The 2020 Czech Regional Elections in the Shadow of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Electoral Participation in the Spread of the Pandemic

Abstract The aim of the paper is to analyze the 2020 Czech regional elections held after the most intensive phase of the election campaign occurred during an unprecedented outbreak of new COVID-19 cases. Shortly after the elections, the Czech government of premier Andrej Bahis officially announced a state of emergency, and the Czech Republic became one of the world’s COVID-19 hardest-hit countries within a few weeks. Our analysis focuses especially on trends in the association between the 7-day incidence of COVID-19 and voter turnout between September 19 and November 14 at the level of 206 Czech microregions. While our results show a considerable rise in COVID-19 incidence per 100,000 people in Czech microregions with higher turnout, this effect was partly modified by age as the rise of COVID-19 in microregions with older populations occurred much later.