How Bad Weather on Election Day Impacts Voter Turnout

Rainy days still deter voters, but alternative voting methods are changing the landscape.

Inclement weather on Election Day has long been known to affect voter turnout, with research showing that rain and snow can discourage people from going to the polls. Although more voters are turning to mail-in and early voting options, weather can still significantly impact who casts their ballot.

A recent study in Political Geography looked at voter turnout in North Carolina and found that rain reduced Election Day participation by about 1 percentage point on average over the past four presidential elections. Nick Turner, an economist at the Federal Reserve, found that poor weather on Election Day often prompts people to switch to absentee or early in-person voting in future elections.

“A novel finding of this paper is that absentee/early in-person voting increases in the following election in response to prior election rainfall,” Turner explained. This suggests that bad weather can have lasting effects on voting habits, pushing some to adopt alternative voting methods.

Yusaku Horiuchi, a Dartmouth College professor who has studied weather’s impact on voter behavior, emphasized the significance of Turner’s findings. He noted that allowing voters to choose when they submit their ballots helps reduce weather-related barriers. However, he added that weather conditions alone don’t have a large overall impact on turnout, though they can still influence election results.

A 2007 study titled “The Republicans Should Pray for Rain” analyzed voter turnout from 1948 to 2000 and found that heavier rain on Election Day often led to lower turnout, particularly among those less motivated to vote regularly. For each additional inch of rain, voter turnout dropped, with significant implications for close elections like the one in 2000.

Another study by Horiuchi and Woo Chang Kang highlighted how bad weather disproportionately affects certain groups, such as younger or less frequent voters, who are more likely to stay home when conditions are poor. They noted that even slight increases in rainfall could deter enough voters to alter the outcome of an election.

Natural disasters, too, can disrupt voter turnout. After a Category 5 hurricane hit the Florida Panhandle in 2018, turnout initially dropped in heavily affected areas. However, state officials’ quick actions to expand early voting and expedite mail ballots helped counteract some of the weather’s negative impact, showing how election administrators can adapt to challenging conditions.

As extreme weather events become more common due to climate change, researchers are raising concerns about the growing impact of Election Day conditions on voting. A recent meta-analysis suggests that worsening weather patterns will increasingly affect elections, underscoring the need for resilient voting options.

Turner argues that while bad weather might still keep some voters home, alternative voting methods like mail-in and early voting can help maintain turnout. His analysis suggests that rainy Election Days might push more people to adopt these methods in the future, potentially changing how Americans engage with the voting process.