Does Proximity Make a Difference? The Role of Spatial Distances on Municipal Voting Behavior - Evidence from VAA-Data.

A persistently declining voter turnout at the municipal level in Germany has prompted reforms to the electoral system. As a result, voters in many municipalities can personalize their vote through “cumulation” (bundling votes) and “panachage” (splitting votes). While political science research has so far devoted only limited attention to the systematic evaluation of these electoral innovations, a number of studies have examined the extent to which voting behavior in local elections has been affected by these reforms. Their findings suggest that the use of these expanded participatory options depends strongly on individual predispositions, such as sociodemographic characteristics. However, focusing exclusively on these factors falls short of providing a comprehensive explanation of voting behavior. Drawing on spatial theories of political behavior, substantive congruence and perceived ideological distances between voters’ own political positions and those offered by political parties also exert an independent influence on decisions about how to vote. At the local level in particular, the more differentiated electoral system provides citizens with the opportunity to align their voting behavior with the logic of spatial voting. Therefore, it can be assumed that the use of cumulation and panachage varies with the clarity of individual proximity to parties in the political space. The present study examines this assumption in the context of the 2026 municipal elections in the German state of Hesse. Using data from different versions of the Voting Advice Application “lokal-o-mat”, we can locate voters’ substantive policy positions within a multidimensional political space, compare them with those of the competing parties, and examine how the resulting spatial distances influence the use of cumulation and panachage. Based on our results, we discuss the role of spatial logics in voting behavior in municipal elections and contrast their explanatory power with that of classical socio-economic factors.