The Effects of Time Distance to Polling Station on Voter Turnout

Empirical Analysis of the 48th General Election of the House of Representatives (2017)

Abstract

　This paper presents an empirical analysis of the effect of the time cost of voting on voter turnout. The analysis covered the 48th General Election for the House of Representatives in Japan held on 22 October 2017 and used individual data from a survey of the electorate to estimate the effect of time distance to the polling station on voter turnout. The empirical results showed that political attitudes variables had a significant effect on voter turnout, but even after controlling for these factors, the effect of time to polling station on voter turnout was still statistically significant. Furthermore, the effect was exactly opposite for election day voting and early voting, with time distance to the polling station having a negative effect on election day voting but a positive effect on early voting. Moreover, there was a non-linearity in the effect of time distance to the polling station, with the size of the marginal effect diminishing with distance.