Fool Me Once: Violations of Electoral Integrity in Democracies and its Effects on Voting Behavior

On the 22nd of May 2016, Austria voted for a new president. Alexander van der Bellen, the green candidate, won by a razor-thin margin of 0.69 percentage of the vote (30863 votes). The losing populist right party FPÖ legally challenged this final election result and the constitutional court ordered a rerun of the election based on the discovery of irregularities in fourteen electoral districts. The situation in Austria is by no means unique, across Western Democracies, right-wing populist parties and candidates frequently question the integrity of elections. The Austrian run-off election and its repetition represent a unique opportunity to investigate the consequences of voting in contexts characterized by electoral irregularities. After the first election, voters in all districts were exposed to the same public debate while irregularities really only took place in fourteen districts. We make use of this 'natural experiment', combine a difference-in-differences design with matching and estimate the effect of this treatment - voting in a district affected by irregularities - on turnout and the success of the populist right. Preliminary findings show that electoral integrity matters. In the 200 affected poll stations, voters have been mobilized to a greater degree than in comparable poll stations that were not affected. In light of the rather pessimistic outlook given in 'Democracy for Realists', this surge in participation seems like a positive finding. While we focus on the case of Austria, our study has implications for the study of electoral integrity and its consequences in established democracies.