Many things are known to affect voter turnout, from poor weather to the day of the week the elections are run. One of the most significant factors is the health of the economy, with new research from Purdue University highlighting how influential the 2008 recession was on subsequent elections.
The author believes that the same fate could repeat itself this year, as the coronavirus pandemic will load so much onto people’s plates, that elections are the last thing on their minds.
The research found that a 10% decline in house prices resulted in lower election turnouts among mortgage holders by 1.6%, which would amount to around 800,000 voters across the 2010 and 2012 national elections.
“It’s a case where the opportunity costs now of voting are very high for some people,” the researcher explains. “It’s relatively easy for people to say, ‘I’m not going to worry about it this cycle. How do I figure out if I’m registered to vote? Where’s my polling place? Who is running for the various offices? I’ve got too much stuff on my plate, the economy is collapsing and I’m trying not to foreclose. Maybe now I’m taking care of the kids myself instead of sending them to day care, maybe I’m working more hours or working overtime.’ That is the story that I find fits the data better than this angry voter hypothesis.”
Distracted voters
To date, house prices don’t appear to be unduly affected by the pandemic, and the stock market has largely regained many of the losses suffered in March. Nonetheless, the researcher believes that a fall in prices is probable, which coupled with the high unemployment could still produce a significant financial distraction for voters.
Indeed, the paper reports that of the 10 states that held their primary elections on June 2nd, four of them reported lower voter turnout than in 2016, with relatively high postal voting in the six remaining states helping to bolster their own turnout figures.
With the unprecedented breadth of economic challenges as a result of the pandemic, it’s highly likely that voters will have a lot of other things on their mind, and time will tell whether this translates into low turnout in the upcoming presidential election.
“Households hit hard by this crisis are going to turn to credit cards and short-term loans,” the researcher concludes. “Even if the economic ship is somewhat righted by November, a lot of households’ financial situations will have really deteriorated. And, for financially distressed households, voting is something easy to just drop from the to-do list. The implications for voter turnout are worrying.”
