Isolating the Effect of Compulsory Voting on Political Sophistication: Exploiting Intra-National Variation in Mandatory Voting Laws in Austrian Provinces.

A legal requirement to vote successfully increases voter turnout, causing significant changes in the composition of the active electorate. There is an active debate over whether this institutionally driven expansion of the electorate will improve civic culture or, on the contrary, flood elections with political ignorance. This paper addresses this effect of compulsory voting on individual-level political sophistication through a comparative case study of changing mandatory voting regulations among the Austrian Provinces. The causal mechanisms through which compulsory voting is expected to increase political sophistication are presented, and empirical tests are devised to capture short-term and long-term effects of compulsory voting. Both effects are tested against three measures of political sophistication. The results suggest that both recent and long-term exposure to compulsory voting increase knowledge about the party system and party issue platforms, but might actually contribute to a decrease in familiarity with individual candidates and representatives. This data most strongly supports a campaign-based mechanism of information change. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]