It’s a Group Thing: How Voters go to the Polls Together

Yosef Bhatti; Edward Fieldhouse; Kasper M. Hansen

doi:10.1007/s11109-018-9484-2

It’s a Group Thing: How Voters go to the Polls Together

Yosef Bhatti, Edward Fieldhouse, Kasper M. Hansen^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Across European Parliament, local and general elections in Denmark between half and three quarters of voters in households with multiple voters cast their vote within a minute of another household member. This finding, revealed using data from a time-stamped voter panel covering more than two million Danish voters, establishes that many families visit the polling station together. The result are replicated using survey data from Denmark, the UK and a range of other countries, indicating that voting together is a widespread phenomenon, supporting the characterization of voting as a social act. For the first time our analysis reveals that acquiring a potential voting partner increases turnout, whilst losing one decreases turnout.

Original language	English
Journal	Political Behavior
Pages (from-to)	34
ISSN	0190-9320
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9484-2
Publication status	Published - 1 Mar 2020

Keywords

Denmark
Political participation
Social norms
Turnout
UK

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AB - Across European Parliament, local and general elections in Denmark between half and three quarters of voters in households with multiple voters cast their vote within a minute of another household member. This finding, revealed using data from a time-stamped voter panel covering more than two million Danish voters, establishes that many families visit the polling station together. The result are replicated using survey data from Denmark, the UK and a range of other countries, indicating that voting together is a widespread phenomenon, supporting the characterization of voting as a social act. For the first time our analysis reveals that acquiring a potential voting partner increases turnout, whilst losing one decreases turnout.

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KW - Political participation

KW - Social norms

KW - Turnout

KW - UK

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JO - Political Behavior

JF - Political Behavior

ER -

It’s a Group Thing: How Voters go to the Polls Together

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Keywords

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