Electronic voting, turnout, and voter self-selection: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Maria Margarida Sequeira De Paiva Martins da
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/105448
• topic: Electronic voting; Turnout; European election; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

We take advantage of a quasi-natural experiment in Évora, Portugal, to evaluate the impact of electronic voting on the 2019 European election results. We rely on difference-in-differences estimations, with control groups chosen by matching methods, and findthat the turnout rate decreases by 2 percentage points, a decline mostly explained by the decrease of the Communist Party’s vote share. Socio-economic characteristics of these voters, including higher age, and lower education and income levels, may explain the results. We performed an on-site and online questionnaire, and find that those participating, mostly highly educated, were for the most part aware of and shared a positive view of the electronic voting procedure, described as ‘easy’ and ‘effective’.