Echoing certainty in uncertain times: Network partisan agreement and the quality of citizen forecasts in the 2015 Canadian election

Citizens, especially in the aggregate, have historically been excellent election forecasters. This is, in part, due to discussing and hearing about the voting intentions of those around them, i.e., learning from their social networks. However, many people interact with networks that are ideological “echo chambers” made up of only likeminded voters. Does this absence of political disagreement decrease the ability of citizens to accurately predict an election result? Using a survey module from the 2015 Canadian Local Parliament Project, we examine how citizens living in partisan echo chambers fare at forecasting at the riding and parliamentary level and find that the reliability of echo chamber dwellers’ forecasts declines relative to those in more diverse environs. Our findings suggest that the role played by partisan composition of social networks is critical to understanding the accuracy and confidence of citizen electoral forecasts.