Weather conditions and political party vote share in Dutch national parliament elections, 1971–2010

Inclement weather on election day is widely seen to benefit certain political parties at the expense of others. Empirical evidence for this weather-vote share hypothesis is sparse however. We examine the effects of rainfall and temperature on share of the votes of eight political parties that partic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of biometeorology 2012-11, Vol.56 (6), p.1161-1165
Main Authors: Eisinga, Rob, Te Grotenhuis, Manfred, Pelzer, Ben
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal Physiology
Bgi / Prodig
Biological and Medical Physics
Biometeorology
Biophysics
Earth and Environmental Science
Election results
Elections
Environment
Environmental Health
Federal Government
Human geography
Humans
Meteorology
Netherlands
Parliaments
Plant Physiology
Political and economic geography
Political geography
Political parties
Politics
Weather
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Summary:Inclement weather on election day is widely seen to benefit certain political parties at the expense of others. Empirical evidence for this weather-vote share hypothesis is sparse however. We examine the effects of rainfall and temperature on share of the votes of eight political parties that participated in 13 national parliament elections, held in the Netherlands from 1971 to 2010. This paper merges the election results for all Dutch municipalities with election-day weather observations drawn from all official weather stations well distributed over the country. We find that the weather parameters affect the election results in a statistically and politically significant way. Whereas the Christian Democratic party benefits from substantial rain (10 mm) on voting day by gaining one extra seat in the 150-seat Dutch national parliament, the left-wing Social Democratic (Labor) and the Socialist parties are found to suffer from cold and wet conditions. Cold (5°C) and rainy (10 mm) election day weather causes the latter parties to lose one or two parliamentary seats.
ISSN:0020-7128
1432-1254
DOI:10.1007/s00484-011-0504-8