A study by economics professor Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido looked at the impact of closing a newspaper on elections and voting. The case they observed was the Cincinnati Post, which closed after New Years Eve in 2007. Their results found that there was decreased political involvement in the northern Kentucky counties after the Post closed.

“Although our findings are statistically imprecise, they demonstrate that newspapers–even underdogs such as the Post, which had a circulation of just 27,000, when it closed–can have a substantial and measurable impact on public life,” Schulhofer-Wohl and Garrido said in the abstract.

The study found that politics becomes less competitive in terms of the incumbent advantage, decreased voter turnout and the number of candidates running for office after a newspaper shuts down. They believe a similar phenomena will result for larger newspapers that have or will soon go under in Denver, Seattle and San Francisco.

For democracy’s sake, keep buying those papers and getting that ink on your fingers. It could be the most significant vote you cast.