Third party voting and the rational voter model: Empirical evidence from recent presidential elections

This paper attempted to demonstrate that a rational voter model as derived by Barzel and Silberberg (1973) can be used (with modifications) to explain third party voting in presidential elections. The empirical findings strongly suggest that the rational voter model is applicable in explaining third party voting. This conclusion likewise suggests that people who vote for third parties do so under similar motivations as people who vote for the major parties. Thus, people do not appear to regard votes for third parties as wasted votes or engage in the voting process in an irrational fashion. Lastly, votes for third parties represent the transmission of individual preferences by people who believe that their vote is important and that in the aggregate their signal may be interpreted as a signal to alter the direction of current policies as run by the major parties. Therefore, it does not appear from the evidence presented here that we should distinguish between or treat differently voting participation for the major parties versus the minor or third parties in presidential elections.The author expresses appreciation to Charles Campbell, Gary Pecquet, Paul W. Grimes, and James E. McClure for comments and criticisms. The usual caveat applies.     

The impact of rational participation models on voting attitudes

Rational models generally predict that only a few people should vote in most elections. A major reason why turnout is so high today is because of the numerous positive messages which citizens are routinely given about the value of their vote. A month after discussion of a model of rational participation, individuals were found to be more negative toward the institution of elections. A major reason for voting continued to be the feeling of duty to participate; subjects who felt no moral obligation would not go to the polls even if they were very interested in an election.     

Strategic voting and effective representation thresholds: Evidence from three Spanish general elections

The extent of strategic voting in the Spanish general elections of 2000, 2004 and 2008 is estimated using a new measure of strategic incentives suitable for proportional representation systems that avoids some of the problems associated with lagged variables. Strategic behaviour increased from 12 to 33 per cent of the electoral base of the United Left Party, the major victim of strategic defection. This estimate is a conservative one as elite mobilisation is controlled for in the constituencies, which is unusual in the literature on strategic voting that uses regression‐based methods.     

Only conservatives are voting in the rain: Evidence from German local and state elections

In this note, we use data from different elections in the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia between 1975 and 2010 to show that the Conservatives profit from lower voter turnout at the expense of the Social Democrats. We deal with the endogeneity of voter turnout by using election day rain as an instrumental variable. Our particular contribution is the comparison of municipal and state elections.     

The political business cycle under rational voting behavior

This essay argues that politically motivated business cycles could persist in a democratic society even if the electorate votes in a rational, fully informed manner, provided that government policymakers have the means to systematically generate macroeconomic fluctuations. This cyclic outcome reflects the pReferences of an electorate that is composed of imperfectly altruistic voters belonging to different overlapping generations. Since each generation has a different horizon over which it would like to have elected politicians provide an optimal economic policy plan, an intergenerational conflict of interests situation arises. This conflict is placed into an explicit political context, whereby cycles become generated under the institutional constraint of periodic elections.     

Protest voting in plurality elections: a theory of voter signaling

This paper develops a model of protest voting in which unsatisfied voters may abandon their most-preferred candidate even though he or she has a good chance of winning, in the hope that this signal of disaffection will lead to downstream improvements in that candidate??s performance. We use a spatial model to identify voters whose ideological profile makes protest voting an option, and an expected utility model to identify the conditions under which potential protest voters will in fact use their vote as a signaling device. Aggregate-level data provide suggestive evidence in the argument??s favor.     

Alphabetic bias in partisan elections: Patterns of voting for the Spanish Senate, 1982 and 1986

Recent research has suggested that, in partisan elections, candidates derive no special advantage from being placed first or as high as possible on the ballot, and that, consequently, measures to neutralize this alphabetic or positional bias are unnecessary. We warn against these conclusions, and analyse one case of particularly clear alphabetic voting: the 1982 and 1986 Senate elections in Spain. The aggregate alphabetic advantage that candidates enjoyed over their party's next lower candidates on the ballot ranged from 1.7 to 3.7 per cent. And, in both elections, more than 10 per cent of the 188 senators elected in four-member districts can be shown to have been elected as a result of their alphabetic advantage.     

Cycles in senatorial voting behavior: implications for the optimal frequency of elections

The effect that the length of electoral periods has on the behavior of elected officials is examined. The hypothesis is that the longer the period between elections the less responsible or the more independent representatives will behave relative to the desires of their polity. The hypothesis is tested by examining the behavior of U.S. Senators. It is found that their independence follows a cyclical behavior which conforms to the electoral period. As a result it is by no means clear that decreasing the frequency of elections reduces the cost of elections. The effect of this independence cost on the optimal frequency of elections is discussed.     

Technocratic attitudes and voting behaviour ten years after the Eurozone crisis: Evidence from the 2019 EP elections

The onset of the Great Recession raised the profile of technocracy, or government by experts, as a contrasting model to democracy. Yet, there is little research on how attitudes towards technocracy may impact European citizens' political behaviour. Moreover, the consistency of technocracy supporters' political attitudes, especially towards the EU, is questionable. This paper uses new survey panel data collected before and after the European parliament elections in May 2019 in six countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain). We investigate how citizens’ technocratic attitudes affect their voting behaviour in the European elections. We find evidence that citizens with technocratic attitudes are less likely to support mainstream parties, and tend to either abstain or, if they vote, to give their vote to anti-system parties, especially from the populist right. In addition, by distinguishing technocracy supporters according to their partisanship, we conclude that technocracy is a thin ideology that can be combined with different patterns of political support: while many technocracy supporters have no party identification or support non-mainstream parties and show dissatisfaction with democracy and the EU, another subgroup of technocracy supporters identifies with a mainstream political party and show above average political support and support for the EU.     

Attitudes to voting rules and electoral system preferences: Evidence from the 1999 and 2003 Scottish Parliament elections

Researchers have paid little attention to the way citizens evaluate different electoral systems. This reflects the limited knowledge citizens are presumed to have about alternative electoral arrangements. However, the establishment of a legislature under new electoral rules creates conditions in which citizens can make more informed judgements. Such a situation occurred with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, elected under the Additional Member system. Using data collected in 1999 and 2003, we consider Scottish voters’ reactions to the new electoral rules. We examine how voters evaluated various features and outcomes of the rules, the structure of voters’ attitudes, and which features and outcomes of the rules were decisive in shaping overall support for plurality and proportional voting systems.     

Evidence on the importance of spatial voting models in presidential nominations and elections

ADA scores and Nominate scores are used for the first time to examine the influence of spatial voting records on which candidate wins the party’s presidential nomination and on which nominee wins the general election. We find that the most conservative Republican candidate and moderately liberal Democrats were most likely to win their party’s nomination. For general elections we find that the candidate’s spatial record has nearly as much impact on the outcome as economic growth, which has been the focus of most past empirical research. The nominee whose voting record is more moderate is more likely to be elected.     

The US mid-term elections of 1982

The 1982 US election completed the destruction of the myth that 1980 saw a Republican landslide. It disappointed the election-eve expectations of the Democrats, but was far crueller to the earlier hopes of the Republicans, though their financial advantage kept their losses down. Old political forces-parties and unions-played a more active part than in recent years, and turnout rose for the first time for two decades. The results should make internal differences less divisive among Democrats, more so among Republicans, especially with the crushing exposure of the bogus claims of the ‘New Right’. But if the economy recovers, so may the Republican party.     

The rational timing of parliamentary elections

This paper presents a rational choice model for the timing of parliamentary elections in political systems where the government has the option of calling an early election. The optimal timing of elections involves the government weighing the benefits of calling an election versus the costs and is modelled mathematically as an optimal stopping problem. The model implies that the timing of elections depends upon time left in the government's term, the degree of electoral uncertainty, the volatility of government popularity, the government's time rate of discount, and institutional constraints such as the length of term and whether the government is likely to be forced from power by a vote of no confidence.     

Voters and roll call voting: The effect on congressional elections

The subject of this research is whether ideological preferences play a major role in explaining voters' refusal to reelect some members of the U.S. House of Representatives. If ideological control is important, one would expect to find a large difference between the voting record of a rejected incumbent and his or her replacement. In distinction, whenever voters must replace a congressman or congresswoman because that person had died in office or chose to run for higher office, the hypothesis of ideological tracking implies that the newly elected member of Congress will resemble his or her predecessor. The data confirm these hypotheses and show, as well, that ideological control exists within parties and not only between them; that the degree of voters' ideological control is as great over senior congressmen and congresswomen as over junior ones; and that voters' concern about ideology has increased over the last two decades.     

Issues and voting in the European elections 1989

Abstract: After a discussion of the role of 'issues' in models of voting behaviour, this article focuses on the degree of homogeneity of issue evaluations on the one hand and the match between issue evaluations and vote choice on the other. Three major conclusions emerge from cross-national comparative analyses. First, and quite generally, a large segment of the national electorates does not perceive any particular party as best able to handle any of the problems they personally feel most important. Second, when particular parties are considered as best able to handle the problems seen as most important, then uniform - or homogeneous - evaluations outnumber more varied choices by far. And third, overall vote intention matches the competence evaluation much more often than not. These results give little support for the cognitive, rational choice approach to issue voting, but, still issue competence evaluations may be more than merely a reflection of affective ties.     

Internet voting and turnout: Evidence from Switzerland

Internet voting (i-voting) is often discussed as a potential remedy against declining turnout rates. This paper presents new evidence on the causal effect of i-voting on turnout, drawing on trials conducted in two Swiss cantons: Geneva and Zurich. Both Geneva and Zurich constitute hard cases for i-voting, given that i-voting was introduced in the presence of postal voting. However, this setting allows us to test some of the more optimistic claims regarding i-voting's ability to increase turnout. Empirically, we exploit the advantageous circumstance that federal legislation created a situation coming close to a natural experiment, with some of Geneva's and Zurich's municipalities participating in i-voting trials and others not. Using difference-in-differences estimation, we find that i-voting did not increase turnout in the cantons of Geneva and Zurich.     

Linking coalition attitudes and split-ticket voting: The Scottish Parliament elections of 2007

The Scottish Parliament elections of 2007 were the third to be held under the country’s mixed-member proportional system. As voters continue to adapt to the new system, we explore two aspects of its use: i) preferences for coalitions as opposed to single-party government, and ii) ticket-splitting. The two are considered together for two reasons. First, both can be seen as manifestations of a preference for multiple parties, and as a result they share a number of likely predictors in common. In empirical practice, however, we find that rather different factors predict the two variables: ticket-splitting looks to be based on strategic partisan or ideological calculation, whereas coalition attitudes are less about partisan interests and more about an overall view of the kind of policies and politics delivered by coalitions. Second, there is potential for a causal connection between our two dependent variables, and indeed we do find clear evidence of such an attitude–behaviour link: some voters appear to split their ticket precisely because they would prefer a coalition.