Fewer but Younger: Changes in Turnout After Voluntary Voting and Automatic Registration in Chile

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dc.contributor.authorCox, Loreto
dc.contributor.authorGonzalez, Ricardo
dc.date.accessioned2025-01-20T21:11:05Z
dc.date.available2025-01-20T21:11:05Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.description.abstractElectoral rules are assumed to influence turnout. However, assessing this empirically is challenging because they rarely change and, when they do, counterfactuals are hard to come by. In 2012, Chile moved from voluntary and permanent registration and mandatory voting to automatic registration and voluntary voting. We study how electoral rules influence turnout by analyzing variations in turnout for presidential elections before and after this reform, with an original approach and using novel data. We estimate changes attributable to voluntary voting among the registered population as the increase in abstention rates among them and changes attributable to both automatic registration and voluntary voting among the non-registered population as the increase in turnout among them. We estimate counterfactual abstention and registration rates based on past behavior and use bounds to account for uncertainty. Our estimates suggest that while automatic registration and voluntary voting brought 7.1% of eligible population who were unregistered to the polls, voluntary voting pulled away 12% who were previously registered. The explicit purposes of this reform were to increase turnout and reduce the age bias in voting. We estimate a reduction in turnout of almost 5% of eligible population and a 39% reduction in the age bias of voters.
dc.description.funderCentro de Estudios Publicos
dc.fuente.origenWOS
dc.identifier.doi10.1007/s11109-022-09788-0
dc.identifier.eissn1573-6687
dc.identifier.issn0190-9320
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-022-09788-0
dc.identifier.urihttps://repositorio.uc.cl/handle/11534/93608
dc.identifier.wosidWOS:000770178100001
dc.issue.numero4
dc.language.isoen
dc.pagina.final1932
dc.pagina.inicio1911
dc.revistaPolitical behavior
dc.rightsacceso restringido
dc.subjectTurnout
dc.subjectVoluntary voting
dc.subjectRegistration requirements
dc.subjectElectoral reforms
dc.subject.ods10 Reduced Inequality
dc.subject.odspa10 Reducción de las desigualdades
dc.titleFewer but Younger: Changes in Turnout After Voluntary Voting and Automatic Registration in Chile
dc.typeartículo
dc.volumen44
sipa.indexWOS
sipa.trazabilidadWOS;2025-01-12
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