We provide empirical evidence on the determinants of voter turnout using the randomized outcomes of a school choice lottery. We show that those losing the lottery to attend their first-choice school are significantly more likely to vote in the ensuing school board election than lottery winners....

There is little causal evidence on the effect of economic and policy outcomes on voting behavior. This paper uses randomized outcomes from a school choice lottery to examine if lottery outcomes affect voting behavior in a school board election. We show that losing the lottery has no significant...