A presentation by Petra Schleiter, Professor of Comparative Politics, Oxford. This event is part of the Political Economy Lunch Seminar (PELS).
Voter identification (ID) laws are increasingly common in democratic countries, sparking concerns about their impact on electoral participation. Existing evidence is mixed and challenging to generalize beyond the highly polarized and racialized context of the US. To address these limitations, we examine the impact of introducing ID requirements on voter turnout in the UK. Our analysis includes three approaches: estimating the reform's effect on turnout at the local authority level using time series data, assessing individual-level impacts on self-reported turnout with panel survey data, and utilizing an age-based discontinuity in ID ownership to estimate the causal effect of such ownership on electoral participation. Consistently, our findings indicate that the voter ID law significantly decreased turnout.
No prior registration necessary. If you have any questions, please reach out to Amanda Slater at slater[at]hertie-school[dot]org