Political Exit: The Unintended Effects of Electoral Rules

What are the unintended consequences of electoral rules on candidate re-entry into politics? We examine the downstream impact of electoral rules that punish candidates for poor performance on electoral re-entry. Candidates contesting for elected office in India must submit a monetary deposit to the electoral authority which they forfeit if they fail to secure less than one-sixth of the total votes cast in the race. We use the discontinuity created by this \textit{deposit rule} to study the causal effect of costly procedural rules on the decision to re-contest in subsequent elections. We find that such institutions disproportionately deter women from re-running for election compared to men. Additionally, we observe that these effects are particularly pronounced for women contesting on smaller regional party tickets, indicating potential party-level discrimination against women candidates.