THE DOWNSIAN VOTER MEETS THE ECOLOGICAL FALLACY

This paper presents evidence that voter participation does not depend on the probability that one vote is decisive. An extensive summary of the empirical participation literature is provided which shows that mo st but not all studies have found that turnout in an electoral distric t is higher when the race is closer. Individual-level vote regressions for the 1979 and 1980 Canadian national elections are estimated using objective measures of closeness (as opposed to self-reported measures ). The main finding is that a citizen is no more likely to vote in a c lose election than in a landslide election. District-level turnout reg ressions for the same elections are also estimated, and a significant relation between closeness and turnout is observed. This suggests that aggregation bias may generate a spurious closeness-turnout relation i n district-level regressions.