We oftentimes hear about how weather can affect voter turnout but is there truly a link?  If there is, who does it benefit – Republicans or Democrats?  Studies seem to indicate that what might be thought of as an urban myth is indeed true.

In 2005, political science researchers Brad Gomez, Thomas Hansford and George Krause completed the first comprehensive study on the correlation between weather and voter turnout.  Their paper, “The Republicans Should Pray for Rain:  Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections” confirmed the conventional wisdom that weather does affect voter turnout, bad weather benefits Republicans and most interestingly, two presidential elections in the last 60 years may have had different results had the weather been different.

Looking back at presidential elections from 1948 to 2008, the study takes into account the weather in 3,000 U.S. counties.  They in turn looked at key areas of the nation and how weather, good and bad, affected voter turnout.  In the end, the study determined that precipitation is the key weather condition to affect voter turnout.

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