Electoral Supply and Voter Turnout

Electoral institutions shape the potential costs and benefits of participation. This chapter argues that their effect on voter turnout is indirect by shaping the variety and stability of choices available to voters. Specifically, electoral institutions can produce political conditions that pull citizens into the democratic process by making voting meaningful, but that also push away those predisposed to abstain. The chapter's analysis of data from thirty-one contemporary democracies collected by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project suggest that party system polarization powerfully influences voter engagement, and that these effects are contingent on a citizen's sense of external efficacy. Citizens who feel that voting matters and that who is in power makes a difference are more likely to vote if they live in countries where parties present more polarized policy profiles. By contrast, those who are less efficacious are substantially less likely to vote if the party system is more polarized.