Voting Technology, Political Responsiveness, and Infant Health: Evidence From Brazil

Abstract

This paper studies the introduction of electronic voting technology in Brazilian elections. Estimates exploiting a regression discontinuity design indicate that electronic voting reduced residual (error‐ridden and uncounted) votes and promoted a large de facto enfranchisement of mainly less educated citizens. Estimates exploiting the unique pattern of the technology's phase‐in across states over time suggest that, as predicted by political economy models, it shifted government spending toward health care, which is particularly beneficial to the poor. Positive effects on both the utilization of health services (prenatal visits) and newborn health (low‐weight births) are also found for less educated mothers, but not for the more educated.

Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru

“…Using the random variation in the fine for abstention and the objective measure of turnout at the individual level, I estimate the elasticity of voting with respect to cost to be -0. 21 Consistent with the predictions of the model, the reduction in turnout is driven by voters with specific characteristics: centrist voters, those less interested in politics, and the uninformed. However, this change in the composition of the electorate does not necessarily imply that the outcome of the election will be affected.…”

“…The center is defined by those in the quintiles 2, 3, and 4, while the first and fifth quintiles define the ideological extremes. 21 The Policy Extreme 1 is related to preference for public goods, such as health and education infrastructure, roads, accessibility, etc. On the other hand, the Policy Extreme 2 is associated with public goods which are more easily appropriated by an agent (club goods), such as youth labor training, security, promotion of private investment, etc.…”

A Better Life for All? Democratization and Electrification in Post-Apartheid South Africa

“…Several studies find that democracies are better at providing public services than autocratic regimes (e.g., Lake and Baum 2001, Bueno de Mesquita et al 2003, Min 2015. Franchise extension can shift the median voter in a way that affects the size of government and redistribution towards the poor (e.g., Meltzer and Richard 1981, Husted and Kenny 1997, Boix 2003, Aidt and Eterovic 2011, Aidt and Jensen 2013 and the delivery of services benefiting the newly enfranchised (Aidt and Dallal 2008, Miller 2008, Fujiwara 2013, Vernby 2013.However, it is difficult to quantify the direct effect of democratization on the lives of the poor. Cross-country comparisons may suffer from omitted variable bias, reverse causality, and sample selection bias (Ross 2006, Hollyer et al 2011).…”

Voter turnout and fiscal policy

“…They show, in general, that changes in turnout bring about changes in public policy consistent with inferred preferences of the affected groups. This is the case with the enfranchisement of African-Americans or of women (Husted and Kenny 1997, Cascio and Washington 2014, Miller 2008, with the turnout increase among the poor and less educated due to new voting technology (Fujiwara 2015), and with changes in registration costs (Braconnuer, Dormagen and Pons 2014). Unlike in these papers, the shock on voting cost studied here may affect anyone.…”