Mandatory Voting Research Articles

Preferential Voting in Finland: How Much Do Candidates Matter, and to Whom and Why?

This paper examines preferential voting in six parliamentary elections in Finland, 1958-2007. The Finnish electoral system combines a proportional list system with mandatory candidate voting. The total number of list votes determines the number of seats a party list wins in an electoral district, while candidates are selected from the lists based on their personal votes. Six hypotheses are tested primarily with the aid of register data supplemented with individual-level data from national election studies. The overarching question is whether and why the distribution of candidate votes is uneven.The study shows that candidate votes have consistently deviated from a random distribution, but there is no clear trend over time. Strategic factors related to party size, district magnitude and the occurrence of list alliances among parties offer statistically significant explanations. Moreover, incumbent representatives have a clear advantage over other candidates. At the level of the individual voter, party identification makes a difference: citizens without a clear PID tend to stress candidates over parties. The ideological left-right dimension does not offer a robust explanation either on the aggregate or the individual level.

Information and Strategic Voting

We theoretically and experimentally study voter behavior in a setting characterized by plurality rule and mandatory voting, where voters choose from three options. We are interested in the occurrence of strategic voting in an environment where Condorcet cycles may occur. In particular, we focus on how information about the distribution of preferences affects strategic behavior. We also vary the relative importance of the second preferred option to investigate how this affects the strategic vote. Quantal response equilibrium analysis is used to analyze the game and proves to be a good predictor for the experimental data. Our results indeed show that strategic voting arises, the extent of which depends on (i) the availability of information; (ii) the relative importance of the intermediate candidate; (iii) the electorate's relative support for one's preferred candidate; and (iv) the relative position of the plurality-supported candidate in a voter's preference ordering. Our results show that information serves as a coordination device where strategic voting does not harm the plurality-preferred candidate's chances of winning.

When Do Voters Punish Corrupt Politicians? Experimental Evidence from Brazil

In a randomized field experiment in a Brazilian mayoral election in 2008, we examine whether informing voters about the corruption convictions of politicians has an effect on voting behavior. We inform voters by distributing 187,177 fliers to individual households in the vicinity of 200 voting locations that detail the corruption convictions of both candidates in a run-off mayoral election. One hundred locations received the flier of a candidate from a center-right party, accused of using public funds to take out ads in newspapers while he was under investigation, and another hundred locations received the flier of a left-party candidate, accused of giving a no-bid contract of R$2 million (approximately US$840,000) to a non-governmental organization (NGO) that she founded. A control group of 200 polling locations received no flier. The flier for the center-right candidate had no effect on vote choice, nor on spoiled ballots or turnout. The flier for the other candidate, by contrast, moved 2.6 percent of the votes on average relative to the control group, had no effect on spoiled ballots, and a negative 1.9 percent average treatment effect on voter turnout. The turnout results are particularly surprising given that Brazil has mandatory voting.

Six Questions About Neutrality Agreements (and Some Answers)

Neutrality Agreements are contracts between unions and employers that regulate the conduct of the parties in the event that a union organizing campaign commences at one or more of the employers work sites. They tend to grant unions entitlements that are superior to those available under applicable labour laws. Common terms include union access to employee lists and to the workplace in order to communicate with workers and promises by the employers to voluntarily recognize the union once the union obtained written support from a majority of workers, thereby bypassing the legislative model of mandatory union recognition votes. Neutrality agreements have a long history in the U.S., but our relatively new to Canada. This short paper briefly explores the background of these agreements and considers in the Canadian context six common legal questions that often arise in relation to these agreements.

Compulsory for Whom? Mandatory Voting and Electoral Participation in Brazil, 1986-2006

Latin America contains roughly half of the world's countries that use compulsory voting, but this electoral institution has received only limited attention from researchers. This article examines the determinants of voter turnout in the world's largest electorate subject to mandatory voting, that of Brazil. In analyzing data from six national legislative elections held in Brazil between 1986 and 2006, the study finds that the impact of compulsory laws varies across social and economic groups. From a methodological perspective, the article argues that “compulsoriness” of mandatory voting legislation can be modeled by taking into account both exemptions to the law and the relevance of potential sanctions against non-voters. The issue of enforcement must be considered if we are to develop comprehensive models of electoral participation under conditions of compulsory voting.

Voting with preferences over margins of victory

This paper analyzes a two-alternative voting model with the distinctive feature that voters have preferences over margins of victory. We study voting contests with a finite as well as an infinite number of voters, and with and without mandatory voting. The main result of the paper is the existence and characterization of a unique equilibrium outcome in all those situations. At equilibrium, voters who prefer a larger support for one of the alternatives vote for such alternative, providing a formal argument for the conditional sincerity voting condition in [Alesina, Alberto, Rosenthal, Howard, 1995. Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge] and the benefit of voting function in [Llavador, Humberto, 2006. Electoral platforms, implemented policies and abstention. Social Choice and Welfare 27 (1), 55–81]. Finally, we offer new insights on explaining why some citizens may vote strategically for an alternative different from the one declared as the most preferred.

Voting with Preferences Over Margins of Victory

This paper analyzes a two-alternative voting model with the distinctive feature that voters have preferences over margins of victory. We study voting contests with a finite as well as an infinite number of voters, and with and without mandatory voting. The main result of the paper is the existence and characterization of a unique equilibrium outcome in all those situations. At equilibrium, voters who prefer a larger support for one of the alternatives vote for such alternative. The model also provides a formal argument for the conditional sincerity voting condition in Alesina and Rosenthal (1995) and the benefit of voting function in Llavador (2006). Finally, we offer new insights on explaining why some citizens may vote strategically for an alternative different from the one declared as the most preferred.

The Calculus of Voting in Compulsory Voting Systems

Compulsory voting laws have consistently been demonstrated to boost electoral participation. Despite the widespread presence of compulsory voting and the significant impact these laws appear to have on voting behavior, surprisingly little effort has been devoted to analyzing how mandatory voting alters the decision-making calculus of individual voters in these systems. Moreover, studies that investigate the influence of compulsory voting laws on electoral participation generally treat these policies monolithically, with scant attention to the nuances that differentiate mandatory voting laws across systems and to their consequences for voting rates. Analyses that explicitly and empirically examine the effects of penalties and enforcement are surprisingly rare. This study aims to fill that void by adapting rational choice models of participation in elections for compulsory voting systems. I find that the level of penalties countries impose for non-compliance and the degree of penalty enforcement impact turnout rates. Voters in mandatory voting systems abstain least when both the penalties and the likelihood of enforcement are high, and abstain most when both meaningless.

A Review of the Mandatory Voting Systems

A Review of the Mandatory Voting Systems

Voting behind bars: Explaining variation in international enfranchisement practices

Recent attention to the issue of extension of the vote to prisoners has been paramount in the form of significant court cases in South Africa, Canada and the European Court of Human Rights as well as proposed legislation in the United States to ban the practice of ex-prisoner disenfranchisement. Surprisingly, however, no systematic work in an international setting on the subject has been conducted to explore country-by-country practices or explain variation in these approaches. In this article we explore a range of probable determinants of the extension of the ballot to prisoners, including structural determinants (conditions on voter registration, availability of voting, and mandatory voting), political determinants (democratic and non-democratic countries, and levels of political freedom) and cultural determinants (race, colonial legacies, and conceptualization of crime and criminals). We find that countries that extend more political rights to their citizens (but not necessarily democracies) and those that have expanded provisions for absentee ballots are more likely to allow prisoners to vote, while countries in Latin America and Africa, as a result of colonial legacies and civil strife, are less willing to allow prisoners to vote.

Institutional Investors’ Mandatory Voting Disclosure: The Proposal of the European Commission against the Background of the US Experience

In its Action Plan ‘Modernising Company Law and Enhancing Corporate Governance in the European Union — A Plan to Move Forward’ of 2003, the European Commission proposed a mandatory disclosure of institutional investors’ voting behaviour with regard to their portfolio companies as a medium-term measure. This proposal was evidently inspired by SEC rules mandating voting disclosure of investment companies and investment advisers adopted in the same year.

The decline of citizen participation in electoral politics in post-authoritarian Chile

Turnout among registered voters remains high in post-authoritarian Chile, but valid votes as a percentage of the voting-age population have fallen significantly in the post-authoritarian period and blank/null voting, non-registration, and abstention are on the rise. Why? This article tests three rival explanations: (1) lack of political support; (2) depoliticization; and (3) a generational shift in political culture. These theories are not mutually exclusive, but rather explain distinct contours of this electoral phenomenon. Compared to valid voters, blank/null voters exhibit less support for the political system, are less politicized, and more likely to have reached legal voting age during the democratic transition. Although non-registrants also exhibit less political support and are more depoliticized than valid voters, their behaviour is largely explained by a new political culture that stresses individual as opposed to collective participation. In addition to shedding light on this Chilean puzzle, the findings enhance the debates over electoral participation, mandatory voting, and quality of democracy in Latin America and other nascent democracies.

The Law: Must the Senate Take a Floor Vote on a Presidential Judicial Nominee?

President George W. Bush has frequently urged the Senate to fulfill its constitutional duty and vote on his nominations to the federal courts. The administration argues that the Senate must hold up-or-down floor votes on all judicial nominees. Senate Democrats counter that the president is trying to short-circuit the procedural steps of the confirmation process. Currently, both sides are waging an ideological and institutional battle over the judicial confirmation process. This article analyzes the claim that the Senate must vote on all of the president's judicial nominees, and concludes that there is no basis for requiring that the Senate must hold mandatory confirmation votes for lower-court nominees. By tradition, the Senate generally takes floor votes for nominations to the Supreme Court.

The Impact of Mandatory Votes on the Canada‐U.S. Union Density Gap: A Note

This article provides empirical evidence concerning the impact of mandatory votes on the Canada‐U.S. density gap. Simulation analysis reveals (1) that the increasing use of mandatory votes in Canada has narrowed the gap by about 1 percentage point and (2) that differences in recognition procedures between Canada and the United States accounted for at least 3 to 5 percentage points of the gap in 1998.

Card Check or Mandatory Representation Vote? How the Type of Union Recognition Procedure Affects Union Certification Success

Cross-section time-series analysis of nine Canadian jurisdictions over nineteen years is used to identify the effect of mandatory votes/card check on certification success. The results indicate that mandatory votes reduce certification success rates by approximately 9 percentage points below what they would have been under card check. This result is robust across specifications and significant at above the 99% confidence level. This paper provides empirical evidence on how two alternative union recognition procedures, mandatory votes and card check, affect certification success.' Mandatory votes require that to be recognised, a union receive majority support in a secret ballot. In contrast, card check allows recognition based solely on membership evidence collected by the union and does not necessarily require a vote. In Canada, unions are recognised on the basis of either card check or mandatory representation votes.2 Canada is a federal state consisting of ten provinces and labour law is primarily the responsibility of the provinces. There is considerable variation over time and across jurisdictions in the use of these two forms of union recognition. I conduct an econometric analysis of cross-section time-series data for

Union suppression and certification success

Over the past decade a number of provinces have abandoned the long‐standing Canadian tradition of automatic certification of unions based on card‐signing and instead opted for mandatory representation voting. This trend, however, has developed with little understanding of the effectiveness of management opposition within a voting regime. In this paper the impact of union suppression on union organizing success within the voting regime of British Columbia is examined. We find that union suppression tactics were highly effective with estimates rivalling those found in the United States. Moreover, results from instrumental variable models suggest that OLS estimates may seriously underestimate the true impact of suppression. Effort de suppression du syndicat et succès dans le processus de certification. Au cours de la dernière décennie, un certain nombre de provinces canadiennes ont abandonné la pratique traditionnelle de certification automatique des syndicats sur la base des signatures de cartes d'adhésion au syndicat, et ont choisi de réclamer un scrutin pour déterminer le support des membres potentiels. On ne comprend pas bien l'efficacité de l'action d'opposition des patrons au syndicat dans ce régime de scrutin. Ce mémoire examine l'impact des efforts de suppression des syndicats sur les succès des syndicats dans leurs efforts d'organisation dans le cadre du régime de scrutin en Colombie Britannique. On découvre que ces tactiques ont été très efficaces, tout autant qu'aux Etats‐Unis. De plus, les résultats obtenus à l'aide de modèles de variables instrumentales montrent que ceux qu'on obtient à l'aide de la méthode des moindres carrés ordinaires peuvent sous‐évaluer l'impact des tactiques de suppression de manière significative.

Institutional Voting in the UK: Is Mandatory Voting the Answer?

Institutional shareholders are increasingly being urged to take a more active role in the governance of the companies in which they invest. In particular, attention has focused on the level of voting by institutions at annual general meetings, which has historically been rather low, and many commentators argue that institutions (particularly the pension funds) should have a legal duty to exercise their voting rights on behalf of their beneficiaries. This paper examines the issues regarding institutional voting and considers whether mandatory institutional voting is likely to lead to more active institutional involvement in corporate governnance at the individual firm level. In particular, it is argued that the imposition of mandatory voting is unlikely to result in informed voting, which is essential if the objective of increasing effective institutional involvement in corporate governance is to be met. This paper concludes that the imposition of mandatory voting is unlikely to result in a change in the investment and ownership ethos of the institutions.

The impact of mandatory voting laws on turnout: A quasi-experimental approach

This note assesses the role of mandatory voting in turnout. The inherent limitations of existing cross-national studies are overcome by analysing intra-systemic patterns of variation in the Netherlands, the Commonwealth of Australia, and Austria. Simultaneous analysis of longitudinal and cross-sectional variation in Austria enhances leverage over the research question, provides for a more stringent test of the hypothesis, better control, and an opportunity to measure the impact with high accuracy. I conclude that mandatory voting laws very effectively raise turnout, but that such laws are not a necessary condition for high levels of participation. The strength of the impact (measured in percentage point gains in turnout) varies with context as well as over time because of the multicausal genesis of turnout and the bounded nature of the dependent variable.

Political Institutions and Voter Turnout in the Industrial Democracies

Differences in voter turnout among industrial democracies are a function of political institutions and electoral law. Specifically, the presence of nationally competitive electoral districts provides incentives for parties and candidates to mobilize voters everywhere, thereby increasing turnout. Disproportionality in the translation of votes into legislative seats provides a disincentive to voting, which lowers turnout. Multipartyism assigns elections a less decisive role in government formation, depressing turnout. By generating more decisive governments, unicameralism provides a clearer link between elections and legislation, increasing turnout. Finally, mandatory voting laws produce a disincentive to not vote. Empirical analyses of average voter-turnout levels in the 1970s and 1960s across 19 democracies are consistent with these expectations, although Switzerland and the United States appear to be outliers. The results have major implications for the way we interpret national differences in voter-turnout rates.

Western political quarterly: David J. Myers and Robert E. O'Connor, ‘The Undecided Respondent in Mandatory Voting Settings: A Venezuelan Exploration’, 36:3, September 1983, pp. 420–33

Western political quarterly: David J. Myers and Robert E. O'Connor, ‘The Undecided Respondent in Mandatory Voting Settings: A Venezuelan Exploration’, 36:3, September 1983, pp. 420–33