Uncertainty Is (Usually) Motivating: Election Closeness and Voter
Turnout in 2002 and 2006 City President Elections in Poland
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Trinity College, Dublin
Publication date: 2009-06-30
Polish Sociological Review 2009;166(2):297-308
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ABSTRACT
One of the classic explanations of variation in voter turnout states that, all else being equal, the
closer (the more competitive) the election in question the higher the respective turnout rate should be.
In this paper, I examine whether this proposition holds in the context of the city president elections in
Poland. I employ two different measures of election closeness to account for the substantive difference
between the first and the second rounds of these elections. The results I present indicate that, while the
effect of closeness on turnout in the first rounds of the 2002 and 2006 elections was moderately strong or
even weak (and insignificant), the regularities observed in the second rounds lend arguably strong support
to the closeness hypothesis.