Non-voting in the 2018 Romanian referendum: the importance of initiators, campaigning and issue saliency

The requirement of a participation quorum for validity makes non-voting in referendums an important type of voting behaviour. This article seeks to explain non-voting in a referendum where the expectation was to have high turnout but where in reality only few voted, i.e. the 2018 referendum on the t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Political science 2019-09, Vol.71 (3), p.193-213
Main Authors: Gherghina, Sergiu, Racu, Alexandru, Giugăl, Aurelian, Gavriș, Alexandru, Silagadze, Nanuli, Johnston, Ron
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
campaign
Elections
initiators
issue saliency
non-voting
Quorum
Referendum
Referendums
Rural areas
Same sex marriage
Voter behavior
Voter turnout
Voting
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Summary:The requirement of a participation quorum for validity makes non-voting in referendums an important type of voting behaviour. This article seeks to explain non-voting in a referendum where the expectation was to have high turnout but where in reality only few voted, i.e. the 2018 referendum on the topic of same-sex marriage in Romania. Our explanations are inspired by the literature on turnout on elections to which we add several specific features of referendums. We propose three major sets of factors derived from the literature: access to resources, strategic decisions and campaign issues. The analysis relies on 36 semi-structured interviews with individuals aged 18 and above conducted in several urban and rural localities throughout Romania between December 2018 and March 2019.
ISSN:0032-3187
2041-0611
DOI:10.1080/00323187.2020.1781541