Free Voter Registration Visits Boosted Participation Unequally in 2012 French Elections?

political participation voter registration france Voting and Elections @APSR Dataverse

What We Did

We ran a large-scale experimental intervention during the 2012 French elections. Data & Methods

Our study involved randomly assigning 20,500 apartments to different canvassing groups.

Control group: No intervention
Treatment Groups (6): Received visits from election organizers
Two distinct types of support:
Information about registration only
Help with the actual registration process at home

Key Findings

Both types of canvassing increased voter registration, but significantly more effective was direct home help.

Home-based registration assistance outperformed informational visits in boosting participation across apartment residents.
Importantly, this intervention didn't just bring people to vote who wouldn't have otherwise; it actually helped citizens overcome the initial hurdles to register.

Why It Matters

Citizens reached through home registration became more engaged and knowledgeable about politics. This suggests that easing formal barriers could substantially improve representation.

Article card for article: Voter Registration Costs and Disenfranchisement: Experimental Evidence from France

Voter Registration Costs and Disenfranchisement: Experimental Evidence from France was authored by Céline Braconnier, Jean-Yves Dormage and Vincent Pons. It was published by Cambridge in APSR in 2017.