Does proportional representation foster voter turnout?

Abstract This paper examines the record of western democracies to measure the impact of differing electoral formulae on the rate of voter turnout. The record of 509 national elections in 20 countries provides the basis for a regression analysis that clearly identifies higher turnout rates in PR systems that cannot be explained by a wide variety of control variables or traditional arguments about PR. The data also reveal a marked increase in electoral turnout over the last century.