Does voter turnout affect the votes for the incumbent government?

• Author(s): Martins, Rodrigo ; Veiga, Francisco José
• Date: 2013
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/25134
• Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
• Subject(s): Vote shares; Turnout; Legislative elections; Portugal
• Document Type: Research paper
• Language: English

Description

This paper analyzes the effects of voter turnout on the vote shares received by the incumbent government. A system of simultaneous equations is estimated using a panel dataset of 278 Portuguese municipalities, for the period 1979-2005, covering 10 legislative elections. The results indicate that right-wing governments have lower vote shares when turnout is higher, while left-wing ones seem to be unaffected. There is also evidence of the responsibility hypothesis, that turnout is higher in closer elections, and that regional/local economic variables have non-linear effects on turnout.