Polling Place Reassignments Reduce Voter Turnout by 0.4 Percentage Points

Assigning voters to new polling place led to a drop in voter turnout of 0.4 percentage points, finds the ifo Institute in a new analysis of elections in Munich. “In the past, Munich has repeatedly reassigned polling stations to simplify the voting process for citizens – by providing barrier-free polling places or adjusting voting precincts. However, this led to a temporary decline in voter turnout in the affected precincts and a shift from voting in person to voting by mail,” says ifo researcher Jean-Victor Alipour. The decline in voter turnout is driven by inattentive citizens who noticed the reassignment too late to switch to mail-in voting.

“Reassignments that increase the distance to the polling place cause a stronger decline in voter turnout. However, the effects are driven primarily by the switch to a different polling place itself and not so much by distance,” Alipour says. Lower turnout was particularly noticeable in precincts with a high proportion of older citizens.

The researchers recommend informing eligible voters about changes to their polling place separately from the usual election notification. “In many US states, for example, this is a legal requirement. If everyone is informed in good time, the loss of votes at the ballot box can be fully compensated for by mail-in voting,” Alipour says. The study also shows that previous polling place changes had no measurable effect on election results.

The researchers examined the reallocation of voting precincts by the Munich electoral office. They looked at eight elections between 2013 and 2020. A total of 58 percent of all residential addresses were assigned to a new polling station at least once. The study is forthcoming in the Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics.