What Affects Voter Turnout? Macro and Micro Evidence from Poland

The aim of this paper is to discuss briefly the issue of voter turnout and ascertain what kind of socioeconomic variables can affect it. The main body of the article is devoted to the search for empirical findings on the basis of the Polish presidential and parliamentary elections in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The central analysis is conducted using OLS regressions on NTS4 areas (powiat) with the utmost importance attached to the role of socioeconomic variables and especially to the role of adversities such as unemployment and other features of the labor market. Furthermore, the logit model has been built on individual data in order to corroborate (or debunk) findings derived from macro regressions. Although it was not the main intention to study in detail the theory of various turnout models it seemed instructive to sketch them along with stylized facts regarding the phenomenon of voting.