Electoral Costs and Local Public Institutions’ Role in Voter Turnout: Evidence from Czech Municipal Elections

Opening of additional polling stations in foreign countries has been brought forward as a method to raise the turnout of diaspora voters in Latvian parliamentary election, and the number of polling stations abroad during last four elections has almost doubled. In this article, the author tests the argument that the increase in the sheer number of polling stations and the expansion of territorial coverage is an election parameter in foreign countries with the potential to raise the election turnout. In sharp contrast to a popular argument and the academic debate, the results of the Latvian data analysis show that opening of new polling stations did not meet the intended goal and cannot be regarded as an effective method for raising the diaspora voter turnout; the means must be sought in other factors of election organisation and voter behaviour. To compare data of voter behaviour in foreign countries in four separate parliamentary elections and to determine tendencies in diaspora voting patterns, the deviation of the elections outcome in foreign countries from the general national results are analysed by the help of calculation model that uses the Voting Outcome Coefficient. The article outlines that the third and fourth wave of emigration have introduced a new tendency of extreme stratification in the results between the Latvian Association of Regions (2014), KPV LV (2018) and the rest of the political parties. The article also analyses the deviation of the elections outcome in the new polling stations from the vote share in particular foreign countries by the help of Polling Station Coefficient, and concludes that in the 13th Saeima election, all newly opened polling stations were beneficial for KPV LV as results in all of them were proportionally even better than the list’s overall results in a particular country.

Can voting reforms and high-quality election administration increase voter turnout and make turnout more equal in primary elections in the United States?This is an important question because, though these elections are critical in determining who will be the candidates in general elections, they are known for low voter turnout rates.This chapter examines how voting reforms and election administration can work independently and together to improve the level of political participation in these elections.More specifically, this research provides an overview of the scholarship on voting reform laws and election administration in relation to American general and primary elections.Then, focusing on U.S. midterm primary elections from 2014 to 2022, this chapter employs qualitative and quantitative research methods and evidence to show how voting reforms and election administration shape voter turnout and turnout equality between different demographic and political groups.Finally, this chapter synthesizes prior research with this study's empirical findings to make a series of policy recommendations.Ultimately, this chapter illustrates how voting reforms and high-quality election administration can serve as curatives to low and unequal political participation in U.S. primary elections.What if, in the United States, the only elections that mattered were primary elections?While this may seem hyperbolic, some argue this may be an accurate assessment of election circumstances in wide parts of the country.According to Drutman (2021, 21 -22), only one-sixth of House general elections are competitive, offering viable candidate choices from different political parties to the general electorate.This means that primaries are the only competitive elections for many Americans in which they can cast meaningful ballots that can make a difference.Yet US primaries typically have very low voter turnout rates.A potential consequence of this problem is that such low voter turnout rates lead to the selection of candidates that are too partisan, particularly because partisan individuals are more likely to vote in primary elections than more moderate individuals.The selection of candidates that are too partisan in primary elections can reduce inter-

Though participatory budgeting (PB) is often discussed as a tool to bolster the level of civic participation and the quality of democracy, empirical research on the subject offers ambiguous results. In the Czech Republic, PB was introduced 5 years ago, and the number of implemented PBs has since increased substantially. The purpose of this article is to evaluate whether the use of PB is associated with higher voter turnout in municipal and parliamentary elections. Voter turnout in Czech municipalities that implemented PB is analyzed and compared with the control group of municipalities without PB. Considered by type of election, we found that the impact of PB use on voter turnout is higher for local elections than it is for national elections, which is in line with our assumptions. However, our results were significant for Prague districts only. Participatory budgeting could increase voter turnout in local election, but there are other factors that must be considered.

There is a rich political science literature on the relationship between election administration and voter turnout but it is largely based on studies of U.S. elections. Innovations with election administration by the United Kingdom’s New Labour government allow researchers to see whether U.S. findings travel. These short-term experiments and permanent reforms have been criticized for encouraging electoral fraud and undermining confidence in the democratic process (Wilks-Heeg, 2009); being led by motivations of party statecraft (James, 2010a); or being a false substitute for real democratic reform (Hay and Stoker, 2009: 226). There is much to these claims, and drawing lessons from the pilots is difficult because of poor experimental design. However, the innovations suggest that election administration can affect U.K. turnout. The effects of all-postal and individual registration appear to be particularly significant. Election administration is therefore an overlooked variable in non-U.S. literatures on electoral participation and is worthy of further investigation by researchers and policymakers.

This paper considers the impact of distance to polling station upon electoral turnout. Using polling station level data from a London borough, it examines three types of election – parliamentary, European and local elections – over a twenty year period. The UK is notable among western liberal democracies for its relatively large turnout gap – the percentage point difference between turnout at elections for the Westminster parliament compared to that for other institutions, including local councils and the supra‐national European parliament. This research considers the hypothesis that in high information, high salience elections for the national parliament the costs of voting associated with travelling to a polling station to vote in person are perceived as either low or insignificant but that in low information, low salience elections, those costs are perceived as higher and may act as a deterrent upon voting. A series of multi‐level models consider the relationships between the dependent variable, percentage turnout, and a range of independent variables, including socio‐economic characteristics, marginality as well as the spatial context. We show that there is indeed a relationship between distance and voter turnout, and other spatial and contextual variables, which are stronger for the lower salience European and local elections than for the higher salience national elections. Hence we conclude that the local geography of the polling station can have a significant impact on voter turnout and that there should be a more strategic approach to the siting of polling stations.

Mapping the Territorial Distribution of Voter Turnout in Czech Local Elections (1994–2018)

As an instrument of smart governance, participatory budgeting has been implemented by several dozen of municipalities in the Czech Republic. This is in line with the trend in many European cities. The paper examines the implementation of participatory budgeting in Czech municipalities. It is observed that participatory budgeting is being implemented in the Czech Republic typically on a very limited scale. The particular aim of this paper is to analyze the relation of participatory budgeting to the traditional political participation in local elections. Following an examination of the extent in which the instrument is implemented in the Czech municipalities, statistical tools are used to relate implementation of participatory budgeting to several measures of traditional political participation, such as voter turnout and intensity of the political competition in municipal elections. The paper concludes that the implementation of participatory budgeting has very little relation to the traditional, electoral participation in the Czech Republic.

Recent initiatives for increasing participation in UK elections have yet to replace the traditional method of in-person voting at designated polling stations. Recent research has shown that voter turnout can be sensitive to geographical factors relating to the costs of voting, such as distance travelled to the polling station; government policy has stated that accessibility is a key criterion when siting polling stations. With this paper we directly address these important issues by predicting the probability of electoral turnout to parliamentary, local, and European elections when polling stations are resited to optimal and suboptimal locations based on polling district voter density in the London Borough of Brent. The differences in these predicted probabilities show that, for some polling districts, resiting the polling place could improve the probability of turnout by up to five percentage points. These findings lead to some recommendations for future policy relating to the siting of polling places in the UK.

Reviewed by: Elections Henry J. Jacek Elections. John C. Courtney. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004. Pp. 192, illus., b&w, $65.00 cloth, $22.95 paper John C. Courtney is the leading scholar on the history, principles, and current practice of elections in Canada. Thus, he is the best choice to analyse the Canadian electoral system for the Canadian Democratic Audit series. Courtney's basic conclusion is that, overall, Canadian elections are democratic. Yet he examines areas that are still open to democratic weakness such as the plurality vote system and representational fairness. As Courtney argues, the story of the historical development of Canadian and provincial electoral regimes is a happy one. Four of the five [End Page 170] components of our electoral systems – voter eligibility, election districts, registration practices, and election administration – have slowly and consistently improved since Confederation. These components changed as a result of popular democratic pressure but slowly enough to allow the dominant parties to adjust their appeals to the electorate so as to maintain, more or less, their competitive electoral positions. Today, the most controversial aspect of our electoral system is plurality voting. Its critics are vocal, its defenders, to the extent they exist, are quiet. So why does this system persist? The major change would likely be dramatic. Political parties and our representational system would be most affected, perhaps in unexpected ways. As Courtney points out, changing the electoral system would change the campaign strategies of the political parties and the voting strategies of voters. Finally the election results might produce outcomes that severely damage the governability of the country. Yet defenders are hard pressed to ignore the faults of the plurality system as it works in Canada. Even though the major parties try to run regionally balanced campaigns, election results consistently produce outcomes that grossly under-represent regions and, at the federal level, provinces. Regionally strong parties with limited geographical appeal are over-represented in legislatures, while broad-based parties with non-concentrated support are often grossly under-represented. Courtney also argues that change may not always be good. In recent years, a permanent voters list was seen as being preferable to an election-specific registry of voters. However, as Courtney points out, the establishment of a permanent voters list did not result in a democratic expansion of suffrage, increase voting participation, or reduce a perceived democratic failing in the enumeration procedure. Overall Courtney's volume is an even-handed comprehensive overview of the Canadian electoral system and its historical development. Some will see too much conservatism in his analysis, others, like myself, will see an overdue defence of traditional Canadian institutions and their evolution. Certainly, to this reviewer, a critical assessment of the move to a permanent voters list was long overdue. Just as importantly, while the faults of the plurality system are justly seen as undemocratic, we need to understand why Canadians have been loath to change this system, and we need to be aware that the expected benefits of change may not materialize and indeed may produce consequences worse than the present system. Clearly, most hand-wringing observers of lower voting participation have not asked an important question: What is the effect of a permanent voting list on citizen participation in elections? When we add to this [End Page 171] question a similar query about a recent characteristic of election campaigns – shorter election campaigns – the question becomes even more compelling. Indeed, sitting governments' desire for shorter campaigns is seen as an additional justification for a permanent list. As Courtney notes, these two reinforcing factors likely reduce voting participation, especially among young citizens, and affect our actual measurement of voting participation. Approximately one-fifth of our population moves each year, most comprising young, poor, tenants, and poorly educated. These citizens are not likely to wind up on our registration list, and they are not stimulated to pay attention to the campaign by enumerators on their doorstep. Also while it is now more difficult to get on the registration rolls, it is even more difficult to eliminate the deceased and those who have moved out of a constituency. Thus, our purported lower voting rates in recent years may be partially due to actual...

In an influential study, Matthew Gentzkow found that the introduction of TV in the United States caused a major drop in voter turnout. In contrast, the current analysis shows that public broadcasting TV can increase political participation. Detailed data on the rollout of television in Norway in the 1960s and 1970s are combined with municipality-level data on voter turnout over a period of four decades. The date of access to TV signals was mostly a side effect of geography, a feature that is used to identify causal effects. Additional analyses exploit individual-level panel data from three successive election studies. The new TV medium instantly became a major source of political information. It triggered political interest and caused a modest, but statistically significant, increase in voter turnout.

Polling stations are the pinnacle of the electoral process, where voters make their final choice about candidates and governments. They also present a considerable logistical and administrative challenge to ensure democratic ideals are delivered to electors. This interaction between electoral politics and public administration varies in different countries, contributing to electoral integrity in distinct ways. The first section asks: what are polling stations? The role of polling stations, how their design and location can contribute to the achievement of electoral principles, and how these aspects vary between countries are examined. The second section considers the logistical challenge of setting up polling stations across countries. In particular, the chapter describes numbers of polling stations, how they are staffed and by whom, and how this is resourced. The third section considers the problems experienced in polling stations, including political issues such as electoral fraud and intimidation to more administrative difficulties in finding and staffing polling locations. These difficulties are often not immune from wider societal challenges, as indicated by a brief discussion of the impact of COVID-19 on polling stations. The fourth section examines whether polling stations will face a near-term challenge from the growing demand for technology. The conclusion makes several recommendations for policymakers and academic research to address when considering the role of polling stations, drawing from international evidence, academic accounts to election observation reports, and other data to develop a picture of the continued centrality of polling stations to electoral integrity.

Denationalisation and the rise of independent lists are strong trends in the local politics of many European countries, but little is known about their implications. Using the example of Czechia, we examine several effects of this trend, focussing on two questions: 1) What impact does the growing number of independents have on voter turnout? 2) How does this trend affect competitiveness and the party system? Using data on electoral results in Czech municipalities over two consecutive elections, we document mobilisation effects based on the presence of independents. The strongest mobilisation occurred in municipalities in which both types of lists – party-related and independent – were well represented. The study revealed a self-reinforcing mechanism related to the success of independents. In municipalities with many independent councillors, the percentage of party-affiliated candidates decreased in subsequent elections, opening up further opportunities for independents. A side effect of this mechanism is a reduction in electoral competitiveness.

Adding Up the Costs and Benefits of Voting by Mail

This community service program (PKM) aims to analyze the implementation of the 2024 local elections in Sejangkung District. The activity was conducted in the form of a coordination meeting involving election organizers at the district level (District Election Committee) and at the village level (Polling Station Committees), as well as the Sub-District Leadership Coordination Forum (Forkopimcam) of Sejangkung District. This study was carried out due to the low level of voter participation in Sejangkung District during the 2024 local elections. The results of the analysis show that, in general, the stages of the election were implemented in accordance with the applicable regulations. However, voter participation remained low due to several factors, namely: a large number of voters residing outside the area, geographical conditions, low levels of political education and voter apathy, a reduction in the number of polling stations and invitations, and the influence of social media campaigns.

This article clarifies how political mobilization affects voter turnout in a post-conflict society by analyzing the Iraqi case using survey data. Voter turnout was high in post-war Iraq. However, the voter turnout in the fourth election, held in May 2018, declined by 20 percentage points from the previous one in 2014, mainly because of widespread political distrust due to corruption among political elites and their embezzlement of public funds, neglect of the people, and the breakdown of social services after the intensive operation against the so-called Islamic State (IS). Political mobilization during electoral campaigns usually encourages voters to go to polling stations. Notwithstanding, amid widespread political distrust in a post-conflict society, how does political mobilization affect voters’ behavior in elections? To answer this research question, we conducted a survey experiment during the 2018 electoral campaign to scrutinize the effects of political mobilization on voters in Iraq. Through quantitative analysis of the survey data, we demonstrated that voters are more likely to refrain from visiting polling stations if they are mobilized by political parties during a campaign. Thus, political mobilization discourages voters from participating in elections when there is extensive political distrust.