The Factors of the Voting Equation: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

The literature on the phenomenon of abstention has shown that
participation is determined by certain individual and contextual factors.
However, the empirical studies conducted using rational choice theory
have not taken these contributions into account. Some authors, more
focused on understanding the factors that should be included in the
voting equation, have concluded that citizens vote because they
overestimate the value of their vote. But is this overestimation random?
What does it depend on? The aim of this study, based on the 2008
post-election survey data of the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research
(CIS), is to turn the traditional factors of the instrumental voter equation
into dependent variables, thereby discovering some of their determinants.
The results show that the distribution of these factors is not random and
that it does not always match what was predicted.