The vote-stealing and turnout effects of Ross Perot in the 1992 US presidential election

Including abstention as a choice in vote choice models enables one to calcu late the vote-stealing and turnout effects of third-party candidates. A mod el of the: vote including abstention also produces parameter estimates and marginal effects for some explanatory variables that differ from the result s of a model that excludes abstention. We present two multinomial probit mo dels of vote choice in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. One model inclu des abstention as a choice; the other does not. The model that includes abs tention reveals that Ross Perot increased turnout by nearly three percentag e points in 1992, and his candidacy decreased Clinton's margin of victory o ver Bush by seven percentage points. Under compulsory voting, Clinton's mar gin of victory barely increases, and Perot's vote share remains nearly cons tant.