Frequent Elections Make Skipping Voting Socially Acceptable

Why Voter Fatigue Matters

Frequent elections are widely linked to declining turnout, but scholars have struggled to explain why. Filip Kostelka asks whether repeated electoral contests change citizens' attitudes about abstention itself—making skipping votes feel more acceptable rather than simply more costly or inconvenient. Understanding this psychological channel matters for how democracies design electoral calendars and interpret turnout trends.

How the Study Tests the Idea

Kostelka evaluates this hypothesis with an original, pre-registered survey experiment fielded across five countries (N = 12,221). The study uses an experimental design to identify the causal effect of election frequency on respondents' approval and perceived social acceptability of electoral abstention, documenting variation across different social and attitudinal groups.

Key Findings

• High election frequency increases the social acceptability of electoral abstention: respondents exposed to conditions of frequent elections were more likely to view not voting as acceptable.
• The effect scales with experience: the increase in acceptability is proportional to the number of past elections respondents faced.
• The shift in attitudes occurs broadly, not just among disengaged citizens: it is evident among politically engaged respondents and among those who endorse voting as a civic duty.
• The results provide new evidence on the psychological mechanism—norm change rather than only logistical burden—through which frequent elections can depress turnout.

What This Means for Democracies

These findings imply that electoral scheduling can have downstream normative effects on participation: more frequent contests risk normalizing abstention and eroding turnout by changing social norms about voting. Policymakers and scholars should weigh these normative consequences when proposing more frequent or more fragmented voting opportunities, and future research should explore institutional designs that preserve engagement without fostering abstention norms.