Does greater youth participation favor the opposition?

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By Ro­drigo Ibar­rola

In the pre­vi­ous is­sue we had dis­cussed the sup­posed lack of in­ter­est of young peo­ple (peo­ple be­tween 18 and 29 years old) in par­tic­i­pat­ing in elec­toral elec­tions. Mak­ing some pop­u­la­tion ad­just­ments in the es­ti­ma­tion of elec­toral par­tic­i­pa­tion, we have ver­i­fied -con­trary to what is usu­ally af­firmed- that young peo­ple have been vot­ing in greater pro­por­tion since 2003 on­wards, fa­vored, to a great ex­tent, by the au­to­matic reg­is­tra­tion.

In this is­sue we test the hy­poth­e­sis of whether the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the younger pop­u­la­tion is re­lated to a de­crease in the votes of the tra­di­tional struc­tures. In this as­sump­tion, for the sake of sim­plic­ity, we as­sume the hege­monic party par ex­cel­lence, the Col­orado Party, as the tra­di­tional struc­ture.

For this test, we used a panel data­base of gen­eral elec­tion re­sults by de­part­ment (plus Asun­ción) for the of­fices of pres­i­dent and vice pres­i­dent, sen­a­tors and mem­bers of the house for the years 2008, 2013 and 2018. We also con­sid­ered UN­ACE vot­ers as col­orado (in essence, they are), so in the es­ti­mate, their votes were ag­gre­gated to the ANR. As an in­de­pen­dent vari­able, we took the per­cent­age change in youth turnout rel­a­tive to the pre­vi­ous elec­tion ad­justed for pop­u­la­tion, us­ing a ran­dom ef­fects model.

we can conclude that the increase in suffrage among people between 18 and 29, only, would not be equivalent to a decrease in votes for the ANR for the positions of president and vice-president and the house. Meanwhile, for senators there is a negative correlation, although it is far from being decisive.

The re­sults of the ex­er­cise show that for the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives the re­sult was not sig­nif­i­cant, or rather, there is no re­la­tion­ship be­tween the in­crease in the par­tic­i­pa­tion of peo­ple aged be­tween 18 and 29, and the sum of votes ob­tained by the ANR and UN­ACE. A greater par­tic­i­pa­tion of young peo­ple would not cause the Col­orado Party to lose votes in terms of mem­bers of the house. Con­se­quently, other fac­tors that in­flu­ence the choice of one op­tion or an­other by young peo­ple should be sought. In ad­di­tion, as can be seen in Fig­ure 1, the ANR wins in all the de­part­ments (red dots) in which the in­crease in youth par­tic­i­pa­tion ex­ceeded 20% in re­la­tion to the pre­vi­ous elec­tion.

Votes ob­tained by the ANR-UN­ACE for mem­bers of the house and vari­a­tion in youth par­tic­i­pa­tion in per­cent­ages

Source: Own, with data from the Na­tional Sta­tis­tics In­sti­tute (INE) and the Su­pe­rior Court of Elec­toral Jus­tice (TSJE).

How­ever, the pic­ture is some­what dif­fer­ent for the Sen­ate. Es­ti­mates show that, if the youth par­tic­i­pa­tion of the de­part­ment reg­is­ters an in­crease of 10% with re­spect to the pre­vi­ous gen­eral elec­tion, there would be a de­crease of be­tween 1.4% and 3.8% in the pro­por­tion of votes that the com­bined votes of the ANR and UN­ACE would ob­tain in 95% of the cases. The dif­fer­ence with re­spect to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives may per­haps be due to the num­ber of seats avail­able, to the fact that the elec­toral dis­trict is na­tional and of­fers greater op­tions to the vot­ers. Al­though the cor­re­la­tion is cer­tainly sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant, it is weak. This means -again- that other fac­tors in­flu­ence the de­crease in the num­ber of votes ob­tained by ANR-UN­ACE. On the other hand, in terms of re­sults (Fig­ure 2), it is ver­i­fied that the ANR won in all the elec­toral dis­tricts that reg­is­tered an in­crease of over 22% in the par­tic­i­pa­tion of peo­ple be­tween 18 and 29, with the ex­cep­tion of Asun­cion in 2008.

Votes ob­tained by the ANR-UN­ACE for sen­a­tors and vari­a­tion of youth par­tic­i­pa­tion. In per­cent­ages

Source: Own,with data from the Na­tional Sta­tis­tics In­sti­tute (INE) and the Su­pe­rior Court of Elec­toral Jus­tice (TSJE).

Re­gard­ing the pres­i­dency and vice-pres­i­dency, al­though the re­sult was sta­tis­ti­cally sig­nif­i­cant, the cor­re­la­tion be­tween the vari­ables an­a­lyzed was even weaker than the pre­vi­ous one. For every 10% in­crease in youth par­tic­i­pa­tion, there would be a de­crease of be­tween 0.04% and 1.9% in the pro­por­tion of votes ob­tained by the com­bined votes of the ANR and UN­ACE in 95% of the cases. Con­se­quently, un­der a higher youth turnout, the de­crease in the Col­orado Par­ty’s vote share is so sub­tle that, clearly, a higher youth turnout, by it­self, does not rep­re­sent a dan­ger to the NRA for the pres­i­dency. Note, in Fig­ure 3, that the ANR was the most voted po­lit­i­cal group­ing in all elec­toral dis­tricts where youth par­tic­i­pa­tion in­creased by 22% or more in re­la­tion to the pre­vi­ous elec­tion.

Votes ob­tained by the ANR-UN­ACE for the pres­i­dency and vari­a­tion in youth par­tic­i­pa­tion. In per­cent­ages

Source: Own, with data from the Na­tional Sta­tis­tics In­sti­tute (INE) and the Su­pe­rior Court of Elec­toral Jus­tice (TSJE).

Fi­nally, with the lim­i­ta­tions of the data an­a­lyzed (other po­si­tions such as gov­er­nor and coun­cilors of de­part­men­tal boards and in­for­ma­tion on mu­nic­i­pal elec­tions were not in­cluded) and the model used, up to this point we can con­clude that the in­crease in suf­frage among peo­ple be­tween 18 and 29, only, would not be equiv­a­lent to a de­crease in votes for the ANR for the po­si­tions of pres­i­dent and vice-pres­i­dent and the house. Mean­while, for sen­a­tors there is a neg­a­tive cor­re­la­tion, al­though it is far from be­ing de­ci­sive. It is still pend­ing to an­a­lyze the qual­i­ta­tive fac­tors of why the votes of younger peo­ple are not di­rected to­wards less con­ser­v­a­tive op­tions, as is usu­ally the case in other coun­tries.

Cover im­age: Agen­cia Pre­sentes