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Abstract: Autocracies exploit election schedules for political control, but we lack theory and evidence for understanding how voters respond to manipulated schedules. While conventional wisdom suggests that electoral manipulation demobilizes voters, this paper argues that manipulated election dates can motivate voter turnout because citizens, especially opposition supporters, may anticipate that their camp will be more competitive in the rescheduled election, thus increasing their likelihood of turnout. Evidence from a survey experiment in Hong Kong demonstrates that election postponement motivates both government and opposition supporters to vote. However, framing election postponement as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic or a regime strategy to deter opposition increases the turnout of government supporters, while framing postponement as a signal of the government’s weakness increases opposition turnout. Government supporters are motivated by a perceived decrease in the cost of voting, whereas opposition supporters mobilize as they believe more of their fellow citizens will vote for the opposition. Results are robust to potential falsification. These findings suggest that manipulated election schedules are consequential in shaping citizens’ political behavior, with crucial implications for election turnout and authoritarian stability.
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Turnout Intention by Group
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