2019 ELECTIONS: Explainer: Why politicians may be praying for a sunny day on 8 May By Rebecca Davis becsplanb
The honest answer: nobody is totally sure. There has been little research into this subject in South Africa, but international studies have found that the weather can affect voter turnout.A general truism of election turnout is that the higher the cost voters incur to vote, the lower the likelihood that they turn up to the polls. “Cost” doesn’t mean financial expenditure: it refers to anything that makes the act of voting difficult or inconvenient.
The costs of voting in South Africa are higher, with the requirement of pre-registration, a valid bar-coded ID document and the fact that even on a public holiday some citizens still need to work. So voting is already a bit of a schlep: Throw in bad weather, and it may be enough to discourage people from heading to the polls.
The general turnout trajectory has been on a slow downward slide: from 77% of registered voters turning up in 2009 to 73% in 2014. This is normal for maturing democracies. International electoral research suggests that other factors that play a role in turnout, beyond weather, include the perceived closeness of the electoral race and the level of the perceived difference between electoral contenders. If voters perceive leading parties as being very different choices, they are more likely to vote. Where there is a sense of ideological similarity between contenders, turnout tends to drop.
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