+

UNDERSTANDING
Voter Turnout
around the WORLD
(A Brief Guide to Multivariate Regression)

Miguel Centellas
Croft Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science
The University of Mississippi
+ STEP 1: GET SOME DATA

Find a source of data that is relevant to your research question.

In our example, let’s look for a source that has data on voter turnout around
the world—as well as other related data.
+

Data from
International IDEA
Freely available on the web, along with
background information.
+

Data from
International IDEA
Freely available on the web, along with
background information.

You can download all the data. Or select

specific countries, years, type of election,
and other variables.
+ STEP 2: CASE SELECTION

You may use a number of criteria for case selection, but be sure you can
justify your choices.
In our case, let’s limit the cases to countries in Europe and the Americas—
limiting it to countries that are rated as democracies (by Freedom House)
and have not had a civil war recently (excludes most of the Balkans). We
also limit our data to most recent legislative elections.
+
Sample Selection:
51 Countries in Europe & the Americas

Europe
Albania • Austria • Belgium • Bulgaria • Czech Republic
Denmark • Estonia • Finland • France • Germany Greece
Hungary • Iceland • Ireland • Italy • Latvia • Lithuania
Luxembourg • Malta • The Netherlands • Norway
Poland • Portugal • Romania • Slovenia • Spain • Sweden
Switzerland • United Kingdom

The Americas
Argentina • Bolivia • Brazil • Canada • Chile • Colombia
Costa Rica • Dominican Republic • Ecuador • El Salvador
 Guatemala • Honduras • Jamaica • Mexico • Nicaragua
Panama • Peru • Suriname • United States • Uruguay
 Venezuela
+
Sample Selection:
51 Countries in Europe & the Americas

Established Democracies
Austria • Belgium • Canada • Colombia • Costa Rica
Denmark • Finland • France • Germany • Iceland
Ireland • Italy • Jamaica • Luxembourg • Malta
The Netherlands • Norway • Sweden Switzerland
United Kingdom • United States • Venezuela

New Democracies
Albania • Argentina • Bolivia • Brazil • Bulgaria • Chile
Czech Republic • Dominican Republic • Ecuador
El Salvador • Estonia • Greece • Guatemala • Honduras
Hungary • Latvia • Lithuania • Mexico Nicaragua
Panama • Peru • Poland • Portugal • Romania • Slovenia
Spain • Suriname • Uruguay  
+ STEP 3A: SELECT THE
DEPENDENT VARIABLE
Your dependent variable is the object of your study, it is the thing you want
to explain.
In our case, we want to understand what causes changes in voter turnout
across course selected countries.
+ STEP 3B: OPERATIONALIZE
THE DEPENDENT VARIABLE
You need to clearly specify how you will measure your dependent variable.
In our case, we want to make sure that differences in voter turnout aren’t
masked by differences in voter registration procedures. We want to know
how many citizens vote. Fortunately, IDEA has a variable called Vote/VAP
(percent of voting age population that voted).
+
Voter Turnout in 51 Selected Countries
Vote/VAP in Legislative Elections, 2004-2008

100 Malta

80

60

40

Venezuela
20

0
+ STEP 4: HYPOTHESES

Use theory to develop testable hypotheses. Each hypothesis should link at

least one INDEPENDENT variable with the dependent variable.
In our case, let’s speculate about possible factors that may affect voter
turnout.
+
How Can We Explain Differences in Voter
Turnout?

 Hypothesis 1: Electoral System

Voter turnout is a function of electoral systems. Proportional
representation should drive up voter turnout because voters are less
likely to “waste” votes.

 Hypothesis 2: Level of Freedom

Voter turnout is a function of civil & political liberties. Citizens will
exercise their right to vote if they enjoy a wide range of civil rights
and political liberties.

 Hypothesis 3: Compulsory Voting Laws

Voter turnout is a function of voting laws. Where voting is
compulsory, citizens are more likely to vote.
+ STEP 5: OPERATIONALIZE
THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES
You also need to specify how you will measure your independent variables.
In our case, we need to explain how we will measure changes along our
three independent variables
+
How Can We Explain Differences in Voter
Turnout?

 ELECTORAL SYSTEM
Since we’re mostly interested in seeing if proportional representation
increases voter turnout over first-past-the-post, let’s use a dummy
variable (1=PR; 0=FPTP)1.

 LEVEL OF FREEDOM
One way to measure level of freedom is to use the Freedom House
Index included in the IDEA dataset. 2

 COMPULSORY VOTING LAWS

The IDEA dataset doesn’t include information on compulsory voting,
but the website does have a list of countries with such laws. We can
create a column in our spreadsheet for a dummy variable
(1=compulsory voting law; 0=none).
1
Eight of our cases don’t use PR or FPTP electoral systems.
2
I transformed the FH scores so that 7 is now the highest level of freedom, and 1 is the lowest.
+ STEP 5: DESCRIPTIVE
STATISTICS
Simply looking at the data may provide some evidence to support a
hypothesis.
In our case, let’s see if it looks like voter turnout is driven by either of our
three dependent variables: electoral system, level of freedom, or
compulsory voting laws.
+
Voter Turnout in 51 Selected Countries
Vote/VAP in Legislative Elections, 2004-2008

100 Malta

80
Ireland
Chile

60 UK
France
Canada
Jamaica

40 USA

20

0
+
Voter Turnout and Level of Freedom
Vote/VAP & FH Index

100

80

60

40

20

0
3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7
+
Voter Turnout and Level of Freedom
Vote/VAP and Freedom House Index Scores

Outlier
100

Peru

80

60

Expected
40 Switzerland

USA
Venezuela

20
Unexpected

0
3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 6.5 7
+
Voter Turnout and Compulsory Voting

Voter Turnout in Countries with Voter Turnout in Countries without Compulsory Voting
Compulsory Voting
100
100

80
80
Average = 69%
(STDEV = 13.7%)
Average = 62%
60 (STDEV = 16.7%)
60

40
40

20 20

0 0
+
After Descriptive Statistics:
What Explains Differences in Voter Turnout?

 It seems PR electoral systems tend to have higher voter turnout.

Although some PR countries had low voter turnout, all the FPTP
countries had relatively low voter turnout.

 It seems like there’s a tendency for countries with high levels of

freedom to have higher voter turnout. But there are some interesting
exceptions.

 On average, countries with compulsory voting laws have higher voter

turnout. But the range is too wide to be certain.
+ STEP 6: REGRESSION
ANALYSIS
Regression analysis allows us to look at multiple variables simultaneously,
to see if they have any effect on our dependent variable.
In our case, let’s dump our dataset into STATA, a statistical package and
run some regressions.
 Command

Statistical Goodness
Coefficients of fit
Significance

Regression Analysis Output in STATA

+
All You Need to Know to Interpret
A Regression Analysis Output
 Goodness of Fit (Adjusted R-Squared)
How well a model fits a set of observations, or how much variation in the data is
explained by the model. By itself, the R-Squared (R2) value is meaningless. What
matters is whether a particular model has a larger R2 value than another (larger is
better).

 Correlation Coefficient
The “slope” of the relationship between the dependent and independent variable.
Every unit increase on the independent variable produces an increase equal to the
coefficient.

 Statistical Significance (p value)

Linear regression executes a t-test for each variable. The p value represents the
probability that we can trust the coefficient. A p value of 0.05 means we have a
95% confidence the coefficient is accurate.
+
Regression Estimates for Voter Turnout

Table 1. Determinants of Voter Turnout in Legislative Elections in 51 selected Latin American and
European countries, 2004-2008

Independent Variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4

Proportional Representation * 14.711 – – 14.365
(6.999) (7.366)
Freedom House Score – * 5.363 – ** 7.373
(2.461) (2.411)
Compulsory Voting – – 6.571 * 9.687
(4.724) (4.551)

Constant 50.662 30.115 0.850 0.848

Adjusted R-Squared 0.069 0.069 0.019 0.225
Number of Observations 47 51 49 45

Note: Coefficients reflect percentage change in voter turnout; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

Table 2. Determinants of Voter Turnout in Legislative Elections in 51 selected Latin American and
European countries, 2004-2008
+ STEP 6B: CHECK FOR
INTERVENING EFFECTS
This is an optional step, but it never hurts to run additional models that
check for intervening effects. But these should be guided by theory.
In our case, let’s check for regional effects, whether new democracies
behave differently, and whether spoiled votes made a difference.
 Number of Observations 47 51 49 45

+
Note: Coefficients reflect percentage change in voter turnout; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01

Regression Estimates for Voter Turnout

Table 2. Determinants of Voter Turnout in Legislative Elections in 51 selected Latin American and
European countries, 2004 -2008

Independent Variables Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8

Proportional Representation 6.907 6.907 13.937 10.583
(10.343) (10.343) (7.903) (10.197)
Freedom House Score * 7.174 * 7.174 ** 7.476 ** 10.125
(3.423) (3.423) (2.520) (3.045)
Compulsory Voting 10.588 10.588 * 9.540 8.568
(5.640) (5.640) (4.693) (4.994)
Latin America -1.641 – – –
(7.296)
Europe – 1.641 – –
(7.296)
New Democracy – – 7.949 –
(4.867)
Spoiled Votes – – – 0.585
(0.352)

Constant 9.923 8.282 0.171 -15.210

Adjusted R-Squared 0.173 0.173 0.206 0.205
Number of Observations 43 43 45 40

Note: Coefficients reflect percentage change in voter turnout; *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01
+
After Regression Analysis:
What Explains Differences in Voter Turnout?

 By itself, PR does have a positive effect on voter turnout. But in

multivariate analysis, it has no statistically significant effect.

 By itself, a country’s FH score does have a positive effect on voter

turnout. This variable also is consistently significant in multivariate
models.

 By itself, compulsory voting has no effect on voter turnout. However,

it does have a significant, positive effect on voter turnout in new
democracies.
+

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Voters are more likely to turn out to vote when
civil liberties and political rights are protected.
(None of this was evident from descriptive statistics alone.)