When do Elites Favour Franchise Extension? Evidence from Japanese Attitude to Demeny Voting

One of the competing theories in the positive constitutional economics literature explaining peaceful extension of suffrage by elites (Voigt 2011) is that the elites weigh their own loss of franchise against the policies that are likely to be more favoured if franchise is extended. The objective of this paper is to directly test whether this “trade-off” exists by analyzing a survey of Japanese voters who were asked about their attitude to allowing parents to cast proxy votes on behalf of their children (referred to as Demeny Voting , DV) and policy preference. We examine whether the motivation of voters to support DV is related to their own policy priorities.

We find that the survey respondents who would not be eligible for extra votes, but who consider child-support as a priority are significantly more likely to support franchise extension. This suggests that elite voters whose policy priorities might be served by franchise extension, but whose own voting power would be diminished, nonetheless may favour an extension.

Our results are the first test of Demeny’s contention that franchise extension could advance pro-natal policies. Our results also offer direct support to the theoretical research which posits that peacable franchise extension might be motivated by policy priorities of voters.