Roadmaps to Representation: An Experimental Study of How Voter Education Tools Affect Citizen Decision Making

Efforts to educate citizens about the candidates and issues at stake in elections are widespread. These include distributing voter guides describing candidates’ policy views and interactive tools conveying similar information. Do these voter education tools help voters identify candidates who share their policy views? We address this question by conducting survey experiments that randomly assign a nonpartisan voter guide, political party endorsements, a spatial map showing voters their own and the candidates’ ideological positions, or both a spatial map and party endorsements. We find that each type of information strengthens the relationship between voters’ policy views and those of the candidates they choose. These effects are largest for uninformed voters. When spatial maps and party endorsements send conflicting signals, many voters choose candidates with more similar policy views, against their party’s recommendation. These results contribute to debates about citizen competence and demonstrate the efficacy of practical efforts to inform electorates.

     

ABA ratings: what do they really measure?

Several recent spatial modeling studies incorporate valence issues—e.g., voters’ evaluations of the candidates’ competence, integrity, and charisma—that may give one of the candidates an electoral advantage that is independent of his policy positions. However to date all such models assume that while voters value positive valence characteristics, the candidates themselves do not. We develop a spatial model where the candidates are valence-seeking, i.e.—like the voters—the candidates prefer that the winning candidate possess qualities, such as integrity, diligence, and competence, that will enhance his job performance. We analyze a spatial model where the candidates value both the valence qualities and the policies of the winning candidate, and we show that the candidates’ optimal policy choices typically diverge as the valence differential between them increases, and in particular that the valence-disadvantaged candidate normally has incentives to become more extreme as the valence advantage of her opponent increases.     

Face Value? Experimental Evidence that Candidate Appearance Influences Electoral Choice

According to numerous studies, candidates’ looks predict voters’ choices—a finding that raises concerns about voter competence and about the quality of elected officials. This potentially worrisome finding, however, is observational and therefore vulnerable to alternative explanations. To better test the appearance effect, we conducted two experiments. Just before primary and general elections for various offices, we randomly assigned voters to receive ballots with and without candidate photos. Simply showing voters these pictures increased the vote for appearance-advantaged candidates. Experimental evidence therefore supports the view that candidates’ looks could influence some voters. In general elections, we find that high-knowledge voters appear immune to this influence, while low-knowledge voters use appearance as a low-information heuristic. In primaries, however, candidate appearance influences even high-knowledge and strongly partisan voters.     

Spatial voting in non-partisan cities: A case study

In spatial voting theory, voters choose the candidate whose policy preferences are most like their own. This requires that (a) voters and candidates have policy preferences that can be meaningfully summarized in terms of low-dimensional “ideal points” on a left-right scale; (b) voters are able to discern, either directly or through relevant cues, the ideal points of the candidates who are running for office; and (c) voters incorporate this information into the choices they make at the ballot box. Perhaps more than in any other elections, it is not clear that any of these requirements are met in non-partisan municipal elections: policy preferences may not be ideologically structured, information may be inadequate, and voters may choose candidates for reasons other than ideology. This makes non-partisan municipal elections an especially hard test for spatial voting theory. Using novel data from both municipal candidates and eligible voters in a major non-partisan municipal election in Canada, we show that municipal policy attitudes are ideologically structured and that these municipal policy ideal points are strongly related to mayoral and council vote choice. Thus, despite the institutional and informational obstacles, spatial voting can play an important role in non-partisan municipal elections.     

Candidates’ policy strategies in primary elections: does strategic voting by the primary electorate matter?

Empirical research reports conflicting conclusions about whether primary election voters strategically account for candidates’ general election prospects when casting their votes. We model the strategic calculations of office-seeking candidates facing two-stage elections beginning with a primary, and we compare candidates’ policy strategies in situations where primary voters strategically support the most viable general election candidate against candidate strategies when voters expressively support their preferred primary candidate regardless of electability. Our analyses—in which the candidates’ appeal is based on their policy positions and their campaigning skills—suggest a surprising conclusion: namely, that strategic and expressive primary voting typically support identical equilibrium configurations in candidate strategies. Our conclusions are relevant to candidates facing contested primaries, and also to political parties facing the strategic decision about whether or not to use primary elections to select their candidates—a common dilemma for Latin American (and some European) parties.     

Sex and Race: Are Black Candidates More Likely to be Disadvantaged by Sex Scandals?

A growing body of work suggests that exposure to subtle racial cues prompts white voters to penalize black candidates, and that the effects of these cues may influence outcomes indirectly via perceptions of candidate ideology. We test hypotheses related to these ideas using two experiments based on national samples. In one experiment, we manipulated the race of a candidate (Barack Obama vs. John Edwards) accused of sexual impropriety. We found that while both candidates suffered from the accusation, the scandal led respondents to view Obama as more liberal than Edwards, especially among resentful and engaged whites. Second, overall evaluations of Obama declined more sharply than for Edwards. In the other experiment, we manipulated the explicitness of the scandal, and found that implicit cues were more damaging for Obama than explicit ones.     

Competence and ambiguity in electoral competition

The level of competence that voters attribute to different candidates is an important determinant of election results. In addition, it is observed that some candidates tend to be more ambiguous in their campaigns regarding future plans, while others commit to specific policies. We offer a model where politicians who vary in their level of competence compete by making costly campaign declarations. We show that a separating equilibrium exists in which the ambiguity of a candidate’s campaign declaration reveals her level of competence. The model explains how politicians may use an “issue”-based campaign to create a competent image, and provides an additional explanation for different levels of campaign ambiguity.     

The Relevance of Religion for Political Office: Voter Bias Toward Candidates from Different Religious Backgrounds

Over the last several decades, Gallup data shows an increased willingness among members of the public to support presidential candidates from a wide range of religious backgrounds, though a nontrivial proportion of the public is still unwilling to vote for an Atheist, Mormon, or Muslim. What underlies this opposition? We argue that voters evaluate candidates from religious out-groups more negatively on a wide range of dimensions considered desirable for political office, and that this bias should be more pronounced among the highly religious. We show support for these arguments using a survey experiment fielded with YouGov. Atheists and Muslim candidates were perceived more negatively on a large set of traits considered desirable for political office compared to candidates from religious in-groups, and Mormon candidates fall somewhere in between. The Atheist and Muslim candidates were also perceived as less competent on a diverse set of issues.

     

Approval voting,Condorcet's principle,and runoff elections

Approval voting allows each voter to vote for as many candidates as he wishes in an election but not cast more than one vote for each candidate of whom he approves. If there is a strict Condorcet candidate — a candidate who defeats all others in pairwise contests — approval voting is shown to be the only nonranked voting system that is always able to elect the strict Condorcet candidate when voters use sincere admissible strategies. Moreover, if a strict Condorcet candidate must be elected under ordinary plurality voting when voters use admissible strategies, then he must also be elected under approval voting when voters use admissible strategies, but the converse does not hold. The widely used plurality runoff method can also elect a strict Condorcet candidate when voters use admissible strategies on the first ballot, but some of these may have to be insincere to get the strict Condorcet candidate onto the runoff ballot. Furthermore, there is no case in which the strict Condorcet candidate is invariably elected under the plurality runoff method when voters use admissible first-ballot strategies. Thus, approval voting is superior to the plurality runoff method with respect to the Condorcet principle in its ability to elect the strict Condorcet candidate by sincere voting and in its ability to guarantee the election of the strict Condorcet candidate when voters use admissible strategies. In addition, approval voting is more efficient since it requires only one election and is probably less subject to strategic manipulation.     

Policy voting in U.S. House primaries

ABSTRACT

This paper uses exit surveys of voters in four House primaries to ask how well voters are able to use primaries for the purpose of giving policy direction to their congressional parties. The surveys found that nearly half of voters could not recall the names of any candidate and that 11% were uncertain or could not recall for whom they had just voted. The surveys also found that nearly 40% of voters could not offer a political evaluation – that is, a like or dislike having political content – about any candidate, and that fewer than a quarter could offer political evaluations of as many as two candidates. The surveys found no evidence of policy-motivated voting in three of the four primaries, but substantial evidence of it in one. Yet even in that one race, voters split their support among three candidates sharing majority voter opinion on the key election issue and thereby opened the way for nomination of a candidate not sharing majority opinion. The paper concludes from this evidence that voters in these House primaries, and probably more widely, made little use of them for the purpose of giving policy direction to their parties.     

Candidate Choice Without Party Labels:

In the absence of party labels, voters must use other information to determine whom to support. The institution of nonpartisan elections, therefore, may impact voter choice by increasing the weight that voters place on candidate dimensions other than partisanship. We hypothesize that in nonpartisan elections, voters will exhibit a stronger preference for candidates with greater career and political experience, as well as candidates who can successfully signal partisan or ideological affiliation without directly using labels. To test these hypotheses, we conducted conjoint survey experiments on both nationally representative and convenience samples that vary the presence or absence of partisan information. The primary result of these experiments indicates that when voters cannot rely on party labels, they give greater weight to candidate experience. We find that this process unfolds differently for respondents of different partisan affiliations: Republicans respond to the removal of partisan information by giving greater weight to job experience while Democrats respond by giving greater weight to political experience. Our results lend microfoundational support to the notion that partisan information can crowd out other kinds of candidate information.     

Is there such a thing as a Muslim vote?

This contribution explores to what extent there is such a thing as a distinct Muslim vote in flexible proportional list systems. We test in a new and reliable way whether the religious belonging and behavioural dimension of Muslim voters play a role in their decision-making process when casting preferential votes in a secular democracy. To achieve this, voter and candidate characteristics are modelled simultaneously in cross-classified multilevel analyses where the decision-making process of voters (the demand side) is studied while taking into account the list composition in terms of individual candidates (the supply side). We use data of an exit poll related to the local elections of 2018 in Belgium, especially at oversampled locations. The analyses show that voters who belong to Muslim faith are more likely to vote for Muslim candidates. Contrary, the behaviour dimension of Muslim voters – measured in mosque attendance - has no effect on voting primarily for Muslim candidates.     

Assessing strategic voting in the 2008 US presidential primaries: the role of electoral context,institutional rules,and negative votes

We examine the nature and extent of strategic voting in the 2008 US presidential primary. In doing so, we distinguish positive strategic voters—those casting ballots for their second choice in the primary and general election—from negative strategic voters—those casting ballots for a candidate they want to lose in the general election. We find evidence of both types in 2008. Moreover, we show that the likelihood of voting strategically is related to the electoral and institutional context. Specifically, those who prefer trailing candidates and who live in states with open primaries or with elections after John McCain became the presumed nominee were more likely to vote strategically.     

Less is more: The paradox of choice in voting behavior

How does the number of candidates competing in an election affect voting behavior? In theory, as the number of candidates running for office increase, citizens’ utility from voting also increases. With more candidates, voters are more likely to have candidates that are close to their ideal points. Practically, however, more candidates also means a higher cognitive burden for voters who must learn more during campaigns in order to find their “ideal” candidate. In this paper, we examine how choice set size affects voting behavior. Using a survey experiment, we show that subjects presented with many options learn less about candidates, are more likely to vote based on meaningless heuristics, and are more likely to commit voting errors, when compared with subjects who choose between only a few candidates.     

Going Maverick: How Candidates Can Use Agenda-Setting to Influence Citizen Motivations and Offset Unpopular Issue Positions

Holding an unpopular position on an issue important to voters can endanger a candidate??s electoral success. What is the candidate??s best agenda-setting strategy? To focus on other issue positions congruent with the same ideological stereotype, shoring up support among like-minded voters? Or to ??go maverick?? by discussing some issues that signal liberal positions and some that signal conservative positions? Existing voting models suggest the answer depends on voter preferences, since going maverick should have symmetric effects??support among voters who agree with the candidate??s positions will decrease, proportionally, as support increases among voters who disagree. We argue, however, that stereotype incongruence prompts these voters to process information differently, yielding asymmetric effects. We test our expectations experimentally, using a fictional candidate webpage to show how the benefits of going maverick can outweigh the costs.     

Voter reactions to candidate background characteristics depend on candidate policy positions

Do personal background characteristics of a political candidate affect voter evaluations when voters also know the candidate's policy position? Several studies have shown that voters infer personal traits and policy positions from candidate characteristics such as gender, family background and occupation. However, in most elections, voters do not evaluate candidates absent of any policy information. We investigate whether the influence of personal background characteristics vanishes when policy information regarding a candidate is available to the voters. Using a survey experiment, we confirm that voters infer both personal traits and policy positions from the background characteristics of a candidate, and we furthermore show that explicit information on policy positions moderates the relationship between background characteristics and candidate evaluations. However, policy information does not simply crowd out the effects of candidate background characteristics. Instead, policy information can change the valence of background characteristics, turning otherwise disadvantageous characteristics into an electoral advantage.     

Confident and cautious candidates: Explaining under-representation of women in Danish municipal politics

Why are women under-represented even in democratic and egalitarian countries? Previous research considers either demand-side or supply-side explanations. We integrate both perspectives in a least-likely case for the under-representation of women, namely the municipal councils in Denmark. The data stems from a candidate choice conjoint experiment, a survey among potential candidates, and data on the actual pool of nominated candidates. On the voter demand-side, we show that there is no pro-male bias in general or in combination with other candidate traits nor that traits evaluated positively by voters appear more frequently among actual male candidates. On the supply-side, we find that women are less likely to be interested in running for political office. This is primarily because women assess their own political qualifications significantly lower than men. The under-supply of female candidates seem to drive the disparity suggesting that we should focus more on supply-side factors to overcome the gender imbalance.     

A model of candidate location with endogenous valence

This work gives a theoretical explanation for the increase in campaign spending and party polarization in U.S. politics. I assume that the effectiveness of persuasive advertising, and of costly valence campaigning in general, positively depends on the share of nonpartisan voters. A decline in the number of partisan voters in a constituency results in greater campaign spending by the candidates. If the voters are risk-averse, the candidates who maximize their expected office rents minus the cost of campaigning will choose divergent policy platforms strategically in order to reduce the costs of subsequent campaign spending. The degree of policy divergence positively depends on the share of nonpartisan voters for a broad class of voter disutility and candidate cost of valence functions.     

The Moderating Effect of Debates on Political Attitudes

In theory, candidate debates can influence voters by providing information about candidates' quality and policy positions. However, there is limited evidence about whether and why debates influence voters in new democracies. We use a field experiment on parliamentary debates during Ghana's 2016 elections to show that debates improve voters' evaluations of candidates. Debates have the strongest effect on partisan voters, who become more favorable toward and more likely to vote for opponent-party candidates and less likely to vote for co-partisans. Experimental and unique observational data capturing participants' second-by-second reactions to the debates show that policy information was the most important causal mechanism driving partisan moderation, especially among strong partisans. A follow-up survey shows that these effects persist in electorally competitive communities, whereas they dissipate in party strongholds. Policy-centered debates have the potential to reduce partisan polarization in new democracies, but the local political context conditions the persistence of these effects.