No Surprises, Please: Voting Costs and Electoral Turnout

Can well-intentioned policies create barriers to voting? Election administrators in Munich (Germany) recruit new polling places and control precinct sizes to improve voting accessibility, creating variation in the assignment of citizens to polling locations. Event study estimates suggest that polling place reassignments cause a persistent shift from in-person to mail-in voting and a transitory drop in total turnout of 0.4 percentage points (0.6 percent). The results are consistent with inattention to reassignments, causing some voters to miss requesting mail-in ballots and temporarily abstain from voting. Reassignments depress turnout more in elderly-heavy precincts and when distance to the polling location increases.