Voter Turnout Chile - 2013 Update

We had covered in a previous post the development of voter turnout in Chile since 1870. In this post we update the time series to include the recent elections.

First we have update the population time series from INE and calculated the voting age population as 40% of the 15-19 age band plus all the age band 20+. The result is graphically depicted as follows:





















The ratio of the voting age population as a percentage of total population has increased from 64% in 1990 to 74% in 2013 and is expected to further increase at a somewhat reduced pace to 76% in 2020. It should be noted that the voting age population is not identical with the population permitted to vote as some segment of the voting age population (foreigner with less than five year of residency, persons with criminal records of certain characteristics etc) are not allowed to vote.

Separately, it is well known that the Servel voting registry is inflated and that the Census data contradicts the INE projection. We will come back to this in a future post.

Below updated table of (i) population, (ii) voting age population, (iii) votes and (iv) valid votes since 1870. The sources have all been disclosed in the earlier post.


































































And the voter turnout in graphical format.

Especially the first round of the presidential election seems to be in line with the previous compulsory voting record.

Impact of 1930´s depression on Chile´s Economy

Just re-read a chapter of Reinhart & Rogoff´s "This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly" (obviously I´m aware of the calculation errors, in my view it is still a tremendously valuable book).

The following graph (on page 267) describes the collapse of exports 1929 -1932. From a Chilean perspective the magnitude of the drop is particularly impressive.