ABSTRACT

Local turnout has declined in many European countries, posing challenges to the inclusiveness and representativeness of elections. One response proposed to address this challenge are franchise extensions to new groups of voters. Distinguishing between horizontal extensions to non-national EU-citizens and vertical extension to 16- to 18-year-olds, we analyse their effects on voter turnout in the context of German local council elections. The country’s federal system enables us to analyse the effects on voter turnout in 13 states from 1978 until 2019. We find that the horizontal franchise extension is associated with a subsequent drop in overall turnout at German local council elections. By contrast, vertical franchise extensions do not affect turnout. The findings temper expectations concerning the ability of local franchise extensions to boost democratic legitimacy via increased participation.

摘要

许多欧洲国家的地方投票率下降，对选举的包容性和代表性构成挑战。为应对这一挑战而提出的一个回应是将选举权扩展到新的选民群体。区分非欧盟公民的横向扩展和纵向扩展扩展到 16 至 18 岁，我们在德国地方议会选举的背景下分析了他们对选民投票率的影响。该国的联邦制度使我们能够分析从 1978 年到 2019 年对 13 个州的选民投票率的影响。我们发现，横向特许经营权扩展与随后德国地方议会选举的总体投票率下降有关。相比之下，垂直特许经营扩展不会影响投票率。这些发现缓和了人们对地方特许经营权扩展通过增加参与来提高民主合法性的能力的期望。