Downsian closeness hypothesis under investigation: a study on austrian direct mayoral elections

Abstract

Does the expectation of a close race drive more people to vote? Despite increasingly intensified electoral competition and hardened fronts at all political levels over the last decades, a decline in turnout rates can be observed representing a puzzling development. Though there are anomalies, previous studies show a clear trend towards a positive association between a close race and an increase in turnout. Based on the idea of the “rational choice” theory, the prospect of a close or undecided race increases the subjective weight of the individual vote, which drives more voters to the ballot box. In fact, ‘expected Closeness’ is one of the most frequently tested independent variables in voter turnout research. However, the factor is only measured ex-post in most cases. Such measurements use the results of the actual election to infer the ‘Closeness’ of the race. However, these measurement methods are less valid because they do not measure ‘Closeness’ in the decisive period before the election takes place. We want to contribute a test of the effect by analysing all runoff elections in Austrian direct mayoral elections since 1991 as they allow for ex-ante measurement. The first ballots and the runoffs are temporally close. Thus, the first vote results serve as a direct indicator of the ‘expected Closeness’ in the second round of voting. The electorate changes, if at all, only insignificantly between the ballots. In addition, socio-economic factors influencing voter turnout can be kept constant, increasing the validity of the test. The results of this study underline the positive and independent effect of ‘Closeness’ on the turnout of the election. The closer a mayoral race in Austria is in the first round, the higher is the turnout in the following runoff elections. The study also presents the independent and strong effects of socioeconomic factors on turnout. Our research not only provides a valid test of the effect of ‘expected Closeness’ on voter turnout, it also constitutes pioneering work in complete data collection on all direct mayoral elections in Austria.