-440

Publisher :

Springer Verlag

Publication date :

2018-06-07

ISSN :

0048-5829

HAL domain(s) :

Sciences de l'Homme et Société
Sciences de l'Homme et Société/Economies et finances

English abstract : [en]

The French case offers a very valuable opportunity for testing the impact of transportation costs on the individual decision of turnout, because in France, voters can be registered in a municipality other than their ...
Show more >The French case offers a very valuable opportunity for testing the impact of transportation costs on the individual decision of turnout, because in France, voters can be registered in a municipality other than their residential municipality. Voters with a non-residential registration have to travel great distances in order to cast their ballots compared to voters with a residential registration. Our empirical analysis, based on a unique dataset extracted from the French Census database, uses a selection model to estimate the probability of voting of an individual voter with a non-residential electoral registration and assesses the impact of the distance to the voting municipality on this probability. The analysis shows that distance and in fine the cost of voting have a highly significant impact on electoral turnout: at the median distance (22 km), a 1% increase in distance induces a reduction of 0.01% in turnout in the first round of the 2012 French presidential election and 0.007% in the second round. Moreover, the impact of distance is non-linear: an increase in distance for voters with a short distance to travel is more detrimental to turnout than the same increase for voters who travel great distances. The results are robust to several checks, ranging from analyzing other elections to changes in the estimation method. This analysis provides new insights in the issue of voting cost and its impact on electoral turnout.Show less >

Language :

Anglais

Peer reviewed article :

Oui

Audience :

Internationale

Popular science :

Non

Collections :

• Lille Économie Management (LEM) - UMR 9221

Source :

Harvested from HAL