Essays on Electoral Politics: An Examination of Voting Technology, Voter Participation, and the Provision of Public Schools

This dissertation comprises of three essays on electoral politics. The first essay examines the impact of electronic voting machines(EVMs) on electoral outcomes in India. It finds that the introduction of EVMs led to a decline in voter turnout while seeing an increase in the winning margin and a decrease in the vote share of the first losing candidate in an electoral constituency. The results of this essay further suggest significant regional variation in the impact of electronic voting machines on voter turnout. The second essay studies the impact of income on voter turnout in California using the 2016 super bloom in Inyo County as a source of exogenous variation in income. The empirical results of this essay suggest that income has a negative effect on voter turnout. The third essay assesses the impact of the distribution of the male-female electoral ratio in an administrative district on the provision of public schools in India. The empirical results of the third essay demonstrate that a higher male-female electoral ratio leads to higher provision of public schools in an administrative district in India, indicating a male bias in the pattern of provision of public schools.