Does Being (Un)Registered to Vote Make Any Difference? Re-Examining the Private and Social Costs of Voter Registration

Voter-registration laws have played a key role in eradicating electoral frauds, increasing electoral engagement among youth and minorities, and consolidating emerging democracies. Nevertheless, the conceptual study of voter enrollment has not been prolific despite its relevance to democratic legitimacy. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the decision of voter registration, which recovers the classical insights that democracy is a public good, government actions are motivated by the public interest, and citizens act rationally in politics. The private and social solutions of the model entail three types of Nash equilibrium (null, partial, and full enrollment rate), where the real cost of voter enrollment and how valuable is democracy to people are crucial determinants. Policy analysis suggests that reducing or removing registration costs will not avoid a crisis of representation. Finally, the addition of ideological preferences and a pricing mechanism based on electoral engagement allows to discuss the potential costs of being unregistered to vote.