Weather to Vote: How Natural Disasters Shape Turnout Decisions

Abstract

Natural disasters can uproot peoples’ lives in a matter of minutes, leaving behind immeasurable hardships on the people and places that they strike. We examine the impact on voter turnout of one such force majeure in the days leading up to a midterm election. Leveraging the randomness of a rapidly developing, unpredictable Category 5 hurricane, we assemble an original dataset to examine the effects of Hurricane Michael on voting in Florida in the 2018 General Election. Our study assesses whether counties damaged by Hurricane Michael—as determined by relief policies administered by local election officials—affected voter behavior in 2018. Utilizing Difference-in-Difference (DID) models, we test whether voters registered in counties that were affected by Michael voted at rates comparable to their neighbors that were not directly impacted by the Category 5 hurricane. We also test whether voters in affected counties were more likely to alter their usual methods of voting. Our findings—that turnout was lower among those directly impacted by the storm but that early in-person voting helped to mitigate the effects—lend insight into how election administration decisions can offset the deleterious effects of a catastrophic event.