When Time Is of the Essence: A Natural Experiment on How Time Constraints Influence Elections
When Time Is of the Essence: A Natural Experiment on How Time Constraints Influence Elections
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DOI：
10.1086/706110
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发表时间：
2020-04-01
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
Holbein, John B.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Schafer, Jerome;Holbein, John B.
选民投票率的基础理论表明，时间是投票决定的关键输入，但我们几乎没有因果关系的证据表明，这种资源如何影响选举行为。在本文中，我们使用了二十多年的选举数据和一种利用美国时区边界的新型地理回归不连续性设计。我们的研究结果表明，时间分配的外生变化有显着的政治后果。也就是说，我们发现，公民不太可能投票，如果他们生活在时区边界的东侧。时区也加剧了参与的不平等，并将选举结果推向共和党。探索潜在的机制，我们发现暗示性的证据表明，这些影响是睡眠不足的后果，并通过方便的投票来调节。不管确切的机制，我们的结果表明，地方差异的日常日程影响它是多么困难的投票和塑造选民的组成。
Foundational theories of voter turnout suggest that time is a key input in the voting decision, but we possess little causal evidence about how this resource affects electoral behavior. In this article, we use over two decades of elections data and a novel geographic regression discontinuity design that leverages US time zone boundaries. Our results show that exogenous shifts in time allocations have significant political consequences. Namely, we find that citizens are less likely to vote if they live on the eastern side of a time zone border. Time zones also exacerbate participatory inequality and push election results toward Republicans. Exploring potential mechanisms, we find suggestive evidence that these effects are the consequence of insufficient sleep and moderated by the convenience of voting. Regardless of the exact mechanisms, our results indicate that local differences in daily schedules affect how difficult it is to vote and shape the composition of the electorate.