Longer Hours, higher turnout? Opening hours and voter turnout in Austria

Elections are the most prominent institutionalized form of democratic participation. Easy access to polling booths should therefore be fundamental for high rates of participation. Hence, higher accessibility, in the form of longer opening hours and more polling stations, should lead to a higher voter turnout. In this paper, we investigate the influence of opening hours of polling stations on voter participation in every single voting precinct (n > 10,000) of all municipalities. The opening hours of polling stations in particular in Austria vary greatly among the Länder and municipalities, providing an ideal case to investigate this relationship. Based on data for the parliamentary elections in 2008, 2013, 2017, and 2019 and European elections in 2009, 2014, and 2019 we investigate, whether the number of polling stations and opening hours affect voter turnout. We find robust and significant positive correlation between the number of polling stations, opening hours and voter turnout for all elections after controlling for population size, density, and peculiarities of the Länder.