Abstract

--- - An i-voting system may promote electoral participation by reducing travel cost and time to polling places, especially among youth who are more accustomed to technological changes. We study the linkage between travel costs on election day and voter turnout by comparing past electoral participation with stated voting behavior in a hypothetical i-voting system. We believe that the link between transportation costs, i-voting, and voter-turnout emerges as an interesting opportunity to disentangle the mechanism behind the expected increase in political participation after diversifying voting channels. Data were collected using an online questionnaire that was disseminated among Chilean university students. Binary and bivariate probit estimates show that conventional turnout probability among university students is negatively affected by travel costs on election day. Interestingly, whereas political interest and democracy valuation still augment the probability of voter turnout with i-voting, travel-to-polling-station costs are not statistically relevant. - An i-voting system may promote electoral participation by reducing travel cost and time to polling places, especially among youth who are more accustomed to technological changes. We study the linkage between travel costs on election day and voter turnout by comparing past electoral participation with stated voting behavior in a hypothetical i-voting system. The main contribution of our paper is threefold. First, it expands the scarce empirical literature that addresses the impact of travel costs on voter turnout. Second, it provides an alternative formalization that links travel costs on election day to voter turnout, which explains how i-voting can reduce travel cost and voting time, becoming a convenient voting channel. And third, it proposes a novel empirical strategy that accounts for underlying factors that simultaneously determine the voting decision in paper-ballot and i-voting elections. Given that our data were collected using an online questionnaire, we also conducted a robustness check to examine if our findings are in line with those reported in national surveys. Binary and bivariate probit estimates show that conventional turnout probability among university students is negatively affected by travel costs on election day. And vehicle availability seems to be important to explain past voting behavior, positively affecting voter turnout. Interestingly, whereas political interest and democracy valuation still augment the probability of voter turnout with i-voting, travel-to-polling-station costs are not statistically relevant.