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Am I obliged to vote? A regression discontinuity analysis of compulsory voting with ill-informed voters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2021

Mathieu Turgeon Open the ORCID record for Mathieu Turgeon [Opens in a new window]  and
André Blais
Mathieu Turgeon*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, The University of Western Ontario, ON N6A 3K7, Canada
André Blais
Affiliation:
Département de Science Politique, Université de Montréal Montreal, Canada
*
*Corresponding author. Email: mturgeo4@uwo.ca
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Abstract

We study the impact of compulsory voting in Brazil, where voting is mandatory from age 18 to 70 and voluntary for those aged 16, 17 and 70+. Using a survey sample of 8008 respondents, we document voter confusion about how the age criterion applies. Some people falsely believe that what matters is one's age in an election year rather than on Election Day. Next, we perform a regression discontinuity (RD) analysis of compulsory voting among young voters with register-based data from six Brazilian elections (2008–2018). We find that the effect of compulsory voting is seriously underestimated if we focus solely on the discontinuities prescribed by the law. Our findings carry important implications for studies adopting the RD design where knowledge of the cutoff is expected of the units of interest (like those about compulsory voting) and confirm that compulsory voting is a strong institutional arrangement that promotes greater electoral participation.

Keywords

compulsory votingelectoral participationregression discontinuity designturnoutvoter misinformation
Type
Research Note
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , January 2023 , pp. 207 - 213
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Political Science Association

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References

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Turgeon and Blais Dataset

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https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Y5M9XR
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