Abstainers' reasoning for not voting: The Icelandic local government election 2014

Abstract

In the Icelandic local government election in 2014 turnout was lower than ever before, and four years earlier it had already decreased considerably. In this article, the authors examine abstainers’ personal reasoning for not casting a vote. Using survey data, the focus is on questions about reasons for not voting, comparing age groups and whether voters live in the centre or the periphery of Iceland, as well as the population size of the voters’ municipalities. The main results are that older voters are more likely to name reasons having to do with the political supply (e.g., political parties) and the political system, and younger voters to say that they could not be bothered. We find negligible differences in reasons for not voting, depending on municipality size and centre vs periphery areas. We suggest that the age differences we find in reasoning to abstain could be due to the fact that the consequences of the financial crash in 2008 were more strongly felt by older voters. However, we also make the point that ‘not bothering to vote’ can indicate discontent which can possibly be traced back to the crash.