Global voting trends show that voter turnout has decreased in presidential systems in Europe and the US since the 1970s, while it has increased in Latin America where most countries have compulsory voting laws. Recent presidential elections with runoffs have been extremely close, with victory margins often under 5 percentage points. One-round presidential elections see a wider margin between first and second place candidates of around 15 points on average. Last-minute voters have become increasingly important as more people delay their voting decisions, posing challenges for polls with short pre-election blackout periods that are common in Latin America.

1. GLOBAL VOTING TRENDS
WAPOR 70th Annual Conference Lisbon, 16 July 2017
David Iglesias & Sara Morais
Analysis of Presidential elections

2. Turnout evolution in presidential systems
Source: own analysis from IDEA’s Voter Turnout Database
• In the last 50 years, turnout in presidential systems in Europe has decreased progressively. The
sharpest drop was registered in the 90’s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
• Turnout in the US has also gone down since the 70’s.
• It has gone up in Latin America, where the majority of countries have laws of compulsory voting.

3. Runoff presidential elections: neck & neck
Distance between the winner and the 2nd candidate in presidential elections with runoff
Source: own. Without invalid and blank votes.
• Half of the last presidential elections with runoff the victory margin was less than 5 points.
• In 2016 and 2017 the final distance was 1,8 (excluding the exception of France).
• The closeness of results in Austria forced the repetition of the runoff.
* The elections were repeated
Country Date 1st % 2nd % Difference
Peru 5-Jun-16 Pedro P. Kuczynski 50,1 Keiko Fujimori 49,9 0,2
El Salvador 9-Mar-14 Salvador S. Cerén 50,1 Norman Quijano 49,9 0,2
Austria 22-May-16 A. Van der Bellen 50,4 Norbert Hofer 49,7 0,7
Ecuador 2-Apr-17 Lenín Moreno 51,2 Guillermo Lasso 48,8 2,3
Argentina 22-Nov-15 Mauricio Macri 51,3 Daniel Scioli 48,7 2,7
Poland 24-May-15 Andrzej Duda 51,6 B. Komorowski 48,5 3,1
Brazil 26-Oct-14 Dilma Rousseff 51,6 Aécio Neves 48,4 3,3
Moldova 13-Nov-16 Igor Dodon 52,1 Maia Sandu 47,9 4,2
Colombia 15-Jun-14 Juan M. Santos 53,1 Iván Zuluaga 46,9 6,2
Austria* 4-Dec-16 A. Van der Bellen 53,8 Norbert Hofer 46,2 7,6
Romania 16-Nov-14 Klaus Iohannis 54,4 Victor Ponta 45,6 8,9
Uruguay 30-Nov-14 Tabaré Vázquez 56,6 Luis Lacalle 43,4 13,2
Chile 15-Dec-13 Michelle Bachelet 62,2 Evelyn Matthei 37,8 24,3
Guatemala 25-Oct-15 Jimmy Morales 65,5 Sandra Torres 34,5 31,0
France 7-May-17 Emmanuel Macron 66,1 Marine Le Pen 33,9 32,2
Costa Rica 6-Apr-14 Luis G. Solís 77,8 Johnny Araya 22,2 55,6

4. One-round Presidential elections
Distance between the winner and the 2nd candidate in presidential elections without runoff
Source: own
• The distance between the first and the second in votes widens in presidential elections being decided
in one round, jumping to 15.6 points.
Country Date 1st % 2nd % Difference Total
Venezuela 14-Apr-13 Nicolás Maduro 50,6 Henrique Capriles 49,1 1,5 99,7
United States 8-Nov-16 Hillary Clinton 48,2 Donald Trump 46,1 2,1 94,3
Mexico 1-Jul-12 E. Peña Nieto 38,2 Andrés Manuel LO 31,6 6,6 69,8
Panama 4-May-14 Juan C. Varela 39,1 José D. Arias 31,4 7,7 70,5
Honduras 24-Nov-13 Juan O. Hernández 36,9 Xiomara Castro 28,8 8,1 65,7
Paraguay 21-Apr-13 Horacio Cartes 45,8 Efraín Alegre 37,1 8,7 83,0
Nigeria 28-Mar-15 Muhammadu Buhari 54,0 Goodluck Jonathan 45,0 9,0 98,9
Philippines 9-May-16 Rodrigo Duterte 39,0 Mar Roxas 23,5 15,6 62,5
South Korea 9-May-17 Moon Jae-in 41,1 Hong Jun-pyo 24,0 17,1 65,1
Dom. Rep. 15-May-16 Danilo Medina 61,7 Luis Abinader 35,0 26,8 96,7
Portugal 24-Jan-16 M. Rebelo de Sousa 52,0 António Sampaio 22,9 29,1 74,9
Bolivia 12-Oct-14 Evo Morales 61,4 Samuel Doria 24,2 37,1 85,6
Ukraine 25-May-14 Petro Poroshenko 54,7 Yulia Tymoshenko 12,8 41,9 67,5
Russia 4-Mar-12 Vladimir Putin 63,6 Gennady Zyuganov 17,2 46,4 80,8
Nicaragua 6-Nov-16 Daniel Ortega 72,4 Maximino Rodríguez 15,0 57,4 87,5

5. Too close to call
This new reality becomes more challenging for pollsters, in a context in which surgically accurate
predictions are expected from surveys.
• In 2016 in the US, the IBD/TIPP tracking gave a match between Clinton and Trump in the previous
days to the election.
Poll for the 2016 presidential election in Peru IBD/TIPP tracking for the 2016 USA election
Source: media
Source: own, from the results of the IBD/TIPP tracking

6. Last minute decision – blackout periods
• The closeness in the outcome make very important last minute decision voting changes.
• Blackout periods become the main hurdle for polling firms. This situation becomes even more
problematic in many presidential systems, especially in Latin America, where most countries have
some of the largest blackout periods worldwide.
Source: own analysis with own research and ACE electoral Project database

7. Last minute decision – blackout periods
Source: own research
Country Blackout Runoff Reelection Compulsory Registry
Brazil 0 Yes Yes Yes Yes
USA 0 No Yes No Yes. Private
Austria 0 Yes Yes No Yes
UK 0 No Yes No Yes. Private
Germany 0 No Yes No No
Canada 0 No Yes No Yes*
France 1 Yes Yes No Yes
Portugal 1 Yes Yes No Yes
Argentina 2 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Uruguay 2 Yes No Yes No
Australia 3 No Yes Yes No
Costa Rica 3 Yes No Yes Yes
Mexico 3 No No Yes Yes
Spain 5 No Yes No No
Bolivia 6 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Peru 6 Yes No Yes Yes
Colombia 7 Yes No No Yes
Venezuela 7 No Yes No No
Ecuador 10 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Chile 15 Yes No/Yes No No
El Salvador 15 Yes No No No
Guatemala 15 Yes No Yes No
Paraguay 15 No No Yes No
Italy 15 No Yes No Yes
Panamá 20 No No Yes Yes
Honduras 30 No No Yes Yes
Nicaragua NA No Yes No No
Dom. Rep. NA Yes Yes Yes No

8. Last minute voters in US elections
• National polls for the US election did not fail in their estimations, as a thorough review carried out
by the AAPOR shows*. However, there was more uncertainty at the state level in the race for the
Electoral College. “The polls on average indicated that Trump was one state away from winning the
election”, goes on the aforementioned study.
• One of the reasons accounting for an under-estimation “of Trump’s support in the Upper Midwest”
might be last minute changes among voters in some key states. “About 13 percent of voters in
Wisconsin, Florida and Pennsylvania decided on their presidential vote choice in the final week”.
• The US becomes thus an excellent example of this global trend being discussed of voters delaying
more and more their voting decision.
Time of decision and presidential vote in key states won by Trump
* Source: “An evaluation of 2016 election polls in the United States”; American Association for Public Opinion Research. May 4, 2017
Source: Washington Post

9. Big cities VS rest of the country
• Another global trend that is also true for presidential systems is the growing gap in voting patterns
between big cities and the rest of the country.
• This tendency is not recent in the US, but in the 2016 election showed remarkable numbers.
Source: New York Times
Shift in margin in the 2016 US election