Premium
Explaining near‐universal turnout: The case of Malta
Author(s) -
HIRCZY WOLFGANG
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1995.tb00638.x
Subject(s) - turnout , voting , ballot , politics , political science , democracy , public administration , political economy , maltese , order (exchange) , economics , demographic economics , law , linguistics , philosophy , finance
. Even though voting is not compulsory, Malta has the highest turnout of all democratic nations. This study examines characteristics of the Maltese electorate, the country's governmental institutions and electoral system, and the nature of its politics to identify the most powerful factors (or combination of factors) responsible for the high voter turnout. Among these are: (1) intense and pervasive partisanship; (2) concentration of political power in a single elective institution; (3) highly competitive elections resulting in one‐party governments despite PR.; (4) maximization of the impact of a single ballot because the number of votes a candidate needs to be elected is very low and because the voter's lower‐order preferences count under STV, and (5) unusually intense campaigning by individual candidates because they compete against other candidates of the same party, and by parties because the electorate is polarized, which leaves few uncommitted voters while rendering voter conversion unlikely, thus making mobilization of all existing supporters vital to electoral success.