Serving as Poll Officers Narrowed Spain’s 1930s Turnout Gender Gap

Why Study the Turnout Gender Gap?

Pau Vall-Prat and Toni Rodon investigate why the gender gap in voter turnout sometimes narrows after women gain the franchise. Focusing on the Spanish Second Republic (1931–1939), the authors ask whether direct exposure to election administration — specifically serving as poll officers — helped politicize and mobilize newly enfranchised women.

A Lottery That Assigned Poll Officers

The study exploits a lottery used in the 1933 Spanish election that randomly assigned some recently enfranchised women to serve as poll officers in the first national contest in which women could vote. This random assignment creates a natural experiment allowing the authors to isolate the causal effect of hands-on exposure to voting administration.

Individual-Level Panel Evidence

Using an original individual-level panel database, Vall-Prat and Rodon track subsequent turnout for women who were and were not randomly selected as poll officers. The design compares treated women to otherwise similar women and to men, leveraging the lottery’s randomization to generate credible counterfactuals.

What the Data Shows

• Women randomly selected as poll officers in 1933 became as likely to vote in later elections as men, while the turnout gender gap persisted among women who were not selected.
• Additional analyses indicate poll-officer experience made women more receptive to mobilization efforts by political organizations.
• The presence of women serving at polls produced positive externalities, encouraging other women in the same communities to participate.

Why This Matters

The findings suggest that hands-on exposure to election administration can play a distinctive role in integrating newly enfranchised groups into electoral life. For scholars of turnout, gender, and electoral administration, the paper highlights a practical mechanism—participation in election staffing—that can reduce participation gaps and strengthen democratic inclusion.

Who Should Care

Researchers and policymakers interested in voter turnout, gender equality in political participation, and the design of electoral institutions will find implications for how administrative roles and civic exposure can shape long-term engagement.