Does proportional representation foster voter turnout?

Abstract

Abstract. This paper examines the record of western democracies to measure the impact of differing electoral formulae on the rate of voter turnout. The record of 509 national elections in 20 countries provides the basis for a regression analysis that clearly identifies higher turnout rates in PR systems that cannot be explained by a wide variety of control variables or traditional arguments about PR. The data also reveal a marked increase in electoral turnout over the last century.

How Turnout Depends on the Number of Parties: A Logical Model

“…Multi-seat PR elections tend to enable many parties to run and tend to have more voters turning out than single-seat plurality elections (Blais & Carty, 1990;Blais & Dobrzynska, 1998;Brockington, 2004;Crewe, 1981;Jackman, 1987;Jackman & Miller, 1995;Norris, 2004;Selb, 2009;Siaroff & Merer, 2002). However, within the PR systems an increase in the effective number of electoral parties actually is observed to lower turnout (Blais, 2006;Blais & Aarts, 2006;Blais & Carty, 1990;Blais & Dobrzynska, 1998;Brockington, 2004;Jackman, 1987;Jackman & Miller, 1995).…”

“…However, within the PR systems an increase in the effective number of electoral parties actually is observed to lower turnout (Blais, 2006;Blais & Aarts, 2006;Blais & Carty, 1990;Blais & Dobrzynska, 1998;Brockington, 2004;Jackman, 1987;Jackman & Miller, 1995). This article proposes a single, logically anchored equation (Taagepera, 2008) to explain this reversal, which Grofman and Selb (2011) refer to as " Blais' Paradox."…”

“…Moreover, because our underlying model has a clear theoretical prediction (along with some general expectations about signs and orders of magnitude) we can present our results in a way that allows readers to directly visually (and viscerally) see how well the data fit the single humped expectations of the model. Third, our work seeks to make a substantive contribution to the understanding of variations in turnout (see Blais, 2006;Blais & Aarts, 2006;Blais & Carty, 1990;Blais & Dobrzynska, 1998). Blais and his colleagues are concerned that comparisons of types of electoral systems show turnout higher in PR systems than in single-seat plurality systems and the standard reason for why we get this result is that more political parties give greater choice and so higher levels of turnout; yet, one does not find turnout rising linearly with the (effective) number of parties (or the number of seat-winning parties).…”

Political Preferences and the Aging of Populations

“…Iversen and Soskice (2006) even argue that the ideological composition of governments is affected by electoral institutions, with proportional systems favoring center left-coalitions, while center-right governments dominate under plurality voting. Furthermore, a number empirical studies have clearly shown that voter turnout is significantly higher in proportional systems (see Blais and Carty (1990);Jackman (1987)). The findings of a recent paper by Fisher et al (2008) even suggest that plurality systems discourage voters with less political knowledge from going to the polls.…”

Attitudes to voting rules and electoral system preferences: Evidence from the 1999 and 2003 Scottish Parliament elections

“…Much attention has been paid to the impact of different electoral rules on the proportionality of election outcomes, on the nature of party systems, on government formation and on patterns of representation (overviews of research on these themes appear in Colomer, 2004;Farrell, 2001;Grofman and Reynolds, 2001;Shugart, 2005). The implications of different electoral systems for citizens' attitudes and behaviour have been studied too, in particular the impact of different rules on electoral turnout (Blais and Carty, 1990;Fisher et al, 2008; Franklin, 2004: chs4-5; Norris, 2004: ch7) and levels of system support (Anderson, 1998;Farrell and McAllister, 2006;Miller and Listhaug, 1990;Norris, 1999Norris, , 2001. But relatively little attention has been paid to voters' attitudes towards these rules in the first place.…”