The Unintended Costs and Unfulfilled Promises of Concurrent Elections: A Natural Experiment on Turnout and Invalid Voting. Issue 3 (August 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lysek, Jakub; Kouba, Karel
• Is Part Of: East European politics and societies. Volume 36:Issue 3(2022)
• Page Start: 753
• Page End: 779
• Publication Date: 2022-08
• Subjects: electoral turnout -- Czech Republic -- invalid voting -- concurrent elections -- voter behavior; Europe, Eastern -- Politics and government -- 1945-1989 -- Periodicals; Europe, Eastern -- Politics and government -- 1989- -- Periodicals; Europe, Eastern -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; 947.0005
• DOI: 10.1177/0888325421989804
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0888-3254

Abstract

Holding two second-order elections simultaneously is expected to increase electoral participation. We exploit a natural experiment in which one group of Czech precincts was "as if" randomly assigned to holding subnational elections concurrently with senatorial ones. Using a unique data set containing variables on more than thirteen thousand precincts in five elections between 2000 and 2016, we detect a modest effect of concurrency only in the first election but no or inconsistent effect in the four subsequent contests. Furthermore, we report a strong effect of concurrency on invalid voting. We check for robustness using difference-in-differences design and matching techniques. Incongruent with existing theories, concurrency does not deliver on its promises and may come at a substantial cost to political representation. The surprising null effect on turnout is attributable to analyzing the effect of concurrency of the less salient on more salient elections.