Does online voting change the outcome? Evidence from a multi-mode public policy referendum

Do online and offline voters differ in terms of policy preferences? The growth of Internet voting in recent years has opened up new channels of participation. Whether or not political outcomes change as a consequence of new modes of voting is an open question. Here we analyze all the votes cast both offline (n = 5.7 million) and online (n = 1.3 million) and compare the actual vote choices in a public policy referendum, the world's largest participatory budgeting process, in Rio Grande do Sul in June 2014. In addition to examining aggregate outcomes, we also conducted two surveys to better understand the demographic profiles of who chooses to vote online and offline. We find that policy preferences of online and offline voters are no different, even though our data suggest important demographic differences between offline and online voters.     

The effect of the secret ballot on voter turnout rates

Secrecy in the voting process eliminated an important motivation for voting. No longer able to verify the voters' choices, political parties stopped offering payments in return for votes. Within the rational voter framework, it will be shown that these payments were a prime impetus for people to vote. Without a vote market to cover their voting costs, many voters were rational to stay away from the polls. This hypothesis is supported through a series of empirical tests culminating in a multivariate legislative regression. When other electoral laws are controlled for, the secret ballot accounts for 7 percentage points lower Gubernatorial turnout.     

Is compulsory voting habit-forming? Regression discontinuity evidence from Brazil

Voting in one election increases one's propensity to vote in the future. It remains unclear, however, whether this pattern holds when voting is compulsory – as is the case in a quarter of all democracies. Is compulsory voting habit-forming? I address this question using a regression discontinuity design and administrative turnout data from Brazil, where voting is voluntary at age 16 and compulsory at age 18. I find no evidence that compulsory voting instils voting habits. Instead, the evidence points to a first-time compulsory voting boost, which gradually dissipates as voters grow older. I show that targeted mobilisation of first-time compulsory voters is a plausible mechanism behind the turnout boost. Alternative explanations find less support in the data. The results clarify the scope conditions of prior research on voting habits, and have important implications for the debate over the second-order effects of compulsory voting.     

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.     

The effect of school district and municipal government financial health information on local tax election outcomes: evidence from fiscal stress labels in Ohio

A key informational asymmetry in local public finance is the lack of information available to local residents regarding the financial status of the school districts and local governments in which they reside. Given that voters in many states must approve property and income tax increases for these local entities, the lack of full information on the financial status of these local entities may lead to sub-optimal voting decisions. State financial intervention systems have begun to make financial problems more salient to residents, potentially alleviating these informational asymmetries. This paper examines the effect of the Ohio fiscal stress labeling program on voting outcomes and the tax-setting behavior of local officials for school district and municipal government tax referendums. We use a difference-in-differences approach to examine data from over 3000 school district and 2300 municipality property tax elections from 2004 to 2012. While we find minimal evidence that the yes vote share changed for school district referendums following fiscal stress label receipt, we find very large increases (15 to 23 percentage points) in the likelihood of referendum passage for school districts following label receipt. We do not find much evidence of changes in the likelihood of passage or the yes vote share following label receipt for municipalities, but we do find that these voting outcomes rise following label removal. We also find that local officials do not appreciably change their tax-setting behavior in response to these labels, as the size and likelihood of property tax proposal are largely unchanged following label receipt or removal.     

Efficacy,power and equity under approval voting

Approval voting allows each voter to vote for as many candidates as he wishes in a multicandidate election. Previous studies show that approval voting compares favorably with other practicable election systems. The present study examines the extent to which votes for different numbers of candidates can affect the outcome. It also considers generic powers of voters and the extent to which approval voting treats voters equitably. If there are three candidates, votes for one or two candidates are equally efficacious in large electorates. For four or more candidates, votes for about half the candidates are most efficacious. Although inequities among voters can arise under approval voting, the common plurality voting system is considerably less equitable than approval voting.     

Collective decision-making of voters with heterogeneous levels of rationality

This paper studies the collective decision-making processes of voters who have heterogeneous levels of rationality. Specifically, we consider a voting body consisting of both rational and sincere voters. Rational voters vote strategically, correctly using both their private information and the information implicit in other voters’ actions to make decisions; sincere voters vote according to their private information alone. We first characterize the conditions under which the presence of sincere voters increases, reduces, or does not alter the probabilities of making correct collective decisions. We also discuss how the probabilities change when the incidence of sincere voters in the population varies. We then characterize the necessary and sufficient condition under which informational efficiency can be achieved when sincere voters coexist with rational voters. We find that when sincere voters are present, supermajority rules with high consensus levels are not as desirable as they are in rational voting models, as informational efficiency fails under such voting rules.

     

Electoral registration and the control of votes: The case of Chile

We investigate how the employment relationship may lead employers to control the voting behavior and to induce the electoral registration of their workers. Forced registration and the control of votes become feasible when voting behavior is observable, as in open ballot elections. Workers whose vote is controlled are more likely to be registered as compared to other eligible voters, increasing their impact on electoral outcomes. Increasing the secrecy of the vote (for instance with the adoption of a secret ballot) significantly reduces the control of votes. Electoral registration, however, remains biased as long as the probability of voting behavior disclosure induces less ideologically motivated voters to comply with the political preference of the employer. We provide empirical support for the predictions of the model examining the effects of the introduction of the secret ballot in Chile in 1958.     

Does the Ideological Proximity Between Candidates and Voters Affect Voting in U.S. House Elections?

Do citizens hold congressional candidates accountable for their policy positions? Recent studies reach different conclusions on this important question. In line with the predictions of spatial voting theory, a number of recent survey-based studies have found reassuring evidence that voters choose the candidate with the most spatially proximate policy positions. In contrast, most electoral studies find that candidates’ ideological moderation has only a small association with vote margins, especially in the modern, polarized Congress. We bring clarity to these discordant findings using the largest dataset to date of voting behavior in congressional elections. We find that the ideological positions of congressional candidates have only a small association with citizens’ voting behavior. Instead, citizens cast their votes “as if” based on proximity to parties rather than individual candidates. The modest degree of candidate-centered spatial voting in recent Congressional elections may help explain the polarization and lack of responsiveness in the contemporary Congress.     

Strategic electoral considerations under proportional representation

Scholars have long assumed that voters do not employ strategic considerations when casting a vote in systems of proportional representation. Either this would not be necessary because few votes were wasted or impossible because the calculations involved would be too difficult to make. This research note examines the latter and concludes that (Dutch) voters are better able to make such calculations than traditionally has been presumed. Under quasi-experimental conditions that involved what can be called coalition preference voting, voters show tendencies to react to strategic considerations when determining their vote preference.     

On the mismeasurement of sincere and strategic voting in mixed-member electoral systems

Under mixed systems, voters cast two votes to elect the same legislative body: one vote for parties using proportional rules and one for candidates using majoritarian rules. Voters are said to cast straight-tickets if the candidate they vote for is of the same party as their proportional vote; otherwise, they are said to cast split-tickets. Split-ticket voting is commonly used as a measure of strategic voting as splitters are usually assumed to express their true preference in one vote but vote strategically in the other. This study challenges this practice showing that split-ticket voting does not necessarily indicate strategic voting, just as straight-ticket voting does not necessarily indicate a sincere vote. This result has wider consequences as it indicates that measuring strategic voting from observed behaviour can result in incorrect conclusions about vote choice.     

Tactical coalition voting and information in the laboratory

Tactical coalition voting (TCV) is a balancing strategy where voters choose to vote for their second preferred party in order to influence the policy direction of the government coalition formed. In this paper, we experimentally evaluate the extent voters in a PR system engage in TCV. We find significant evidence that voters in the laboratory, even those not experienced with PR systems, choose strategically to affect post election coalitions using a balancing strategy, although the percentage of voters who do so is much less than that predicted by the theory. We also find that although voters who are less informed are less likely to use a balancing strategy, strategic motivations are still a factor in their behavior.     

Bribing Voters

We present a model of influence over collective decisions made through voting. We show how an outside party offering incentives to a committee can manipulate the committee's decisions at no cost and induce inefficient outcomes. A key condition is that the outsider be able to reward decisive votes differently. Inefficiency results from voting externalities. We relax all initial assumptions to investigate how to insulate committees. We study different information settings, credibility assumptions, payoff structures (voters caring about the collective decision and about their own votes), and incentive schemes (offers contingent on pivotal votes, individual votes, vote shares, and the collective decision). We analyze when voting should be made secret; we elucidate the role of individual accountability and various political institutions in preventing vote buying. We discuss implications for lobbying, for clientelism, for decisions in legislatures, boards, and central banks, and for the efficiency of democracy .     

Designing preference voting

Electoral systems in which voters can cast preference votes for individual candidates within a party list are increasingly popular. To the best of our knowledge, there is no research on whether and how the scale used to evaluate candidates can affect electoral behavior and results. In this paper, we analyze data from an original voting experiment leveraging real-life political preferences and embedded in a nationally representative online survey in Austria. We show that the scale used by voters to evaluate candidates makes differences. For example, the possibility to give up to two points advantages male candidates because male voters are more likely to give ‘zero points’ to female candidates. Yet this pattern does not exist in the system in which voters can give positive and negative points because male voters seem reluctant to actively withdraw points from female candidates. We thus encourage constitution makers to think carefully about the design of preference voting.     

Random votes under compulsory voting: Evidence from Brazil

Compulsory voting is known for boosting electoral turnout, even when sanctions for abstaining are small or loosely enforced. Much less is known, however, about the consequences of compulsory voting on vote choice, and, in particular, about the quality of electoral decisions. In this paper, we explore the extent to which voters meaningfully engage in the electoral process or simply vote randomly because voting is required by law. We conducted a large online survey in Brazil during the 2018 national elections to assess if voters engage in random voting. We evaluate random voting for low-profile, low-information elected offices (state and federal legislators) and others that receive greater media coverage (governor and president) and evaluate the determinants of random voting for each of them. We find that: 1) random voting does not appear to be affected by social desirability bias; 2) there is substantial random voting under compulsory voting; 3) more voters tend to engage in random voting in low-profile, low-information elections, as compared to elections that receive greater media coverage; and, 4) interest in politics, education, and disposition to vote if voting were to be voluntary reduce random voting. Our findings carry important implications for the study of citizen participation and civic competence under compulsory voting and for democratic representation, more broadly.     

An experimental investigation of voter myopia in economic evaluations

A prevalent assumption in the economic voting literature is that voters’ retrospective evaluations are based on very recent outcomes only, that is, they are myopic. I test this assumption by drawing on a population-based survey experiment from Turkey. Turkey presents a good opportunity to explore voters’ time horizons for economic voting: the long tenure of the same single-party government entailed periods of both good and poor performance, and its overall record to date has been better than its immediate predecessors. I find that voters can provide divergent assessments of incumbent’s performance in managing the economy over different time periods that are in line with the country’s macroeconomic trajectory. Moreover, voters’ evaluations of the incumbent’s performance during its entire tenure have a stronger effect on economic vote than their shorter-term evaluations, defying voter myopia. I provide evidence that long-term outcomes might weigh heavier in voters’ considerations than commonly assumed.     

Voters in a multi-member constituency: The 1977 Auckland election

Voters in multi-member constituencies typical of local government elections must decide how to allocate the votes at their disposal. The secrecy of the ballot has hitherto prevented study of how these preferences are distributed or of the composition of the vote received by individual candidates.Access was gained via a computer printout to the actual behaviour of voters in a five member constituency of the Auckland Regional Authority (New Zealand) in the 1977 local elections. It was contested by two full tickets and three distinctive independents.A computer programme which scanned over 12,000 combinations enabled the vote to be analysed for partisan and other forms of voting. It revealed that 80 per cent of voters were essentially partisan, 62 per cent being Citizens and 37 per cent Labour inclined. However, there was widespread refusal to vote the full ticket, but the ‘spare’ votes were given to independents rather than the opposition.There was little sign of feminist or alphabetical voting, but a weak local notables vote may have existed. The successful candidates depended less on their own partisan supporters.     

Threshold Insurance Voting in PR Systems: A Study of Voters’ Strategic Behavior in the 2010 Swedish General Election

This study investigates strategic voting for small parties in proportional representation systems, in previous work sometimes referred to as threshold insurance voting (Cox, 1997). Starting from theories of rational voting (Downs, 1957), three conditions for threshold insurance voting are developed: the voter considers potential government outcomes, votes for a party at risk of falling below an electoral threshold, and votes for another party than his or her most preferred one. The conditions are tested on the case of the 2010 Swedish general election. Using extensive data material and a conditional logit model of vote choice, the results show that in this election voters cast strategic votes for at least one of the small parties, the Christian Democrats which was included in the incumbent government coalition.     

Interests and information in referendum voting: An analysis of Swiss voters

Abstract. Referendums impose considerable informational demands on voters. Recent theoretical and empirical research has emphasized the different shortcuts and heuristics they may employ in deciding how to vote. Relying on a substantial series of votes at the national level in Switzerland, we provide empirical tests on how Swiss voters cope with the informational demands in referendum voting. We combine simple heuristics, like partisan cues and endorsements, with indicators of instrumental interests to explain citizens' choices in a series of votes.     

Using factions to estimate preference intensity: Improving upon one person/one vote

In many elections, individuals are given two alternatives and are asked to indicate which of the two they prefer. These votes are then tabulated using one person/one vote and the alternative with the most votes becomes the public choice. Can we improve upon this system? If we change the election system and get more information on voter preference intensities, there are a number of better systems: demand revelation schemes, logrolling, Borda Voting etc. But suppose we can't change the way in which voters cast their ballots; suppose we are only allowed to change the way in which votes are tabulated. Is there a better system? Generally there is one extra bit of information — usually considered incidental — which comes with an individual's vote: his voting address. But voting address tells us something about the interest groups to which the individual may belong. As this paper shows, we can use this information to devise a better way of tabulating votes. This new system generally gives individuals from moderately cohesive voting regions more voting weight than individuals from either mildly cohesive or highly cohesive voting regions.