Compulsory voting and the dynamics of partisan identification

Abstract

Compulsory rules are known to have far‐reaching effects beyond boosting electoral participation rates. This article examines the relationship between compulsory voting and partisan attachments. A theory of attachment formation and strength is engaged that argues that compulsory voting boosts the likelihood that one will identify with a party and, in turn, the strength of party attachments among identifiers. The statistical model accounts for both the hierarchical structure of the data (individuals in elections) and the dual nature of the dependent variable (individuals report a strength of attachment only for the party with which they identify). Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it is demonstrated that compulsory voting does indeed increase both the incidence and the strength of partisanship.

Valence and spatial explanations for voting in the 2013 Australian election

“…To compensate, voters rely more heavily on shortcuts such as party identification, leadership perceptions and party images (Popkin 1994). Compulsory voting also helps to explain the high levels of party identification among Australian voters (McAllister 2011; see also Singh and Thornton 2013). Where citizens who would not otherwise vote are compelled to turn out and at the very least accept a ballot paper, it is also the case that they more readily draw on heuristics -most commonly party identification -in making electoral decisions.…”

Party Positions, Asset Ownership, and Economic Voting

“…Indeed, compulsory voting and frequent elections means Australia has one of the highest levels of partisan identification in the world (Singh and Thornton, 2013). Nonetheless, we replicate the analysis with a measure of partisanship-scored 1 for those who call themselves 'a very strong supporter' of the Liberal or National parties-and report the results in Table A3 of the online appendix.…”

Addressing the Gender Gap

“…Singh and Thornton (2013) and Singh (2015) use a similar index estimation strategy to account for variation across countries and elections in the wording and difficulty of questions on factual political knowledge included in the CSES survey. This item is also available in the first wave of the survey, but answer choices "have not heard of" and "do not know enough" were coded as missing in the data set by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), which does not allow us to identify individuals who provided these answers.…”