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Weather and elections
Jakub Jusko

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Obsah obrázku osoba, vsedě, žena, fotka Popis byl vytvořen automaticky

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Weather and people
•Reflections on the influence of the weather since Hippocrates, Montesquieu
•
•The relation of climate and personality, intelligence, fertility, tone of voice,...
•
Weather and human behaviour:
•Mood
•Cognitive style of thinking
•Aggression, criminality
•Shopping (umbrellas, stock market)
•Selfless help
•Evaluation of the other sex

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The difference between Correlation and Causalty. undefined

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Weather and politics
•Protests (demonstrations in Denmark, Tea Party movement in the USA)
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•Door-to-door campaigns
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•Abstention in the US Congress
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•Referenda (Switzerland, UK)
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•Participation in elections:
-One of the "hot issues" of political research
-High turnout as a sign of certain satisfaction with the democratic system
-Different influences: micro-level, macro-level

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obálka, dokument Automaticky generovaný popis Obrázok, na ktorom je text, osoba, lyžovanie, snímka
obrazovky Automaticky generovaný popis

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Rational choice theory
Downs (1957), Riker and Ordeshook (1968)
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•Individual action as a means to a goal
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•The citizen calculates the benefits and costs associated with the choice
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R = PB - C
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•A voter should vote when PB > C
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•Modified version: R = PB - C + D

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Rational choice theory
•The cost of voting:
- Need to register before the election
- Travel from residence to polling place
- Time to make a decision
- Time spent travelling
- Weather (mood, getting dressed, unpleasant journey, risk of injury)
•
•
When benefits and costs are roughly equal, even a small change on election day (e.g. weather) can
persuade voters

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Rational choice theory
•Weather "decomposed" into variables - mainly rain, snow, temperature, solar radiation
•Prevailing evidence:
•
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Rainfall          ->    Voter turnout
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•USA, Canada, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, (exception e.g. Sweden, Norway)
•Turnout reduced from 0.033 to 0.12 pp. per 1 mm of precipitation
•Different scenarios that are important

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Damsbo-Svendsen and Hansen (2023)
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Damsbo-Svendsen and Hansen (2023)
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Abian Garcia-Rodriguez and Paul Redmond (2020)
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Arnold and Freier (2016)
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Rational choice theory
•Prevailing evidence:
•
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Average temperature      -> Voter turnout
•
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•Canada, Netherlands, France
•Turnout increased from 0.05 to 0.44 pp. per 1 °C of temperature

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Stockemer and Wigginton (2018): Canada

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Rational choice theory
•Prevailing evidence:
•
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Sunlight      -> Voter turnout
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•Netherlands, Denmark
•A change from the lowest to the highest recorded level of sunshine (6.2–42.8 W/m2) increases the
probability of voting by 1.55 percentage points (Denmark)

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Damsbo-Svendsen and Hansen (2023)

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Is it a problem?
YES:
-Elections themselves close (even a small change can decide): weather influence on party voters is
not the same - indirect influence on the composition of the electorate
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-New findings: weather can influence voters' decision-making (Bassi 2019)
NO:
-It is “just” about turnout
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-Small effect (10 mm of rain -> 1 pp. lower turnout)

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Who should ”pray” for rain?
•Republicans (USA) – Gomez et al. 2007
-“Conventional turnout effect model” by Tucker et al. 1986
-Every inch of rain above election day normal -> +2.5 %
-Every inch of snow above election day normal -> +0.6 %
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•Conservatives (Germany) – Arnold and Freier 2016
-Turnout increase by 1 pp. -> SPD gained +0.76 pp.
-Turnout decrease by 1 pp. -> CDU lost -0.85 pp. (…and rain decreases turnout)
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•Christian democrats (Netherlands) – Eisinga et al. 2012
•Smaller parties (Spain) – Artes 2014
•

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Who should ”pray” for rain?
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How to measure?
Very Wet Year So Far in the Carolinas
Prezidenta môže voliť viac ako 4 milióny Slovákov. Prvovoličov je 280-tisíc | Glob.sk Diabetes and
Sun Protection - Protecting ski, feet, eyes and medication
Prezidenta môže voliť viac ako 4 milióny Slovákov. Prvovoličov je 280-tisíc | Glob.sk

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Fig. 1: The effect of a rainfall on turnout anomaly in different types of elections
2. Decrease in turnout in case of PRESID+REG
1. Increase in turnout in case of PARL+LOCAL

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Non-linear results for all elections
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Solution?

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Abstainers (note from previous lecture)

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Relevance of abstention
•Two assumptions about abstainers:
1)Abstention affects all alternatives in equal measure
2)The voter’s preferred alternative will be less likely to win if that voter abstains
3)
Peripheral + core voters
No-Show Paradox (Fishburn and Brams, 1983)

A
B
C

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Short-term reasons vs. global decline
•Two arguments for why recent generations are less prone to vote:
1)Context school - the result of certain characteristics of elections that particularly affect new
voters (less competition, lowering the voting age…) -> P+habit
2)
2)Generation school – larger cultural value change in generations (less interest, priorities,
voting not perceived as a duty)
•
•
Blais and Rubenson (2013) – support for generation school -> young generation less inclined to vote
because they are less prone to construct voting as a moral duty and are more sceptical about
politicians’
responsiveness to their concerns
“People like me don’t have any say about what the government does”
 “I don’t think public officials care much what people like me think.”
•

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How do we increase turnout?
New research on electoral participation

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1) personal state effects

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Just. Stop. Talking.

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Personal state
Ksiazkiewicz and Erol 2022 - Too tired to vote: A multi-national comparison of election turnout
with sleep preferences and behaviors
•Analysis of 9 countries (Finland, Greece, Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the
Philippines, Russia, and South Korea), questionnaires
•Is there an association between sleep, chronotype and turnout?
•"those who sleep too little or too much are less likely to vote” -> non-linear relationship, sleep
as a resource
•Morning chronotype - higher T (but not always)

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Personal state
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SLEEP
1.Conservation of limited energy
2.Mental and physical health impacts
3.Memory and abilities

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Personal state
•General health:
-20 EU countries -> decreases turnout (0.48 pp.)
-Sweden -> decreases turnout BUT increases in other forms (contact, protest)
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•Hampered by daily activities:
-20 EU countries -> decreases turnout BUT increases in other forms (boycott, petition, contact a
politician)
-USA – disabled 5.7 pp. turnout gap
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•Depression:
-USA (mediated by education and partisanship)
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Why important?

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Personal state
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2) facilitation procedures

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Activity: Barriers to Voting
• Objective: Explore the challenges that prevent people from voting and think about solutions.
• Instructions:
1. Small groups -> assigning each group a different barrier to voter turnout (e.g., voter ID laws,
registration requirements, lack of political interest, accessibility for people with disabilities).
2. Brainstorming for 5 minutes on how these barriers impact turnout and potential solutions to
overcome them.
3. Presenting ideas to the class.

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Research: how to increase turnout
•Vote by mail tend to be preferred by disabled voters (Kincart, 2023)
•Long lines
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•Opening new polling stations (abroad): Latvia
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•Changing the location of polling stations: Los Angeles County during California's 2003
gubernatorial recall election  -> -1.8 pp.
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•Automatically registering voters -> + 2.1 pp.
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•All-mail-voting: Colorado -> +8 pp. (young, less-educated, voters of colour)
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Prepaid postage
•Yin et al. 2021 – all Swiss cantons
-You could send it by mail or bring it to the town government’s mailbox
-Positive effect about +1.1-1.3 pp.
-Effect stronger in larger municipalities
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E-voting?
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Concurrent elections?

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Incentives to ”persuade” abstainers?
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Holidays?
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How do we increase turnout?
1) decreasing costs for voting – monetary (postage), polling-stations related, registration,
shorter ballot list
2) increasing availability of voting – all-mail-voting, e-voting, concurrent elections, multiple
day voting and no holiday voting (probably)

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Conclusion
•The weather impacts humans, therefore, it also impacts human activities (one such is elections)
•Rain (usually) decreases turnout (depends on age, density, electoral contest)
•Temperature (usually) increases turnout
•Rain helps certain types of political parties
•
•Different tools to increase turnout

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Next…

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Literatute
•Adman, P. (2020). Does poor health cause political passivity even in a Scandinavian welfare state?
Investigating the impact of self-rated health using Swedish panel data. Electoral Studies, 65,
102110.
•Arnold, F., & Freier, R. (2016). Only conservatives are voting in the rain: Evidence from German
local and state elections. Electoral Studies, 41, 216-221.
•Artés, J. (2014). The rain in Spain: Turnout and partisan voting in Spanish elections. European
Journal of Political Economy, 34, 126-141.
•Cantoni, E., Gazzè, L., & Schafer, J. (2021). Turnout in concurrent elections: Evidence from two
quasi-experiments in Italy. European Journal of Political Economy, 70, 102035.
•Bonica, A., Grumbach, J. M., Hill, C., & Jefferson, H. (2021). All-mail voting in Colorado
increases turnout and reduces turnout inequality. Electoral studies, 72, 102363.
•Cunow, S., Desposato, S., Janusz, A., & Sells, C. (2021). Less is more: The paradox of choice in
voting behavior. Electoral Studies, 69, 102230.
•Damsbo-Svendsen, S., & Hansen, K. M. (2023). When the election rains out and how bad weather
excludes marginal voters from turning out. Electoral Studies, 81, 102573.
•Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy.
•Eisinga, R., Te Grotenhuis, M., & Pelzer, B. (2012). Weather conditions and voter turnout in Dutch
national parliament elections, 1971–2010. International journal of biometeorology, 56, 783-786.
•Eisinga, R., Te Grotenhuis, M., & Pelzer, B. (2012). Weather conditions and political party vote
share in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010. International journal of biometeorology,
56, 1161-1165.
•Garcia-Rodriguez, A., & Redmond, P. (2020). Rainfall, population density and voter turnout.
Electoral Studies, 64, 102128.
•Gomez, B. T., Hansford, T. G., & Krause, G. A. (2007). The Republicans should pray for rain:
Weather, turnout, and voting in US presidential elections. The Journal of Politics, 69(3), 649-663.
•Harley, T. (2018). The psychology of weather. Routledge.
•Kang, W. C. (2019). Liberals should pray for rain: weather, opportunity costs of voting and
electoral outcomes in South Korea. Political Science, 71(1), 61-78.
•Kincart, S. (2023). Addressing the Voter Turnout Gap Between Disabled and Non-Disabled Voters.
Hinckley Journal of Politics, 24.
•Ksiazkiewicz, A., & Erol, F. (2022). Too tired to vote: A multi-national comparison of election
turnout with sleep preferences and behaviors. Electoral Studies, 78, 102491.
•Langenkamp, A. (2021). Lonely hearts, empty booths? The relationship between loneliness, reported
voting behavior and voting as civic duty. Social science quarterly, 102(4), 1239-1254.
•Ojeda, C. (2015). Depression and political participation. Social Science Quarterly, 96(5),
1226-1243.
•Petitpas, A., Jaquet, J. M., & Sciarini, P. (2021). Does E-Voting matter for turnout, and to
whom?. Electoral studies, 71, 102245.
•Pettigrew, S. (2021). The downstream consequences of long waits: How lines at the precinct depress
future turnout. Electoral studies, 71, 102188.
•Reire, G. (2021). Opening of new election polling stations: the effect on turnout and diaspora
voting patterns. Economic Science for Rural Development (Latvia), (55).
•Riker, W. H., & Ordeshook, P. C. (1968). A Theory of the Calculus of Voting. American political
science review, 62(1), 25-42.
•Stockemer, D., & Rapp, C. (2019). The influence of various measures of health on different types
of political participation. Politics, 39(4), 480-513.
•Stockemer, D., & Wigginton, M. (2018). Fair weather voters: do Canadians stay at home when the
weather is bad?. International journal of biometeorology, 62(6), 1027-1037.
•Yin, J., Willi, T., & Leemann, L. (2021). Prepaid postage using pre-stamped envelopes to affect
turnout costs. Electoral Studies, 74, 102405.