Toothless compulsory voting can increase turnout: Evidence from India

Many places with mandatory voting do not enforce the legal obligation to participate. This raises the question of whether such “toothless” compulsory voting increases turnout, to which existing research provides conflicting answers. We expect that toothless mandatory voting boosts participation, as laws can shape behavior absent deterrence. Leveraging a reform in India, and with a novel dataset, we conduct a causally identified study of the impact of non-penalized compulsory voting. We precisely estimate a large and positive effect of toothless compulsory voting on turnout. This suggests that policymakers aiming to bolster participation can do so with this gentler form of compulsory voting, which entails no punishment of abstainers.