ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the following two questions: Why do voters vote or abstain from voting? and how—sincerely or strategically—do voters vote? There is considerable—cross-section and time-series—variation in turnout, both within and across countries, as well as within and across types of elections. Participation and abstention rates are in general not uniform in the population of eligible voters, but appear to be correlated with several demographic characteristics, such as age, education, gender, and race. Empirical research has attempted to establish whether, holding everything else constant, voter turnout increases with the expected closeness of an election, which relates to the probability of being pivotal. The chapter considers three models where the main objective is to endogenize pie, Die, or Cie: pivotal voter model, ethical voter model and uncertain voter model. It concludes that both sincere voting and strategic voting provide important insight into voters’ behavior and help to interpret the evidence.
