Cargando…

Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010

While conventional wisdom assumes that inclement weather on election day reduces voter turnout, there is remarkably little evidence available to support truth to such belief. This paper examines the effects of temperature, sunshine duration and rainfall on voter turnout in 13 Dutch national parliame...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Eisinga, Rob, Te Grotenhuis, Manfred, Pelzer, Ben
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer-Verlag 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3382632/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21792567
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00484-011-0477-7
_version_ 1782236520053211136
author Eisinga, Rob
Te Grotenhuis, Manfred
Pelzer, Ben
author_facet Eisinga, Rob
Te Grotenhuis, Manfred
Pelzer, Ben
author_sort Eisinga, Rob
collection PubMed
description While conventional wisdom assumes that inclement weather on election day reduces voter turnout, there is remarkably little evidence available to support truth to such belief. This paper examines the effects of temperature, sunshine duration and rainfall on voter turnout in 13 Dutch national parliament elections held from 1971 to 2010. It merges the election results from over 400 municipalities with election-day weather data drawn from the nearest weather station. We find that the weather parameters indeed affect voter turnout. Election-day rainfall of roughly 25 mm (1 inch) reduces turnout by a rate of one percent, whereas a 10-degree-Celsius increase in temperature correlates with an increase of almost one percent in overall turnout. One hundred percent sunshine corresponds to a one and a half percent greater voter turnout compared to zero sunshine.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-3382632
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2011
publisher Springer-Verlag
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-33826322012-07-05 Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010 Eisinga, Rob Te Grotenhuis, Manfred Pelzer, Ben Int J Biometeorol Short Communication While conventional wisdom assumes that inclement weather on election day reduces voter turnout, there is remarkably little evidence available to support truth to such belief. This paper examines the effects of temperature, sunshine duration and rainfall on voter turnout in 13 Dutch national parliament elections held from 1971 to 2010. It merges the election results from over 400 municipalities with election-day weather data drawn from the nearest weather station. We find that the weather parameters indeed affect voter turnout. Election-day rainfall of roughly 25 mm (1 inch) reduces turnout by a rate of one percent, whereas a 10-degree-Celsius increase in temperature correlates with an increase of almost one percent in overall turnout. One hundred percent sunshine corresponds to a one and a half percent greater voter turnout compared to zero sunshine. Springer-Verlag 2011-07-27 2012 /pmc/articles/PMC3382632/ /pubmed/21792567 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00484-011-0477-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2011 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
spellingShingle Short Communication
Eisinga, Rob
Te Grotenhuis, Manfred
Pelzer, Ben
Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010
title Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010
title_full Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010
title_fullStr Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010
title_full_unstemmed Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010
title_short Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010
title_sort weather conditions and voter turnout in dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010
topic Short Communication
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3382632/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21792567
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00484-011-0477-7
work_keys_str_mv AT eisingarob weatherconditionsandvoterturnoutindutchnationalparliamentelections19712010
AT tegrotenhuismanfred weatherconditionsandvoterturnoutindutchnationalparliamentelections19712010
AT pelzerben weatherconditionsandvoterturnoutindutchnationalparliamentelections19712010