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Regular Voters, Marginal Voters and the Electoral Effects of Turnout

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  • Fowler, Anthony

Abstract

How do marginal voters differ from regular voters? This article develops a method for comparing the partisan preferences of regular voters to those marginal voters whose turnout decisions are influenced by exogenous factors and applies it to two sources of variation in turnout in the United States—weather and election timing. In both cases, marginal voters are over 20 percentage points more supportive of the Democratic Party than regular voters—a significant divide. The findings suggest that the expansion or contraction of the electorate can have important consequences. Moreover, the findings suggest that election results do not always reflect the preferences of the citizenry, because the marginal citizens who may stay home have systematically different preferences than those who participate. Finally, the methods developed in the article may enable future researchers to compare regular and marginal voters on many different dimensions and in many different electoral settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Fowler, Anthony, 2015. "Regular Voters, Marginal Voters and the Electoral Effects of Turnout," Political Science Research and Methods, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 1-15, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:pscirm:v:3:y:2015:i:2:p:e1-e15_16
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    Cited by:

    1. Salomo Hirvonen & Jerome Schafer & Janne Tukiainen, 2022. "Policy Feedback and Civic Engagement: Evidence from the Finnish Basic Income Experiment," Discussion Papers 155, Aboa Centre for Economics.
    2. McDonald, Jared & Safarpour, Alauna & Hanmer, Michael J. & Bryant, Lisa A., 2024. "Evaluating Partisan Registrations Amid the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) Controversy," OSF Preprints 7wr8q, Center for Open Science.
    3. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2023. "Higher turnout increases incumbency advantages: Evidence from mayoral elections," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 529-555, July.
    4. Cantoni, Enrico & Gazzè, Ludovica & Schafer, Jerome, 2021. "Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two quasi-experiments in Italy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    5. Marco Frank & David Stadelmann & Benno Torgler, 2020. "Electoral Turnout During States of Emergency and Effects on Incumbent Vote Share," CREMA Working Paper Series 2020-10, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    6. Reeves, Aaron & Mackenbach, Johan P., 2019. "Can inequalities in political participation explain health inequalities?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 234(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Louis Kaplow & Scott Duke Kominers, 2020. "On the Representativeness of Voter Turnout," NBER Working Papers 26913, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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