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Electoral Turnout During States of Emergency and Effects on Incumbent Vote Shares

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  • Frank, Marco
  • Stadelmann, David
  • Torgler, Benno

Abstract

Bavarian mayors are elected by majority rule in two-round (runoff) elections. Between the first and second ballot of the mayoral election in March 2020, the Bavarian state government announced an official state of emergency with measures to fight the spread of Covid-19, including a shutdown of public life. For the second ballot, voting in person was prohibited and only postal voting was allowed. We contrast turnout of the first and second ballot in 2020 with the first and second ballots from previous elections in a difference-indifferences setting. The state of emergency led to a more than 10 percentage points higher turnout in Bavarian municipalities. We employ the state of emergency induced higher turnout from the difference-in-differences setting as an instrument to analyze the effect of turnout on the vote shares of local incumbents. A 10-percentage point increase in turnout leads to a 3.4 percentage point higher vote share for incumbent mayors. Our results point to the relevance of turnout related incumbency effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank, Marco & Stadelmann, David & Torgler, Benno, 2021. "Electoral Turnout During States of Emergency and Effects on Incumbent Vote Shares," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242332, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242332
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    1. Voter en temps de pandémie : l’enseignement des municipales de 2020
      by The Conversation in Contrepoints on 2021-04-20 02:40:01

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    Cited by:

    1. Thushyanthan Baskaran & Zohal Hessami & Temurbek Khasanboev, 2023. "Political selection when uncertainty is high," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 161-178, May.
    2. Jochen Güntner, 2020. "The toll of voting in a pandemic: Municipal elections and the spread of COVID-19 in Bavaria," Economics working papers 2020-15, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    3. Frank, Marco & Stadelmann, David, 2022. "Competition, Benchmarking, and Electoral Success: Evidence from 65 years of the German Bundestag," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264070, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Incumbency effects; turnout; mayoral elections; voting in crises;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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