Who Votes for the Future? Information,Expectations, and Endogeneity in Economic Voting

Voters’ four primary evaluations of the economy—retrospective national, retrospective pocketbook, prospective national, and prospective pocketbook—vary in the cognitive steps necessary to link economic outcomes to candidates in elections. We hypothesize that the effects of the different economic evaluations on vote choice vary with a voter’s ability to acquire information and anticipate the election outcome. Using data from the 1980 through 2004 US presidential elections, we estimate a model of vote choice that includes all four economic evaluations as well as information and uncertainty moderators. The effects of retrospective evaluations on vote choice do not vary by voter information. Prospective economic evaluations weigh in the decisions of the most informed voters, who rely on prospective national evaluations when they believe the incumbent party will win and on prospective pocketbook evaluations when they are uncertain about the election outcome or believe that the challenger will win. Voters who have accurate expectations about who will win the election show the strongest relationship between their vote choice and sociotropic evaluations of the economy, both retrospective and prospective. Voters whose economic evaluations are most likely to be endogenous to vote choice show a weaker relationship between economic evaluations and their votes than the voters who appear to be more objective in their assessments of the election. Economic voting is broader and more prospective than previously accepted, and concerns about endogeneity in economic evaluations are overstated.     

Economic Voting in Danish Electoral Surveys 1987-94

Economic issue effects ("sociotropic" effects) are found to eclipse "pocketbook" effects on the vote for shifting Danish governments in cross-section surveys of the general elections of 1987. 1990 and 1994. Voter stands on the economic issue, Denmark's economic conditions, are in turn affected by left-right orientation and by images of the competing governments as managers of the economy and in the aggregate differ markedly from real economic growth.     

Timing the habit: Voter registration and turnout

Does registration timing impact whether an individual becomes a habitual voter? We argue that those registering in near proximity to a presidential election are more likely to vote in the upcoming election compared to those who register at other times during an election cycle because they seek an immediate return on their investment, but they are less likely to become habituated to vote in subsequent mid-term and primary elections. We suggest that this is because last-minute registrants, many of whom were registered through voter registration drives, were not focused on long-term electoral payoffs. Leveraging Florida's statewide voter files, we use logistic regression and propensity score weighting with county fixed-effects to evaluate if the timing of voter registration has significant short- and long-term turnout effects in high- and low-salience elections, controlling for party registration and an array of demographic factors. We find that the timing of registration does affect turnout, as last-minute registrants are not equally likely to vote in ensuing elections.     

An Experiment Testing the Relative Effectiveness of Encouraging Voter Participation by Inducing Feelings of Pride or Shame

Prior experimental research has demonstrated that voter turnout rises substantially when people receive mailings that indicate whether they voted in previous elections. This effect suggests that voters are sensitive to whether their compliance with the norm of voting is being monitored. The present study extends this line of research by investigating whether disclosure of past participation has a stronger effect on turnout when it calls attention to a past abstention or a past vote. A sample of 369,211 registered voters who voted in just one of two recent elections were randomly assigned to receive no mail, mail that encouraged them to vote, and mail that both encouraged them to vote and indicated their turnout in one previous election. The latter type of mailing randomly reported either the election in which they voted or the one in which they abstained. Results suggest that mailings disclosing past voting behavior had strong effects on voter turnout and that these effects were significantly enhanced when it disclosed an abstention in a recent election.     

Reconsidering pocketbook voting: An experimental approach

Despite its deep theoretical roots, the idea that voters reward or punish incumbents in national elections for trends in their personal financial circumstances has not fared well when subjected to empirical test. This paper poses an experimental test of the leading explanations for the surprisingly weak showing of pocketbook influences on vote choice. According to certain of these explanations, the answer lies in distinguishing between sociotropic and self-interested economic voting, or between retrospective and prospective economic voting, or between perceptions of economic trends in general and perceptions of the electorally relevant component of these trends. However, expectations based on these explanations are generally not borne out in the laboratory setting. Consistent with the observed pattern of effects, however, is the idea that pocketbook voting displays little independent impact because economic perceptions and attributions are epiphenomena—strongly biased by the voter's preexisting political commitments.     

Partisan consequences of low turnout at elections to the European Parliament

Low turnout and potential differences in party preferences between voters and non-voters may affect party vote shares at European Parliament (EP) elections. Of particular concern is the rise of Eurosceptic and populist parties, but scholars do not know whether these would benefit from increased voter mobilization. To address this gap, we simulate the party choices of non-voters at the 2009 and 2014 EP elections. Contrary to analyses of turnout effects at general elections in multiparty systems, our simulations suggest that left-leaning and ideologically moderate parties would gain if turnout went up to levels observed at first-order national elections. And while there is some evidence that populist parties might have benefitted from higher turnout at the 2014 elections (but not in 2009), our findings do not support expectations that either Eurosceptic or Europhile parties’ vote share would be affected by higher turnout.     

Selective abstention in simultaneous elections: Understanding the turnout gap

If two elections are held at the same day, why do some people choose to vote in one but to abstain in another? We argue that selective abstention is driven by the same factors that determine voter turnout. Our empirical analysis focuses on Sweden where the (aggregate) turnout gap between local and national elections has been about 2–3%. Rich administrative register data reveal that people from higher socio-economic backgrounds, immigrants, women, older individuals, and people who have been less geographically mobile are less likely to selectively abstain.     

Measuring the strength of voter turnout habits

Voting in one election makes a person more likely to vote in future elections. Researchers often interpret the over-time turnout persistence as evidence of psychological habit formation. But there are few theoretically motivated or empirically validated measures of voter turnout habit. This study contributes by clarifying the concept of turnout habit and developing and validating a seven-item measure of the concept. The paper describes turnout habit as a durable disposition to vote determined by an ability to automatically initiate voting and self-identify as a frequent voter. The new measure is validated using U.S. and UK survey data. Turnout data are from both voter files and self-reports. Varied methodological approaches, including a confirmatory factor analysis and receiver operator characteristic curve analysis, provide evidence of the measure's validity. Habit predicts future turnout independent of election-specific considerations, self-predictions, and age. The habit measure discriminates between eventual voters and abstainers as well as respondents' own self-predictions. Self-report voting habit measures appear valuable for answering theoretical questions about why people vote and practical questions about how best to identify likely voters in survey data.     

Do we need warm leaders? Exploratory study of the role of voter evaluations of leaders’ traits on turnout in seven European countries

Previous research on leader effects has focused exclusively on the impact of voters’ evaluations of leaders on vote choice, disregarding possible effects on the prior step of deciding whether or not to turn out to vote. In line with the personalisation of politics thesis, leaders have a higher impact among dealigned voters. Previous studies have demonstrated that leader effects are stronger among voters who voice their dealignment – namely party switchers. However, the potential impact of leaders among those who exited (i.e., who have abstained) is still unstudied. Could leaders have a mobilisation effect and therefore trigger turnout decisions? What characteristics of party leaders are more relevant in this regard? This article is the first comparative study to examine how the evaluation of party leaders’ traits influences voter turnout in general elections. The work incorporates data from election studies across seven countries with different social contexts (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Hungary). Characteristics of leaders were grouped into two dimensions – competence and warmth – in accordance with the stereotype content model and relevant studies on leaders’ traits evaluation. Multiple binary logistic regression models were performed to analyse the predictive power of competence and warmth on turnout, controlling for sociodemographic, political ideology variables and voters’ past political behaviour. Results reinforce the personalisation of politics theory, showing the utmost relevance of warmth personality traits of leaders in voter turnout decisions. Competence personality traits were found to be relevant only in some situations. Interaction effects were also demonstrated between warmth evaluations and identifying with a right-wing party as well as past political behaviour with both warmth and competence.     

Electoral Cycles and Turnout in Multilevel Electoral Systems

This article differentiates between three ways in which electoral cycles may impact on participation in elections. First, it identifies a simultaneity effect – turnout increases to the extent that elections are held on the same date. A second effect is voter fatigue – turnout declines when another election has just been held before. Poll voting is a third effect. It suggests that turnout increases when another election is to be held shortly after. On the basis of a novel dataset that includes 2,915 regional elections held in 317 regions and 18 countries from 1945 to 2009, evidence is found for all three effects. The results point towards a basic dilemma in multilevel electoral systems: increase turnout by holding elections on the same date but accept high vote congruence across elections or decouple election cycles, which decreases vote congruence but lowers participation rates.     

The downstream consequences of long waits: How lines at the precinct depress future turnout

Researchers have increasingly paid attention to the impact that the administrative component of elections has on voter behavior. Existing research has focused almost exclusively on the effect that legal changes--such as voter identification laws--have on turnout. This paper extends our understanding of the electoral process by exploring how one aspect of the precinct experience--standing in line to vote--can shape the turnout behavior of voters in subsequent elections. I demonstrate that for every additional hour a voter waits in line to vote, their probability of voting in the subsequent election drops by 1 percentage point. To arrive at these estimates, I analyze vote history files using a combination of exact matching and placebo tests to test the identification assumptions. I then leverage an unusual institutional arrangement in the City of Boston and longitudinal data from Florida to show that the result also holds at the precinct level. The findings in this paper have important policy implications for administrative changes that may impact line length, such as voter identification requirements and precinct consolidation. They also suggest that racial asymmetries in precinct wait times contribute to the gap in turnout rates between white and non-white voters.     

Mobilizing different types of voters: The influence of campaign intensity on turnout in direct democratic votes

A well-established body of literature links voter turnout to political campaigns. In this view, intensive campaigns increase the perceived salience of a decision, fostering information-seeking and, ultimately, turnout. The existing literature has also advanced our understanding of how direct democratic institutions influence turnout in elections. Yet we still know little about whether and to what extent campaign efforts influence voter turnout in direct democratic votes, and we know even less about who is mobilized. We claim that campaign intensity has differentiated effects across voters, depending on voters’ participation profile. To test this claim we use a rich dataset of official turnout data covering more than 40 direct democratic votes in Switzerland. The results support our claim. While intensive political campaigns overall foster citizens to turn out to vote, they do so especially for “selective” (or “intermittent”) voters, who need to decide anew at each ballot whether to turn out or not. Interestingly, we also find that frequent abstainers are not immune from campaign effects, and get almost as strongly mobilized as selective voters in highly intensive campaigns.     

Is Voting Habit Forming? New Evidence from Experiments and Regression Discontinuities

Field experiments and regression discontinuity designs test whether voting is habit forming by examining whether a random shock to turnout in one election affects participation in subsequent elections. We contribute to this literature by offering a vast amount of new statistical evidence on the long‐term consequences of random and quasi‐random inducements to vote. The behavior of millions of voters confirms the persistence of voter turnout and calls attention to theoretically meaningful nuances in the development and expression of voting habits. We suggest that individuals become habituated to voting in particular types of elections. The degree of persistence appears to vary by electoral context and by the attributes of those who comply with an initial inducement to vote.     

The Downsian voter meets the ecological fallacy

This paper presents evidence that voter participation does not depend on the probability that one vote is decisive. An extensive summary of the empirical participation literature is provided which shows that most but not all studies have found that turnout in an electoral district is higher when the race is closer. Individual-level vote regressions for the 1979 and 1980 Canadian national elections are estimated using objective measures of closeness (as opposed to self-reported measures). The main finding is that a citizen is no more likely to vote in a close election than in a lands-lide election. District-level turnout regressions for the same elections are also estimated, and a significant relation between closeness and turnout is observed. This suggests that aggregation bias may generate a spurious closeness-turnout relation in district-level regressions.     

Heterogeneity and the calculus of turnout: Undecided respondents and the campaign dynamics of civic duty

Accounts of turnout often maintain that citizens participate in elections because the expressive, instrumental and normative benefits associated with the act of voting outweigh the respective costs. Although the impact of those benefits has been empirically assessed in many studies, we know little about when and for whom this impact is stronger. To this end, this paper examines 1) how the effect of those benefits and particularly that of civic duty increases over the election campaign and 2) whether this increase can be attributed to voter heterogeneity. Survey respondents who have not yet decided how they are going to vote will be increasingly swayed to cast a vote on the basis of their civic duty and not other predictors of turnout. The empirical hypotheses are being tested by utilising recent rolling cross-section election studies from Britain. The results suggest that the influence of civic duty on turnout is stable for decided but increases for undecided voters the closer the election day looms.     

Does Voting History Matter? Analysing Persistence in Turnout

Individuals who vote in one election are more likely to vote in the next. Yet modelling the causal relationship between past and current voting decisions is intrinsically difficult, as this positive association can exist due to habit formation or unobserved heterogeneity. This article overcomes this problem using longitudinal data from the British National Child Development Study (NCDS) to examine voter turnout across three elections. It distinguishes between unobserved heterogeneity caused by fixed individual characteristics and the initial conditions problem, which occurs when voting behavior in a previous, but unobserved, period influences current voting behavior. It finds that, controlling for fixed effects, unobserved heterogeneity has little impact on the estimated degree of habit in voter turnout; however, failing to control for initial conditions reduces the estimate by a half. The results imply that voting in one election increases the probability of voting in a subsequent election by 13%.     

Has the gender gap in voter turnout really disappeared?

According to conventional wisdom, the traditional gender gap in voting has disappeared or even reversed in most established democracies. Drawing on the existing literature on differences between the sexes in political engagement and on pioneering voter turnout theories, this article questions the conventional assumption and hypothesises that women still participate at a lower rate in less important elections. It systematically tests this hypothesis by exploring the impact of gender on voter turnout in different electoral arenas. The empirical analyses of two cross-national datasets (Making Electoral Democracy Work and the European Election Study) demonstrate that although there is generally no gender gap in first-order elections, women tend to vote less than men in second-order contests. This reflects lower levels of interest in politics among women and their lower levels of knowledge about politics when it comes to second-order elections.     

Strategic campaigning, closeness, and voter mobilization in U.S. Presidential elections

The scholarly literature on voter mobilization is ambivalent regarding the effects of closeness on turnout. Economic analyses of turnout (i.e. the classic calculus of voting) contend that as elections become closer, voters perceive their participation as more valuable because there is a greater chance that they will cast the deciding vote. Other work argues that voters do not take closeness into account because the probability that their vote uniquely changes the outcome of an election is quite small even in close elections. Still, this second perspective maintains that closeness may increase turnout because elites distribute campaign resources to places where election results could be affected by mobilizing additional supporters. While the latter perspective is theoretically well-developed, empirical support for the notion that elite activity (rather than citizen perceptions) connects closeness and turnout is limited. Using improved measures of closeness and campaign activities, we test for citizen perception and elite mobilization effects on turnout in the context of U.S. Presidential elections. Results show that while closeness has no direct effect on turnout, elites indeed target campaign activities on close states and the asymmetric distribution of resources across states results in higher turnout in battleground states.     

Partisanship,media and the objective economy: Sources of individual-level economic assessments

Economic voting studies have repeatedly shown that voter's assessment of incumbent economic performance is important for the vote decision. However, there is little work explaining how individuals form their economic assessments. Utilizing individual-level data from Turkey, we find that variation in retrospective assessments can actually be predicted by individual income growth rates over the previous year, and the association is stronger for pocketbook assessments. Nonetheless, partisanship and media are important sources of bias, especially for sociotropic assessments. Controlled for partisanship, viewers of pro-government media are more likely to think that the national economy has done better than their own household over the last year, and also more likely to believe that the economy would fare worse if the incumbent is replaced. The findings testify both to the capacity of the individuals to anchor their assessments to personal experience, and to the media's ability to weaken this anchor.