Suffrage Extension and Political Selection

Suffrage Extension and Political Selection

In the Netherlands, various alterations in the electoral law implementing franchise extension introduced a variable and exogenous new number of voters in various electoral districts. Exploiting variation in voters per parliamentary seat following alterations of the electoral law in 1850, 1887 and 1896, I identify whether and how electorates’ choices changed as a consequence of Dutch franchise extensions, which substantially changed the size and composition of the electorate. The main challenge I face is changing district boundaries, in relation to which I develop a method to compute synthetic counterfactual districts. I also exploit detailed demographic data on individual candidates to investigate individual candidates’ vote shares as a function of their personal characteristics, I investigate changes in political parties’ decisions to recommend particular candidates individual, and candidates’ decisions to stand for election and the probability to be elected.