Graduation Year
2016
Date of Submission
11-2016
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Economics
Reader 1
Manfred Keil
Reader 2
Eric Helland
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2015 Nina A Kamath
Abstract
Over the past few decades, falling voter turnout rates have induced governments to adopt compulsory voting laws, in order to mitigate issues such as the socioeconomic voter gap and to bring a broader spectrum of voters into the fold. This paper presents evidence that the introduction of mandatory voting laws increases voter turnout rates by 13 points within a particular country through an entity- and time-fixed effect panel model. Moreover, it includes a discussion of the implications of adopting mandatory voting policies within the United States, finding that compelling citizens to vote would have increased participation rates to over 90 percent in the past four presidential elections.
Recommended Citation
Kamath, Nina A., ""I Voted": Examining the Impact of Compulsory Voting on Voter Turnout" (2016). CMC Senior Theses. 1286.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1286
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