Non-citizen voting rights and political participation of citizens: evidence from Switzerland

Abstract

Can non-citizen enfranchisement policies reduce the turnout gap between citizens with an immigration background and native citizen voters? While increasingly common in practice, there are only a handful of studies on the political consequences of non-citizen enfranchisement on voter mobilisation. Here, we examine the impact of non-citizen voting (NCV) rights on the political participation of citizens with and without an immigration background. Focusing on Switzerland, we use high-quality household panel data (SHP) from 1999 to 2014, leveraging both longitudinal and municipal level variation of enfranchisement laws when identifying their effect on turnout. We show that NCV rights boost political participation overall, and it particularly enhances turnout among citizens with an immigration background. Our analysis adds to existing theoretical explanations and empirical debates on representation and political participation in diverse democratic societies with large immigrant populations.

Conditional Enfranchisement: How Partisanship Determines Support for Noncitizen Voting Rights

“…We argue that the partisan alignment between U.S. voters and noncitizens is consequential for voters' support for noncitizen voting rights-with voters supporting suffrage conditionally on partisan alignment. Voters may view enfranchisement of co-partisans (or disenfranchisement of out-partisans) as an opportunity to increase their party's political influence (see, e.g., Kayran and Nadler 2022), even when noncitizen (dis)enfranchisement is opposed to their party's value-based prescriptions. Thus, rather than a principled commitment or opposition to noncitizen enfranchisement, we argue support is driven by pragmatic preferences.…”