Estimating the Willingness to Pay for Voting when Absentee Voting is not Allowed

Objectives The existing studies based on the rational voter theory analyze voter turnout as the aggregate of individuals' binary choice of to vote or not to vote. However, when people need to travel to vote, the cost associated with different transportation modes directly affects their voting decisions. We thus generalize the rational voter theory by taking an individual's specific choice of transportation mode into account. Methods We show that our proposed discrete choice model can be estimated via the approach of Berry, Levinsohn, and Pakes (1995) (henceforth, BLP). We then use transportation and census data to analyze voters' behavior in Taiwan where absentee voting is not allowed. Results As compared to the observed 30.14 percent turnout rates of travel‐to‐vote electorates in Taiwan's 2014 local elections, the counterfactual simulations herein suggest that the turnout rates would be 61.77 percent if absentee voting were to be allowed. Conclusion The BLP method allows us to estimate a generalized rational voter model accounting for the transportation mode choice.