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Don't Forget to Vote: Text Message Reminders as a Mobilization Tool
Abstract
Current explanations of effective voter mobilization strategies maintain that turnout increases only when a potential voter is persuaded to participate through increased social connectedness. The connectedness explanation does not take into account, however, that registered voters, by registering, have already signaled their interest in voting. The theory presented in this article predicts that impersonal, noticeable messages can succeed in increasing the likelihood that a registered voter will turn out by reminding the recipient that Election Day is approaching. Text messaging is examined as an example of an impersonal, noticeable communication to potential voters. A nationwide field experiment (n = 8,053) in the 2006 election finds that text message reminders produce a statistically significant 3.0 percentage point increase in the likelihood of voting. While increasing social connectedness has been shown to positively affect voter turnout, the results of this study, in combination with empirical evidence from prior studies, suggest that connectedness is not a necessary condition for a successful mobilization campaign. For certain voters, a noticeable reminder is sufficient to drive them to the polls.
... In accordance with previous research, our starting point is the Noticeable Reminder Theory (NRT) suggested by Dale and Strauss (2009). The NRT posits that registered voters do not require persuasion to vote; instead, they need reminders of impending elections. ...
... Thus, a message must surpass a certain attention threshold to influence voter behaviour (Zaller 1992). In this regard, Dale and Strauss (2009) assert that a straightforward text message is an effective and noticeable medium of communication. ...
... Abundant evidence in the research literature confirms that reminders in the form of text messages boost voter turnout (Bergh and Christensen 2022;Bhatti et al. 2017b;Cheng-Matsuno et al. 2023;Dale and Strauss 2009;Malhotra et al. 2011). The estimated average effect (intent-totreat, inverse-variance weighted) in prior GOTV experiments is approximately 0.8 percentage points (see Table S8 in the Appendix for additional details on previous GOTV studies based on text message treatments). ...
We present results from a pre-registered, well-powered text message get-out-the-vote (GOTV) experiment, conducted during the 2019 European Parliament election in Sweden. Our findings suggest that a simple text message increases the likelihood of voting by 0.3 percentage points. Half of this effect spills over to untreated household members while workplace spillovers are near zero. Subsequent analysis reveals that the direct treatment effect is noticeably stronger among individuals with below-average voting propensities. Interestingly, within this same group, the household spillovers are significantly negative. We speculate and provide some indirect evidence, that these negative spillover effects may stem from the text message reminder influencing the behaviour of voters already motivated to vote. Above all, we propose that an increase in early voting, as opposed to voting on Election Day, among treated individuals may weaken the mechanisms thought to explain spillover effects since voters are less likely to bring their family members with them when voting early.
... The most prominent theory regarding the average treatment effects of text message reminders on turnout is the Noticeable Reminder Theory (Dale & Strauss, 2009;Malhotra et al., 2011). It's premise is that registered voters tend to have an intention to vote, but may fail to do so, because of time constraints and lack of planning and attention, in which case only a simple nudge (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009) is needed to remind them on their intention to vote, and thus, mobilize them. ...
... It's premise is that registered voters tend to have an intention to vote, but may fail to do so, because of time constraints and lack of planning and attention, in which case only a simple nudge (Thaler & Sunstein, 2009) is needed to remind them on their intention to vote, and thus, mobilize them. According to Dale and Strauss (2009), text messages are likely to surpass the threshold of attention, because voters pay attention to their phones and text messages are difficult to ignore. However, in our context, all eligible voters are automatically registered, and thus, this theory does not perfectly apply. ...
... We can hypothesize about the spillover effects using four related theoretical arguments. First, according to the Social Occasion Theory (Dale & Strauss, 2009), if the text message creates communication within the household it creates a social occasion that may establish feelings of connection to voting. Second, social norms and conformity pressure may lead to similar behaviors within households (Zuckerman, 2005;Foos & de Rooij, 2017). ...
Using a large randomized controlled trial and rich individual-level data on eligible voters and their household members, we evaluate how get-out-the-vote (GOTV) appeals affect inequalities in voting, transmit from treated to untreated individuals within households, and how the transmission of voting decisions through family networks influences inequalities in voting. We find that receiving a text message reminder before the Finnish county elections in 2022 mobilized mainly low-propensity voters. As a result, the GOTV intervention reduced existing social inequalities in voting within the target group of young voters. We remarkably find that over 100% of the direct treatment effect spilled over to untreated household members. These spillovers reduced inequality in political participation among the older voters who were not part of the target group. Overall, our results exemplify how randomized controlled trials with a limited focus on the analysis of individuals in the treatment and control groups alone may lead to misestimating the compositional effects of get-out-the-vote interventions.
... First is the personal character of mobile media. In contrast to traditional media and the "static" Internet as accessed through PCs, mobile phones are held and "worn" on the body, and consequently users tend to perceive them as highly personal (Pick, 2010;Verclas, 2008), which results in short response times (Dale & Strauss, 2009). Second, in most cases, mobile phones are more convenient to use than the Internet as accessed through PCs. ...
... Text messages are an effective tool in GOTV (Get Out the Vote) efforts, which are tactics used on voters shortly before and on election day to encourage potential voters to vote (Green & Gerber, 2004). Studies on text-based GOTV efforts report various additional voting turnout effects: 1.81% (Bhatti, Dahlgaard, Hansen, & Hansen, 2014) or 3% (Dale & Strauss, 2009;Malhotra, Michelson, Rogers, & Valenzuela, 2011). It was also found that text messages using the recipient's first name did not necessarily have an additional positive impact on voting (Malhotra et al., 2011). ...
... Overall, this study emphasizes the significance of mobile media and political text messaging as phenomena of emerging importance in democratic processes. It also adds to the small literature regarding mobile media use and political participation as it focused on the effectiveness of interactive text messages during elections in encouraging political participation, as opposed to previous studies that mainly investigated the effectiveness of text messages in voter turnout (Bhatti et al., 2014;Dale & Strauss, 2009;Malhotra et al., 2011). ...
... can be used by governmental and non-governmental actors to counteract adverse effects on groups that are likely to be impacted. At the same time, text messages have become an increasingly important mobilisation tool during the Covid-19 pandemic due to their advantage that, while not requiring face-to-face contact, they are known to be more noticeable than leaflets or e-mails (Dale and Strauss, 2009;Malhotra et al., 2011). ...
... Bennion and Nickerson (2011) show that ''warm'' text messages, sent to individuals who received registration forms by e-mail before, can increase voter registration in the USA, while Harris et al. (2021) find mixed results in Kenya: text message reminders did not increase voter registrations on their own, but had a small effect when delivered alongside an intervention that made registrations more easily accessible locally. Based on Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) experiments that identify positive effects of text messages on turnout (Malhotra et al., 2011;Dale and Strauss, 2009;Schein et al., 2020;Bergh et al., 2016), there are good reasons to believe that they should also be effective at increasing registration, given that voter registration in the UK can be completed online in less than five minutes. ...
... From a theoretical perspective, Dale and Strauss (2009) hypothesised that text messages should be more effective at increasing turnout than e-mails or leaflets because they are more noticeable than other impersonal methods of voter mobilisation. In line with Dale and Strauss' (2009) early finding, there is evidence that text messages can mobilise citizens to turn out (Malhotra et al., 2011). ...
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, text messages have become an increasingly attractive tool of voter registration. At the same time, in countries without automated registration, advocacy organisations play a more prominent role in supplementing the efforts of official bodies in registering voters. However, most available, robust evidence on whether voter registration campaigns work is based on campaigns conducted by official bodies charged with electoral registration. We present the results of two RCTs that aimed to increase voter registration in the UK using SMS-text messages, relying mainly on behavioural messaging. One was conducted by a local authority, while the other was implemented by an issue advocacy organisation that had no prior involvement in voter registration. In line with previous findings, the local authority’s text messages resulted in an increased registration rate of eight percentage-points, which translates into a three percentage-point increase in voter turnout. However, the advocacy organisation’s text messages neither increased voter registration, nor turnout, no matter whether the text message offered a personal follow-up conversation, or not. Given that many voter registration campaigns are run by advocacy organisations and text messages are an increasingly important mobilisation tool, this raises questions about the scope conditions of existing findings.
... In examining these questions, we draw upon the logic of the noticeable reminder theory (Dale and Strauss 2009) as well as evidence from the political science literature on nonpartisan voter mobilization campaigns, to formulate and test a series of hypotheses relating to both the substance of nonpartisan GOTV messages imparted by a nonprofit known to the prospective voter, as well as the message's method of delivery. To test these hypotheses, we designed a nonpartisan GOTV field experiment carried out in partnership with two large nonprofit organizations in the Chicago region during the fall 2020 U.S. election. ...
... Research findings suggest that for a political mobilization message to be effective, it first has to break through the other noise competing for an individual's attention (Kinder 2002;Lupia and McCubbins 1998;Zaller 1992). This idea forms the basis of the noticeable reminder theory which posits that rather than needing to be persuaded to vote, registered voters need to be reminded to make the time to vote in a way that is difficult to ignore (Dale and Strauss 2009). Using this logic, Dale and Strauss (2009) argue that the effectiveness of door-to-door canvassing is explained not by the personal touch but by the fact that having a person knock on the door to talk to you is hard to ignore, and social convention means voters will often listen to what the canvasser has to say rather than shutting the door in their face. ...
... This idea forms the basis of the noticeable reminder theory which posits that rather than needing to be persuaded to vote, registered voters need to be reminded to make the time to vote in a way that is difficult to ignore (Dale and Strauss 2009). Using this logic, Dale and Strauss (2009) argue that the effectiveness of door-to-door canvassing is explained not by the personal touch but by the fact that having a person knock on the door to talk to you is hard to ignore, and social convention means voters will often listen to what the canvasser has to say rather than shutting the door in their face. While message recipients may or may not act on a text message they receive, these messages are more noticeable than most other forms of modern communication, providing a useful test of the noticeable reminder theory. ...
A distinct problem for American democracy is that voter participation rates remain higher among older, wealthier, and more highly educated citizens. Through their nonpartisan get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts, nonprofit organizations can help to remedy the participation gap, promoting higher turnout among under-represented voters. However, the literature reveals mixed evidence with regard to message content and its impact on turnout, and there is even less clarity about whether the method of message delivery matters for turnout. We find that nonprofit voter mobilization efforts are statistically linked to increased turnout, the odds of which increase when efforts center specifically on voter registration. While we find no overall effect of either message type (political efficacy vs. policy issue: immigration) or method of delivery (text vs. postcard) on voting behavior, the results show that there is a significant crossover interaction with political efficacy messages sent by text yielding the highest turnout.
... Field experimental scholarship has tested if impersonal voter mobilization contacts such as SMS text messaging and live calls from volunteers increase turnout (Green, McGrath, and Aronow 2013;Green and Gerber 2019;Dale and Strauss 2009;Michelson, Garcia Bedolla, and McConnel 2009;Nickerson 2007;Bergh, Christensen, and Matland 2019). Treatment effects are usually measured in low salience elections or so-called second-order elections. ...
... The Noticeable Reminder Theory holds that a simple nudge in the form of an SMS text message is enough to mobilize voters. In proposing the theory, Dale and Strauss (2009) emphasize that voters in their U.S. study have already shown themselves interested in voting by registering to vote and agreeing to receive an SMS. Hence, they do not need to be convinced to vote, they simply need a reminder (see also Thaler and Sunstein 2009). ...
... In Norway, all voters are automatically registered to vote, there is no need to physically register, and as such the Norwegian case represents a tougher test for the theory. Dale and Strauss (2009) collected information from a sample of young people and people who recently had moved. These new registrants provided their mobile phone numbers and agreed to get a text message reminding them to vote. ...
This article reports on two sets of field experiments testing text messaging (SMS) among native Norwegian voters and live phone calls among young voters eligible to vote in their first election. The two sets of experiments are done in both local and national elections. Most previous studies of election salience and voter mobilization use data from countries with generally lower levels of turnout than in Northern Europe (including Norway). This article addresses how the effectiveness of voter mobilization varies by election salience, in a generally high-salience political context. We find the two experiments to be more effective in low/middle salience elections, with turnout around 60 percent, than in high salience elections with turnout higher than 75 percent.
... An alternative explanation for Prediction 2 (weak turnout persistence after mobilization in low-salience elections) is that voters in low-salience elections were already high-propensity voters and they "complied" with the treatment because they were reminded of a lesser known election (e.g., Dale and Strauss, 2009). Since these are already high-propensity voters, they may be more likely to encounter ceiling effects downstream. ...
... It is, however, possible that the same treatment script works differently in lowsalience versus high-salience elections. It may be that in low-salience elections, the noticeable reminder (Dale and Strauss, 2009) resonates with voters (without developing habit), but in high-salience elections, it is plan-making (which may help develop habit). ...
I apply a new theoretical framework to voting to more cohesively bridge the economic cost-benefit model of voting with the psychology-motivated voting-as-a-habit literature. This new theoretical frame gives greater clarity as to how a vote in one election might beget a vote in another election, while yielding testable predictions as to which circumstances are more favorable for developing turnout persistence. To test these predictions, I make use of a novel dataset consisting of nine large-N, door-to-door voter mobilization field experiments in various election contexts (with ∼1.8 million voters in total). Consistent with prior empirical research, my analysis finds that being nudged to vote in one election leads to increased turnout four years later. But the main contribution of this paper is that the theoretical framework’s predictions and the corresponding empirical results make sense of turnout persistence heterogeneities that have been detected in certain prior empirical studies but not others.
... Building on a literature researching the effect of recurring reminders to induce positive behavioural changes (e.g. Castleman and Page 2015;Dale and Strauss 2009;Fjeldsoe et al. 2009), we expect that students' self-motivated learning and performance increases, when they receive personalised reminders. ...
... Particularly researched in the realm of public health, this sort of intervention has turned out to be effective in supporting smoking cessation (Free et al. 2011), weight loss (Patrick et al. 2009), and inducing more healthy life choices in general (Fjeldsoe et al. 2009). Furthermore, its effectiveness has been tested in the social sciences, where it was shown to increase personal savings commitments (Karlan et al. 2016), vote turnout (Dale and Strauss 2009), and compliance with court fines (Haynes et al. 2013). Within an educational context, Castleman and Page (2015) demonstrate how personalised text messages can help to induce students to sign up for university courses on time. ...
One of the structural problems of introductory lectures is that students’ learning progress is primarily assessed by taking a final exam. Weekly preparation and reading are driven only by self-motivation. Can a student’s decision to complete her weekly assignments be influenced by a simple reminder? In a pre-registered experimental design, we test if personalised reminders from the instructor delivered via text messages contribute to learning outcomes. We assess formative learning via regular quizzes at the beginning of each class, and summative learning via grades in a final exam. We do not find statistically significant differences in learning outcomes, and discuss how design features potentially drive this result. In the conclusion, we stress the importance of experimental design in assessing innovative and new learning techniques.
... The experimental literature is rich with evidence from studies that employ various GOTV strategies to enhance voter turnout (Green & Gerber, 2019). For instance, studies on the effectiveness of GOTV range from experimentally manipulated interventions (Grácio & Vicente, 2021;Marx et al., 2021;Gerber & Green, 2000;Dale & Strauss, 2009;Aker et al., 2017;Panagopoulos et al., 2014;Gerber et al., 2010;DellaVigna et al., 2016;Gerber et al., 2008) to natural experiments (Lassen, 2005;Gentzkow, 2006;Gentzkow et al., 2011). While much of this literature is focused on individual-level interventions-such as personal text messages or letters and door-to-door canvassing-little is known about the effects of group-based GOTV interventions that target a larger body of the electorate at a macro level. ...
Get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns are fairly popular as a policy instrument to increase democratic participation and voter turnout. While most GOTV drives target individual voters by nudging them to vote, little is known about the impacts of generalized group-based GOTV appeals on the electorate. A particularly popular form of GOTV messaging involves ‘descriptive norm’ appeals which are broadly of two types. The first is a positive frame encouraging turnout, given that peers have voted in large numbers. The second is a negative frame, which seeks higher participation as compensation for low turnout by peer voters. We exploit a unique GOTV intervention from the Indian state of Gujarat, where the independent and autonomous election administration of India made such a negatively framed descriptive norm plea to nearly 25 million voters to come out in large numbers and cast their votes in the subsequent phase of the election. We use a synthetic difference-in-differences (SDiD) econometric technique to estimate the causal effects of this GOTV appeal on voter turnout and vote shares. We find evidence of a resultant decline in voter turnout, which we support with a theoretical model and vignette-based evidence that voters attach a disutility to being told what to do and that such appeals are ineffective in credibly signaling the desirability of voting.
... Sending texts may be useful when targeting college students. Evidence from (nonstudent) experiments using smartphones for text reminders (Dale and Strauss 2009;Malhotra et al. 2011) show that text messaging is effective at increasing participation. While the average effects of reminder texts appear to be quite small, producing one vote for every 312 voters targeted (Green and Gerber 2019), texting has the power to increase turnout among young adults. ...
In the U.S., we have historically looked to our educators to prepare citizens for full participation in our democracy as engaged and informed voters. We examine the student voting movement that has taken root in colleges and universities across the country—a movement that offers a promising way forward in forming a new generation of engaged citizens. We detail what we know about how to increase student turnout, suggest ways to strengthen voter mobilization efforts through a broader civic education agenda, chart a path forward for future research, and offer recommendations for college administrators who seek to make voting a lifelong habit for their students. We also look beyond the student voting movement to argue for new forms of pedagogy that foster civic identity so that students think of themselves as voters who always vote, because voting is a necessary way to express themselves as engaged citizens.
... So ist zu erwarten, dass persönliche Kontakte zu Politiker*innen die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Wahlteilnahme erhöhen. Zum einen helfen derartige Kontakte, eine soziale Verbindung zum Wahlprozess aufzubauen (Green und Gerber 2008), zum anderen dienen sie als Erinnerung daran, an der Wahl teilzunehmen (Dale und Strauss 2009 In der Nachwahlbefragung zu den Europa-und Kommunalwahlen wurden die Probanden gefragt, welche Bedeutung sie den politischen Entscheidungen im Bundestag sowie dem Gemeinderat beimessen. Im Durchschnitt der neun Bundesländer sind die Unterschiede zwischen den beiden Parlamenten marginal. ...
Zusammenfassung
Kommunalwahlen werden nicht zuletzt aufgrund ihrer geringen Wahlbeteiligung häufig als nationale Nebenwahlen betrachtet. Die Fokussierung der Nebenwahlperspektive auf nationale Einflussfaktoren führt jedoch zu einer Unterbewertung lokaler Heterogenität. Der Artikel untersucht, inwiefern lokale Kontextfaktoren, insbesondere Gemeindegröße, Wahl- und Parteiensysteme sowie die wahrgenommene Bedeutung der kommunalen Ebene einen Beitrag zur Erklärung von Beteiligungsunterschieden zwischen Kommunalwahlen leisten. Dazu analysieren wir die Wahlbeteiligung bei den Kommunalwahlen 2014 in neun Bundesländern. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Wahlsysteme freier Listen einen negativen Einfluss auf die Wahlbeteiligung haben. Die Erwartung, dass die kommunale Wahlbeteiligung mit steigender Gemeindegröße abnimmt, kann hingegen nur mit Einschränkung bestätigt werden. Auch kann ein Einfluss des lokalen Parteiensystems nur unter Vorbehalt nachgewiesen werden. Gemeinden mit nationalisiertem Parteiensystem genießen zwar eine höhere Wahlbeteiligung, aber der Effekt ist nur von geringem Umfang und kann lediglich auf der Aggregatdatenebene geschätzt werden. In Einklang mit der Nebenwahlthese zeigt sich schließlich, dass die Wahrscheinlichkeit der individuellen Wahlteilnahme mit der wahrgenommenen Bedeutung der Kommunalwahlen steigt.
... Daarbij helpt het om mensen via hun sociale netwerk te benaderen, zowel offline als online (Bond et al., 2012;Gerber & Green, 2017;Van Ostaaijen et al., 2016). Tegelijkertijd laten sommige onderzoeken zien, dat bepaalde onpersoonlijke methoden ook goed werken, zoals herinneringsberichten via sms (Bergh et al., 2021;Bhatti et al., 2017;Dale & Strauss, 2009;Malhotra et al., 2011). ...
Qualitative research into the low turn-out of the 2022 municipal elections: a casestudy of the City of The Hague.
... Caporale and Poitras 2014). However, these findings could be caused by the additional effort of voting registration required from the electorates (Gerber and Green 2000;Bennion 2005;Dale and Strauss 2009;Enos and Fowler 2014;Gerber et al. 2020). Moreover, many authors criticise that the effect of 'expected Closeness' is not isolated correctly and is spurious in many studies. ...
Does the expectation of a close race drive more people to vote? Despite increasingly intensified electoral competition and hardened fronts at all political levels over the last decades, a decline in turnout rates can be observed representing a puzzling development. Though there are anomalies, previous studies show a clear trend towards a positive association between a close race and an increase in turnout. Based on the idea of the “rational choice” theory, the prospect of a close or undecided race increases the subjective weight of the individual vote, which drives more voters to the ballot box. In fact, ‘expected Closeness’ is one of the most frequently tested independent variables in voter turnout research. However, the factor is only measured ex-post in most cases. Such measurements use the results of the actual election to infer the ‘Closeness’ of the race. However, these measurement methods are less valid because they do not measure ‘Closeness’ in the decisive period before the election takes place. We want to contribute a test of the effect by analysing all runoff elections in Austrian direct mayoral elections since 1991 as they allow for ex-ante measurement. The first ballots and the runoffs are temporally close. Thus, the first vote results serve as a direct indicator of the ‘expected Closeness’ in the second round of voting. The electorate changes, if at all, only insignificantly between the ballots. In addition, socio-economic factors influencing voter turnout can be kept constant, increasing the validity of the test. The results of this study underline the positive and independent effect of ‘Closeness’ on the turnout of the election. The closer a mayoral race in Austria is in the first round, the higher is the turnout in the following runoff elections. The study also presents the independent and strong effects of socioeconomic factors on turnout. Our research not only provides a valid test of the effect of ‘expected Closeness’ on voter turnout, it also constitutes pioneering work in complete data collection on all direct mayoral elections in Austria.
... Successful mobilization is not easy to achieve, especially in the face of the "freerider problem" (Olson 1965), which can be viewed as the failure of market transactions shaped by transaction costs (Coase 1960;Ellingsen and Paltseva 2016). An extensive body of literature has hence carefully examined the ways to manage mobilization from various perspectives, including interpersonal networks (McAdam 1986;Gould 1991;McAdam and Paulsen 1993;Parkinson 2013;Steinert-Threlkeld 2017;Bai et al. 2023), geographical space (Zhao 1998;Sewell et al. 2001), information flows (Dale and Strauss 2009;Bond et al. 2012;Yanagizawa-Drott 2014;Manacorda and Tesei 2020;Ou and Xiong 2021;García-Jimeno et al. 2022), andpersonal competition (Ager et al. 2022). ...
The Communist Party of China (CPC) achieved a series of military successes in revolutionary wars. Based on new county-level panel datasets from China, this study uses the shocks brought about by a civil and foreign war to test the impact of Confucianism on the war mobilization capacity of the CPC. We find that, during the civil war, Confucianism did not significantly affect CPC’s war mobilization; however, during the foreign war, it significantly improved CPC’s capacity to mobilize people. This demonstrates the differentiated effects of Confucianism by war type through three different mechanisms: “loyalty,” “just war,” and “patriotism.” Our findings shed light on the role of native cultural norms in collective action.
... Nudges seem to be effective in scenarios where decision makers have limited attention (Löfgren & Nordblom, 2020), and Dale and Strauss (2009) suggest that voters are subjected to limited attention while voting. Nudges have been used extensively as a marketing tool for commercial or political purposes. ...
Political choice has huge importance, either expressed in the balloting place or in the exit poll, in bringing a political party to power and thus impacting the economy and society's welfare. Research in leadership and decision‐making suggests that the physical characteristics and traits of an individual influence the consumer's trustworthiness. Despite being a less explored research area, studying the impact of specific verbal and non‐verbal cues of a political leader through a technological lens, such as eye‐tracking has been sparsely talked about. Three sets of experiments were conducted to study voters' visual attention and reactions to gage their willingness to vote. First, an eye‐tracking tool was used to record the visual attention and regions of interest (ROI) of voters. Subsequently, a short survey was used to analyze the “willingness to vote”, followed by a pilot study on their attention to non‐verbal cues from the candidate. Also, a sentiment analysis of the voters was gathered from social media platforms. The present study analyzed the non‐verbal aspects of a political leader with regard to voting intention and found that even a few of the non‐verbal cues have an influence on the willingness to vote for a candidate. The findings contribute to the literature of neuro‐politics and decision‐making by analyzing voters' experiences of two political leaders, Narendra Modi (NaMo) and Rahul Gandhi (RaGa) based on non‐verbal cues. Political parties and candidates should focus on non‐verbal cues to increase their chances of winning elections. In addition, practitioners from the industry should incorporate appropriate non‐verbal cues while designing ad campaigns, personal branding, PR campaigns, and CEO addresses.
... The interdisciplinary literature shows that reminders tend to be effective in directing behaviors across myriad policy areas, including, public manager and employee implementation of programs (Andersen & Hvidman, 2021), household energy conservation (Allcott & Rogers, 2014), patient dental care (Altmann & Traxler, 2014), personal savings (Karlan et al., 2016), delinquent fine collection (Haynes et al., 2013), participation in elections (Dale & Strauss, 2009;Green & Gerber, 2019), and social benefits claims (Bhargava & Manoli, 2015). In terms of healthcare, the scoping synthesis by Nagtegaal et al. (2019) found that 23% of the nudges they reviewed focused on providing reminders to healthcare professionals to improve adherence to evidence-based medicine. ...
Building on recent developments in behavioral public administration theory and methods, we conduct an online randomized controlled trial to study how defaults and reminders affect the performance of 5,303 public healthcare professionals on a test about the appropriate use of gloves. When incorrect answers are pre-populated, thus setting incorrect defaults, participants are more likely to err notwithstanding the fact that they are asked to double check the pre-populated answers. Conversely, when correct answers are pre-populated, thus setting correct defaults, subjects are less likely to err and they tend to perform better than their peers taking the non-pre-populated version of the same questions. Participants receiving either a visual or a textual reminder about the appropriate use of gloves right before the test outperform their counterparts in a control group. We also find that visual aids are more effective than textual reminders.
... In political campaigns and the push for collective action, the conventional non-social interaction between governmental entities and their constituents has become less successful (Dale & Strauss, 2009). Social media facilitates the formation of such ties as well as the ability to utilize existing networks in the formation of credible and trust-based interactions (Zhang et al., 2013), hence expanding political engagement and collective action. ...
This study investigates the impact of political marketing using social media in Lebanon. Furthermore, the study investigates the moderating influence of political interest on the link between political marketing via social media and political participation. The present study goals were satisfied using a quantitative survey approach based on data from 412 respondents. The study's findings claim that political marketing via social media influences political participation in Lebanon. Furthermore, the data show that political interest strengthens the link between political marketing via social media and political participation. This study added to the corpus of marketing literature by examining the influence of political marketing on political participation in a particular political setting, such as Lebanon. Furthermore, this study informs political parties about the impact of political marketing efforts via social media, allowing them to plan for the necessary steps to increase political participation.
... Simple reminders and well-framed encouragements or "nudges" have been shown to be effective in a variety of settings for improving follow-through with desirable actions (Armstrong et al, 2009;Dale & Strauss, 2009;Karlan et al, 2010;Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). Nudges aim to make small changes in the decision sets of individuals without limiting choice (Bhargava & Loewenstein, 2015;Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). ...
... For example, weekly reminders have been found effective in increasing gym attendance (Calzolari and Nardotto, 2017), keeping doctor appointments (Gurol-Urganci et al., 2013;Hasvold and Wootton, 2011) and lowering energy consumption (Allcott and Rogers, 2014). Sending out reminder messages has also been found to increase savings (Karlan et al., 2016) and the likelihood of voting (Dale and Strauss, 2009). However, reminders sometimes fail to have an intended effect, especially when the specific action is not salient to the reader (Guynn et al., 1998). ...
Purpose
This study aims to investigate which messaging strategies employed in personalised newsletters could be used for improving the propensity of individuals to save or invest and secure their financial well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a field experiment with 4,782 clients at an Estonian retail bank. For three months (after measuring baseline levels for a month), the participants received personalised monthly newsletters with either a praising or a scolding message based on comparing their recent investment decisions to their past decisions.
Findings
Their results suggest that newsletters could serve as an encouragement for those who already invest significant amounts each month and a reminder for those who have stopped regular investing for a month. The newsletters robustly increased investments in securities accounts for these groups.
Research limitations/implications
The authors contribute to the marketing literature by examining praise and scolding messaging strategies within the same channel and company, focussing on the individual's past behaviour. They raise several hypotheses to be tested in future randomised controlled trials (RCTs).
Practical implications
The authors’ results show the importance of investor behaviour analysis as the effectiveness of the newsletter intervention largely depended on the type of customer it was served to. This highlights the importance of personalisation.
Originality/value
The results show that a given message tends to influence only specific groups of investors. Identifying these groups is valuable information for messaging strategies.
... Nudges seem to be effective in scenarios where decision makers have limited attention (Löfgren & Nordblom, 2020), and Dale and Strauss (2009) suggest that voters are subjected to limited attention while voting. Nudges have been used extensively as a marketing tool for commercial or political purposes. ...
... This message aims at addressing present bias and inattention. Reminders have been successfully implemented in many contexts (from reminding people about voting to reducing missed appointments in hospitals or increasing medication adherence) and work well especially if the timing is right (Dale & Strauss, 2009;Gurol-Urganci et al., 2013). ...
We assess the effects of the Crianza Positiva text and audio e-messaging program on caregiver–child language interaction patterns. The program is a six-month-long intervention for families with children aged 0–2 aimed at strengthening parental competences. Its design exploits behavioral tools such as reminders, suggestions of action, and messages of encouragement to reinforce and sustain positive parenting practices. Families in 24 early childhood centers in Uruguay that completed an eight-week workshop were randomized into receiving or not receiving mobile messages. After the program, we videotaped 10-minute sessions of free play between the caregiver and the child, and decoded language patterns using automated techniques. The intervention was successful at improving the quality of parental vocalizations, as measured by the parent's pitch range. We also found suggestive evidence of increases in the duration of adult vocalizations. The results are consistent with more frequent parental self-reported involvement in reading, telling stories, and describing things to the child. Regarding the child, we find a nonrobust decrease in the duration of vocalizations, which we attribute to a crowding-out effect by the caregiver in the context of a fixed 10-minute suggested activity and a more proactive parental role.
... Političari i političke organizacije postigli su uspeh u korišćenju društvenih medija za potrebe političkog marketinga (Howard & Parks, 2012). Marketing društvenih medija nudi širok spektar mogućnosti u političkoj kampanji (Dale & Strauss, 2009), međutim, strukturirani integrisani pristup tek treba da dobije na značaju (Chikandiwa, et. al., 2013), jer političari i političke organizacije još uvek ne prepoznaju mogućnosti koje mogu dobiti korišćenjem društvenih medija kao bitnog dela svojih marketinških strategija (Cogburn & Espinoza-Vasquez, 2011). ...
... Here we report data from two sequential large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that investigate whether nudging people to get vaccinated, using reminders that are carefully designed to reduce barriers to following through, can improve the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines. Reminders are a popular nudge 22 and have proven effective across policy-relevant domains 8, 20,23,24 . We further examine the benefits of combining our reminders with additional interventions, including ...
Enhancing vaccine uptake is a critical public health challenge1. Overcoming vaccine hesitancy2,3 and failure to follow-through on vaccination intentions3 requires effective communication strategies3,4. We present two sequential randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to test the impact of behavioral interventions on COVID-19 vaccine uptake. We designed text-based reminders that make vaccination salient and easy, and delivered them to patients of a healthcare system one day (first RCT; N=93,354, clinicaltrials #NCT04800965) and eight days (second RCT; N=67,092, NCT04801524) after they received notification of vaccine eligibility. The first reminder boosted appointments and vaccination rates within the healthcare system by 6.07 (84%) and 3.57 (26%) percentage points, respectively; the second reminder increased those outcomes by 1.65 and 1.06 percentage points, respectively. The first reminder was more impactful when it made patients feel the vaccine was already theirs. However, we find no evidence that combining it with an information intervention addressing vaccine hesitancy heightened its effect. Online studies (N=3,181) examining vaccination intentions reveal divergent patterns from the first RCT, underscoring the importance of pilot-testing interventions in the field. These findings inform the design of behavioral nudges for promoting health decisions5, highlighting the value of making vaccination easy and inducing feelings of ownership.
The advent of social media has revolutionized the landscape of political campaigning, reshaping traditional communication channels and strategies. This paper delves into the intricate interplay between social media and political campaigns, elucidating their profound impact on modern political discourse and voter engagement. It is all about the commencement by outlining the transformative role of social media in amplifying political messaging and expanding the reach of candidates. Social media is becoming a tool that examines the democratization of political participation through platforms that foster unprecedented levels of direct interaction between candidates and voters, thus promoting greater transparency and accessibility. This paper underscores the paramount importance of understanding the intricate interplay between social media and political campaigning. It emphasizes the potential of social media as a tool for fostering civic engagement and political empowerment, while cautioning against its pitfalls. By shedding light on the complexities inherent in this digital paradigm shift, this study contributes to a nuanced comprehension of how social media has irrevocably transformed the landscape of political campaigning, shaping the dynamics of democracy in the 21st century. It also considers the evolving ethical and regulatory landscape surrounding social media in political campaign, addressing concerns related to privacy, security and the potential for foreign interference.
E‐government services are often heralded as a silver bullet for governments willing to engage more meaningfully with citizens. Evidence on the effectiveness of these measures for improving citizen‐state relations is scarce, however. Most studies examining e‐government focus on efficiency considerations; few consider potential effects on citizen‐state relations. The present study analyses the effect of an information treatment about the availability of e‐government services on citizen perceptions of government responsiveness. We conducted an experiment in cooperation with the Botswana Unified Revenue Service that randomly assigned registered taxpayers to receive a short message on their mobile phones. Our results indicate that the treatment has a significant, positive effect on the perception that the government addresses citizen needs, and more so for respondents with lower income. The findings suggest that, by affecting how citizens assess political realities, e‐government can play an important role in shaping citizen‐state relations.
Driven by higher education’s challenges in maintaining student motivation and achievement during the recent pandemic-induced shift to online learning, we investigate the effectiveness of text messages as a nudging tool to increase academic performance. To do so, we use a nonplacebo randomized controlled trial in which the treatment group directly receives SMS texts that review lecture content and give deadline reminders, while the control group only has access to the same information on the course page. Our findings suggest that the reception of motivating SMS messages per se, rather than the content review, has a positive effect on examination outcomes.
Der vorliegende Band ist dem Verhältnis von Informationen, Wahlen und Demokratie gewidmet. Deutschland, aber auch andere Länder in den Blick nehmend, widmen sich die Autor:innen vor allem den Bürger:innen, ihren Einstellungen, Interessen und Wahlentscheidungen. Auch die Rolle von Kontexten wird beleuchtet, insbesondere von Informationskontexten: Wie und mit wem sprechen Menschen über Politik, wie informieren sie sich über neue und alte Medien, welche Rollen spielen intermediäre Instanzen?
The decision-theoretic Downsian model and other related accounts predict that increasing perceptions of election closeness will increase turnout. Does this prediction hold? Past observational and experimental tests raise generalizability and credible inference issues. Prior field experiments either (1) compare messages emphasizing election closeness to non-closeness messages, potentially conflating changes in closeness perceptions with framing effects of the voter encouragement message, or (2) deliver information about a particular race’s closeness, potentially altering beliefs about the features of that election apart from its closeness. We address the limitations of prior work in a large-scale field experiment conducted in seven states and find that a telephone message describing a class of contests as decided by fewer, as opposed to more, votes increases voter turnout. Furthermore, this effect exceeds that of a standard election reminder. The results imply expected electoral closeness affects turnout and that perceptions of closeness can be altered to increase participation.
How are the effects of voter education campaigns transmitted within the household? During the 2009 Mozambican elections, a field experiment implemented three voter education interventions: the distribution of a free newspaper, the creation of an SMS hotline to report electoral problems and a civic education campaign. Based on a relatively small sample of untreated individuals living with experimental subjects, this paper examines the diffusion of the interventions' effects within the household. The study finds evidence of spillover effects on interest in elections and turnout. But it finds no evidence of spillover effects on information about elections, nor evidence of spillover effects triggered by the delivery of the newspaper, the treatment most focused on the dissemination of information. On one hand, these findings show that voter education campaigns reach other individuals beyond the targeted subjects. On the other hand, they suggest that some voter education campaigns might boost turnout by increasing social pressure to vote rather than raising the level of information among voters. This paper highlights the need for additional research to probe unintended side effects of voter education campaigns.
Mit dem Claim „Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness“ stellten die Autoren Thaler und Sunstein im Jahr 2008 das Konzept des Nudgings vor. Seither wird das Konzept als Sammelbegriff für unterschiedliche Strategien zur Beeinflussung der menschlichen Entscheidungsfindung verwendet. Diese Strategien haben zum Ziel, Verhalten zu beeinflussen ohne die Freiheit der Bürger*innen einzuschränken. Dieser Beitrag gibt auf Basis der zugrunde liegenden psychologischen Mechanismen eine kurze Einführung in Nudging als politische Kommunikationsstrategie, um das Verhalten der Bürger*innen in Wahlperioden zu beeinflussen. Am Beispiel des digitalen Bundestagswahlkampfes 2021 werden dabei die zentralen Mechanismen und Strategien dargestellt und diskutiert. Der Beitrag blickt darüber hinaus in aktuelle Befunde der Forschung zur Wirkung und Akzeptanz von Nudges und nimmt eine ethische Einordnung von Nudging als Strategie der politischen Kommunikation vor.
This study explores the influence of political marketing activities via social media including customers’ relationship building and visibility on political participation in Lebanon. Moreover, the study examines the mediating effect of political efficacy and the moderating effect of political interest on the relationship between political marketing via social media and political participation. A Quantitative survey method was used to achieve the current research objectives based on data derived from 412 respondents. The findings of this study indicate that customers relationship building and visibility via social media are positively associated with political efficacy but not with political participation. Additionally, political efficacy fully mediates the relationship among these variables and political participation. The findings also reveal that political interest moderates the relationship between these variables and political participation. This study adds to the body of marketing literature the impact of political marketing on political participation in a unique political environment such as Lebanon. Moreover, this study guides both political marketing and political candidates about the influential factors of political participation in order for them to plan for the required actions to enhance political participation
Since the early 2000s, an array of experimental research has demonstrated that face-to-face canvassing is the most effective form of get-out-the-vote campaigning. Recent scholarship, however, suggests that text messaging can also have powerful mobilization effects. Can the effects of text messaging match those of canvassing? We present a field experiment gauging the effects of text messaging, canvassing, mail, and phone calls among medium propensity evangelical Christian voters in three California battleground congressional districts for the 2018 midterm election. The results show significant turnout effects associated with texting as well as any form of outreach followed by a late-October text message. This challenges the widely held notion that personalized contacting is required to get voters to the polls; rather, we find that peripheral voters—often targeted by campaigns for mobilization—may be receptive to anonymous but timely outreach.
Can digital repayment reminders reduce costly credit card delinquency? This paper analyzes data from a 2016 randomized controlled field trial of a reminder sent to 30-days-overdue credit card debtors via an app or online portal. The reminder significantly raised repayment rates, and amounts repaid, of high credit score delinquent debtors, but did not significantly raise the repayment rate of lower credit score delinquents. The reduction in average delinquency among treated debtors continues for at least 12 months after treatment and substantially reduces provisioning expenses of the credit provider. We find that 2.4 percentage points (CI 1.68 – 3.12) more treated than untreated debtors (64.3% compared with 61.9%) repay all arrears within the current repayment cycle. For the 84.4% of the sample who we observed logged in and saw the reminder, the effect rises to 2.7 percentage points (CI 1.95 – 3.50).
This chapter deals with the macro institutional and contextual factors that may encourage underprivileged groups to vote or discourage them from doing so. The focus in the present chapter is on those aspects that go beyond the individual resources or social status of those concerned. The institutional determinants of participation (or non-participation) embrace a vast array of factors, namely: voter registration processes, voting mechanisms, types of electoral and party system, elections, as well as the socio-economic characteristics of the nations concerned, the orientation of social policies, and the party mobilisation strategies employed. In this chapter I will show how these various dimensions impact, to a lesser or greater degree, the propensity of the electorate to go out and vote. In particular, I shall examine the affect they have on those individuals who are less well-equipped to participate in the political process, and who are thus more subject to forms of direct or indirect exclusion from voting.KeywordsNon-eligible votersVoter registrationElectoral systemCompulsory votingParty mobilisation
Marginalized individuals are less likely to participate or have their interests represented in political processes than historically privileged individuals. Interest groups are considered the best means to address this gap, but there is little research on the role of interest groups in mobilizing people to participate in political processes and none on marginalized communities in particular. This paper is the first to test hypotheses about organizational strategies used to mobilize vulnerable communities for political participation around unconventional oil and gas policies in California and Colorado. Based on a survey of interest groups in both states, the results show that interest groups working in vulnerable communities do more outside advocacy (i.e., connecting residents to representatives) and use more personal communication methods (i.e., door-to-door canvassing) than interest groups working in historically privileged communities. However, organizational strategies in general are not well predicted by the target community’s composition, suggesting that decisions around mobilization strategies are driven by other factors.
Public opinion polls have become increasingly prominent during elections, but how they affect voting behaviour remains uncertain. In this work, we estimate the effects of poll exposure using an experimental design in which we randomly assign the availability of polls to participants in simulated election campaigns. We draw upon results from ten independent experiments conducted across six countries on four continents (Argentina, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States) to examine how polls affect the amount of information individuals seek and the votes that they cast. We further assess how poll effects differ according to individual-level factors, such as partisanship and political sophistication, and the content included in polls and how it is presented. Our work provides a comprehensive assessment of the power of polls and the implications for poll reporting in contemporary elections.
We analyze the effects of a volunteer-led postcard writing campaign intended to turn out registered voters to support specific candidates in two state legislative districts. After adjusting for known selection bias in treatment assignment, we find that the postcards had a surprising negative effect on overall voter turnout. There is no evidence of effects being conditional on socioeconomic status or prior voting history. Of several explanations for this unexpected result, the most promising is that the focus on a down-ballot race distracted subjects from being aware of higher-profile contests on the ballot that might have motivated them to vote. We encourage researchers and practitioners to take negative findings seriously and develop tests for the explanations we offer.
Political parties have recently rediscovered grassroots tactics for voter mobilization. The only solid evidence for the effectiveness of such get out the vote (GOTV) tactics is based upon non-partisan field experiments that may not accurately capture the effectiveness of partisan campaign outreach. In order to address this lacuna, during the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial election, a large field experiment across 14 state house districts evaluated the cost effectiveness of three mobilization technologies utilized by the Michigan Democratic Party's Youth Coordinated Campaign: door hangers, volunteer phone calls, and face-to-face visits. Contrary to past non-partisan experiments, our results indicate that all three GOTV strategies possess similar cost-effectiveness.
In this article we review answers to 5 questions concerning the development of personality across the life course: How early in the life course can we identify characteristics unique to individuals that will show continuity over time? When in the life course is personality fully developed? What life course factors moderate continuity and change in personality? What are the mechanisms that promote continuity in personality? And finally, what are the mechanisms that promote change in personality? Based on the answers to these 5 questions we conclude (a) that there is modest continuity from childhood to adulthood, (b) that personality traits do not become fixed at a certain age in adulthood and retain the possibility of change even into old age, and (c) that with time and age people become more adept at interacting with their environment such that personality consistency increases with age and is more common than change in midlife and old age.
This article reports the results of a field experiment testing the effectiveness of different quality get-out-the-vote (GOTV) nonpartisan phone calls. During the week preceding the November 2004 election, we randomly assigned registered voters in North Carolina and Missouri to one of three live phone calls with varying length and content. The scripts are (1) standard GOTV, (2) interactive GOTV, and (3) interactive GOTV with a request for mobilizing neighbors. We find that people assigned to the interactive GOTV treatment are more likely to turn out, whereas the effect of the “get your neighbors to vote” script is relatively as weak as that of the standard script. The findings suggest that interactive calls generally tend to increase voter turnout, but for a phone call to be effective, the message needs to be focused. The borderline statistical significance of the script that encourages neighbors’ participation invites replication of this experiment.
In addition to mobilizing supporters to vote, partisan campaigns use get-out-the-vote tactics as a means to boost support for their candidate. Although observational studies have attempted to estimate the effects of grassroots campaigning on political attitudes, they are unable to establish causality convincingly. Because campaigns strategically target potential supporters, comparing the attitudes of those whom campaigns contact to those they do not may only reveal spurious and biased relationships. In this paper I use a randomized field experiment to isolate the influence of personally delivered campaign messages on candidate support and attitude formation. I find that both door-to-door canvassing and commercial phone bank calls can have strong effects on voting preferences, but these tactics appear to have only weak effects on the actual beliefs that subjects possess about candidates and the degree to which those beliefs are weighted in their candidate preference. Although previous field experiments show that phone calls are less cost-effective at boosting turnout than door-to-door canvassing, they may be equally effective at increasing candidate support.
Using randomized experimentation, this study of a municipal election in Central California examines the effects of face-to-face canvassing on voter turnout. This is the first randomized experiment to focus on Latino voter mobilization. Building on previous field experimentation, this study focuses on a local school board election held in Dos Palos, CA. Two kinds of appeals were made to potential voters: one emphasized ethnic solidarity; the other emphasized civic duty. Canvassing was remarkably successful; voters who were contacted were significantly more likely to vote. The mobilization effort had a particularly large effect on the turnout of Latino Democrats.
Over the past two decades, there has been a resurgence in the use of field experimental methods to examine the impact of a range of get-out-the-vote tactics (Green and Gerber, 2008), continuing a tradition that dates as far back as Gosnell (1927). Scholars have investigated the impact of face-to-face canvassing, direct mail, phone calls, leafleting, and mass media (Green and Gerber, 2008), yet no field experiment of which we are aware has tested the impact of a street sign campaign on voter mobilization. This study reports the first randomized field experiment gauging the effects of a nonpartisan get-out-the-vote street sign campaign. The experiment we describe is essentially a matched-pair, cluster-randomized design conducted in the context of the November 2005 municipal elections in New York City. We identified 14 pairs of poll sites (voting locations) that were closely matched in terms of past voter turnout. One poll site in each pair was randomly assigned to be exposed to the treatment that encouraged voters to vote on the day before Election Day. The street sign intervention is found to produce higher turnout.
We report the results of a randomized field experiment involving approximately 30,000 registered voters in New Haven, Connecticut. Nonpartisan get-out-the-vote messages were conveyed through personal canvassing, direct mail, and telephone calls shortly before the November 1998 election. A variety of substantive messages were used. Voter turnout was increased substantially by personal canvassing, slightly by direct mail, and not at all by telephone calls. These findings support our hypothesis that the long-term retrenchment in voter turnout is partly attributable to the decline in face-to-face political mobilization.
Phone calls encouraging citizens to vote are staples of modern campaigns. Insights from psychological science can make these calls dramatically more potent while also generating opportunities to expand psychological theory. We present a field experiment conducted during the 2008 presidential election (N = 287,228) showing that facilitating the formation of a voting plan (i.e., implementation intentions) can increase turnout by 4.1 percentage points among those contacted, but a standard encouragement call and self-prediction have no significant impact. Among single-eligible-voter households, the formation of a voting plan increased turnout among persons contacted by 9.1 percentage points, whereas those in multiple-eligible-voter households were unaffected by all scripts. Some situational factors may organically facilitate implementation-intentions formation more readily than others; we present data suggesting that this could explain the differential treatment effect that we found. We discuss implications for psychological and political science, and public interventions involving implementation-intentions formation.
After briefly explaining why social capital (civil society) is important to democracy, Putnam devotes the bulk of this chapter to demonstrating social capital’s decline in the United States across the last quarter century. (See Putnam 1995 for a similar but more detailed argument.) While he acknowledges that the significance of a few countertrends is difficult to assess without further study, Putnam concludes that crucial factors such as social trust are eroding rapidly in the United States. He offers some possible explanations for this erosion and concludes by outlining the work needed to consider these possibilities more fully.
Much recent theorizing about the utility of voting concludes that voting is an irrational act in that it usually costs more to vote than one can expect to get in return. 1 This conclusion is doubtless disconcerting ideologically to democrats; but ideological embarrassment is not our interest here. Rather we are concerned with an apparent paradox in the theory. The writers who constructed these analyses were engaged in an endeavor to explain political behavior with a calculus of rational choice; yet they were led by their argument to the conclusion that voting, the fundamental political act, is typically irrational. We find this conflict between purpose and conclusion bizarre but not nearly so bizarre as a non-explanatory theory: The function of theory is to explain behavior and it is certainly no explanation to assign a sizeable part of politics to the mysterious and inexplicable world of the irrational. 2 This essay is, therefore, an effort to reinterpret the voting calculus so that it can fit comfortably into a rationalistic theory of political behavior. We describe a calculus of voting from which one infers that it is reasonable for those who vote to do so and also that it is equally reasonable for those who do not vote not to do so. Furthermore we present empirical evidence that citizens actually behave as if they employed this calculus. 3
The apparent decline in voter participation in national elections since 1972 is an illusion created by using the Bureau of the Census estimate of the voting-age population as the denominator of the turnout rate. We construct a more accurate estimate of those eligible to vote, from 1948-2000, using government statistical series to adjust for ineligible but included groups, such as noncitizens and felons, and eligible but excluded groups, such as overseas citizens. We show that the ineligible population, not the nonvoting, has been increasing since 1972. During the 1960s the turnout rate trended downward both nationally and outside the South. Although the average turnout rates for presidential and congressional elections are lower since 1972 than during 1948-70, the only pattern since 1972 is an increased turnout rate in southern congressional elections. While the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1971, the lower turnout rate of young voters accounts for less than one-fourth of reduced voter participation.
Abstract Alone among modern democracies, the United States makes voter registration a personal responsibility rather than a governmental function. In almost all states, registration dead- lines occur well before elections. Failure to register by the deadline makes,the probability of voting exactly zero. This sequential feature of the registration and voting decisions has been skipped over by most researchers, who simply ignore registration. Others, notably Timpone (1998), have used the seemingly appropriate Heckman–style selection model, but have arrived at …ndings di¢ cult to believe. This paper investigates the appropriate,choice of a registration model under a rational expectations assumption about the desire to vote, showing that, rather surprisingly, conventional selection models will generally perform less well than ignoring the selection e¤ect of registration entirely. However, neither is quite correct. Finally then, the paper proposes and tests a ‡exible model for registration as a step toward,substantively,appropriate,joint modeling,of registration and voting. Introduction, Voter turnout,is central to the theory of democratic,government.,Without,equal par-
Political campaigns are just now learning how to put the Internet to best use. Low transaction costs and huge economies of scale tempt campaigns to move traditional activities online, but the effectiveness of virtual campaigns is unknown. This paper conducts 13 field experiments on 232,716 subjects to test whether email campaigns are effective for voter registration and mobilization. Both registration and turnout were unaffected, suggesting that email, while inexpensive, is not cost-effective. Learning to use television as a campaign medium took politicians years, and candidates are now beginning to figure out how to use the Internet. An intuitive place to begin is by using the Internet to accomplish work previously done with older technology such as mail, phones, or face-to-face canvassing. The Internet's low transaction costs and massive economies of scale could alter the strategies parties employ in every facet of campaigning. The same economics that push businesses to move online are also present in the political realm. Unfortunately, studies of Internet usage during campaigns generally report on the content of websites (Farmer and Fender 2003, Norris 2003, Ward and Gibson 2003, Farmer and Fender 2005, Xenos and Foot 2005) and do not measure how voters respond to the online campaign activities.1 This paper evaluates the effectiveness of email as a voter mobilization tool by conduct- ing 13 field experiments. Direct mail has been shown to be an effective, albeit expensive, means of increasing voter turnout (Gerber et al. 2003). Examining all known randomized
Turning out to vote is the most common and important act of political participation in any democracy. Voting is also less well understood and explained empirically than other political acts engaged in regularly by citizens. Turnout, however, presents a special problem for rational choice theories of politics, for it is taken to be the paradigmatic example of the problem of collective action, in which, although all may benefit from voting, it is rarely in the individual's self-interest to vote. This paper begins by examining the problem of explaining turnout. A basic form of rational choice models of turnout is developed--basic in the sense that it is common to all such models. This basic model is shown to be incomplete, and the two most important models, the calculus of voting and the minimax regret model, are illustrated as alternative ways to complete this basic model, along with mention of game-theoretic models. Their strengths and weaknesses are then assessed. The remainder of the paper argues that rational choice accounts of turnout are possible. The first step is to argue that turnout is not an especially problematic version of the collective action problem because it is, for many, a low cost, low (expected) benefit decision. A "strategic politicians" account of turnout and campaigns is examined next. A reinterpretation of the intrinsic benefits of voting is then considered and is used to examine the most important substantive problem in the turnout literature, its decline. These steps, I argue, make theories of ordinary political decisions at once both more political and more integrated into the politics of the larger system.
This study examines the effects of mobilization on political participation among Asian Americans. It focuses on whether telephone calls and mail increase voter turnout among Asian Americans who live in high-density Asian American areas in Los Angeles County. Prior to the November 5, 2002, elections, a randomized voter mobilization field experiment was conducted. Lists of registered Asian Americans (Chinese, Korean, Indian, Filipino, and Japanese) were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. A few days before Election Day, the treatment group received a phone call or postcard encouraging them to vote. After the election, voter turnout records were reviewed to compare turnout rates for the treatment and control groups. Multivariate analysis shows that telephone calls and mail increase voter turnout for Asian Americans.
Despite relatively favorable citizen attitudes, voter turnout in American national elections is far below the average of 80% of the eligible electorate that votes in other industrialized democracies. The American institutional setting—particularly the party system and the registration laws—severely inhibits voter turnout, and probably also accounts for the unusual degree to which education and other socioeconomic resources are directly linked to voting participation in the United States.
Using a combination of aggregate and comparative survey data, the present analysis suggests that in comparative perspective, turnout in the United States is advantaged about 5% by political attitudes, but disadvantaged 13% by the party system and institutional factors, and up to 14% by the registration laws. The experience of other democracies suggests that encouraging voter participation would contribute to channeling discontent through the electoral process. Even a significantly expanded American electorate would be more interested and involved in political activity than are present voters in most other democracies.
In this article, I present a summary of the findings of a randomized field experiment of 465,134 registered Latino voters, the largest such experiment on Latinos to date. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials’s (NALEO’s) Voces del Pueblo voter mobilization effort in 2002 explored three alternative modes of communicating with voters: direct mail, robotic phone calls, and live phone calls from volunteers. Of the three, only live phone calls produced a statistically significant increase in voter turnout. The ineffectiveness of direct mail and robotic calls is consistent with results from other experimental campaigns. What remains unclear is the extent to which direct mail and robotic calls targeting low-propensity Latino voters would be more effective in presidential elections. For the present, it appears that the most effective way to mobilize low-propensity Latino voters is through phone banks staffed by volunteers.
The apparent decline in voter participation in national elections since 1972 is an illusion created by using the Bureau of the Census estimate of the voting-age population as the denominator of the turnout rate. We construct a more accurate estimate of those eligible to vote, from 1948–2000, using government statistical series to adjust for ineligible but included groups, such as noncitizens and felons, and eligible but excluded groups, such as overseas citizens. We show that the ineligible population, not the nonvoting, has been increasing since 1972. During the 1960s the turnout rate trended downward both nationally and outside the South. Although the average turnout rates for presidential and congressional elections are lower since 1972 than during 1948–70, the only pattern since 1972 is an increased turnout rate in southern congressional elections. While the voting age was lowered to 18 in 1971, the lower turnout rate of young voters accounts for less than one-fourth of reduced voter participation.
A century and a half ago, casting a vote in the United States was an engaging social experience, as voters at the polls talked with friends, threw down shots of free whiskey, listened to lively entertainment, and generally had a good time (McGerr 1986). According to Altschuler and Blumin (2000, 75) We are grateful to Pam Lamonaca and Nicole Batdorf, who played a key role in organizing Election Day festivals, and Timothy Ryan and Marcos Luis, who helped in all phases of this project. We also thank Dan Winslow, whose ideas about raising turnout were an impetus for this project, and Dan Bergan and Beth Weinberger, who commented on earlier drafts. The studies described here were funded by generous grants from the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale, the Tufts Summer Scholars Program, and Working Assets, none of which bear responsibility for the content of this report.
This study examines the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) and persuasion effects of partisan direct mail and phone calls on voter behavior. The conclusions are based on experimental field research from a 2002 state gubernatorial primary election. The study finds that neither partisan direct mail nor partisan phone calls, used independently or together, garner significant GOTV or persuasion effects. It also questions the common usage of selfreported survey data as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of these types of communications. The findings in this study extend previous research on campaign communications by examining partisan communications and by looking at both the GOTV and persuasion effects of those communications. The results call for further examination of how to most effectively and efficiently communicate with and persuade potential voters.
This article presents the results from a statewide partisan voter mobilization experiment in Michigan during the 2002 gubernatorial election. The tactics studied are volunteer phone calls and door hangers.With regard to turnout, the conclusion reached is that volunteer phone calls boost turnout by 3.2 percentage points and door hangers boost turnout by 1.2 percentage points. This effect size implies that both mobilization technologies are cost-competitive with door knocking and that partisan and nonpartisan campaigns are equally effective at increasing turnout. A postelection survey was used to determine whether the partisan blandishments to vote changed candidate preference. No evidence of persuasion from campaign contact was detected by the survey. However, the survey did indicate that the campaign failed in targeting likely Democratic voters and excluding likely Republican voters, emphasizing the need for detailed party databases.
Habit is a frequently mentioned but understudied cause of political action. This article provides the first direct test of the hypothesis that casting a ballot in one election increases one's propensity to go to the polls in the future. A field experiment involving 25,200 registered voters was conducted prior to the November general election of 1998. Subjects were randomly assigned to treatment conditions in which they were urged to vote through direct mail or face-to-face canvassing. Compared to a control group that received no contact, the treatment groups were significantly more likely to vote in 1998. The treatment groups were also significantly more likely to vote in local elections held in November of 1999. After deriving a statistical estimator to isolate the effect of habit, we find that, ceteris paribus, voting in one election substantially increases the likelihood of voting in the future. Indeed, the influence of past voting exceeds the effects of age and education reported in previous studies.
Campaigns rely upon both paid and volunteer phone calls to mobilize voters. Past field experiments show calls from volunteers to increase turnout and paid calls to be wholly ineffective. This article argues that the quality of phone calls rather than the presence or absence of a payroll explains this regularity. Three aspects of quality are considered: monitoring pace and interactivity, timing, and message. A fully randomized field experiment with over 100,000 subjects comparing professional and volunteer phone banks simultaneously was conducted during the 2002 congressional elections to test this hypothesis. The experiment discovers precisely the opposite relationship of prior research: effective professional phone banks and inefficient volunteer phone calls. The experiment also finds substantial temporal decay. The specific messages appear less important than tone or timing. The implications for the role of campaign consultants, replacing social capital, voter psychology, and the capacities of civic organizations are discussed.
Video-based media spaces are designed to support casual interaction between intimate collaborators. Yet transmitting video is fraught with privacy concerns. Some researchers suggest that the video stream be filtered to mask out potentially sensitive ...
Prior to the November 6, 2001 elections, randomized voter mobilization experiments were conducted in Bridgeport, Columbus, Detroit, Minneapolis, Raleigh, and St. Paul. Names appearing on official lists of registered voters were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. A few days before Election Day, the treatment group received a face-to-face contact from a coalition of nonpartisan student and community organizations, encouraging them to vote. After the election, voter turnout records were used to compare turnout rates among people assigned to treatment and control groups. Consistent with the recent experimental results reported by Gerber and Green (2000b), the findings here indicate that face-to-face voter mobilization was effective in stimulating voter turnout across a wide spectrum of local elections.
Here is the unabridged version of the classic theoretical study of voting behavior, originally published in 1960. It is a standard reference in the field of electoral research, presenting formulations of the theoretical issues that have been the focus of scholarly publication. No single study matches the study of The American Voter.
We examine the characteristics of a largely ignored low-turnout group--people who have recently moved. We find that neither demographic nor attitudinal attributes explain their lower turnout. Instead, the requirement that citizens must register anew after each change in residence constitutes the key stumbling block in the trip to the polls. Since nearly one-third of the nation moves every two years, moving has a large impact on national turnout rates. We offer a proposal to reduce the effect of residential mobility on turnout and estimate that turnout would increase by nine percentage points if the impact of moving could be removed. The partisan consequences of such a change would be marginal.
For voters with "social" preferences, the expected utility of voting is approximately independent of the size of the electorate, suggesting that rational voter turnouts can be substantial even in large elections. Less important elections are predicted to have lower turnout, but a feedback mechanism keeps turnout at a reasonable level under a wide range of conditions. The main contributions of this paper are: (1) to show how, for an individual with both selfish and social preferences, the social preferences will dominate and make it rational for a typical person to vote even in large elections;(2) to show that rational socially-motivated voting has a feedback mechanism that stabilizes turnout at reasonable levels (e.g., 50% of the electorate); (3) to link the rational social-utility model of voter turnout with survey findings on socially-motivated vote choice.
Objectives. The objectives of this article are to test whether Latino canvassers are more effective than non-Latino canvassers at increasing voter turnout among young Latinos, and to test whether young Latinos are more receptive to a mobilization message that stresses ethnic group solidarity or one that emphasizes civic duty.
Methods. A randomized field experiment, conducted in Fresno, California in the fall of 2002, is the basis for the results reported here.
Results. Young Latino voters targeted by Latino canvassers are more likely to be contacted. However, once contacted, Latinos reached by non-Latino canvassers are just as likely to turn out to vote as are those reached by non-Latino canvassers. The mobilization effect is particularly strong among voters who have participated in at least one prior election.
Conclusions. The importance of using Latino canvassers to get out the Latino vote is confirmed, but should not be overemphasized. More importantly, this experiment demonstrates that door-to-door canvassing can have a substantively large and statistically significant effect on turnout among young Latinos, a demographic group often overlooked by parties and campaigns.
Regression adjustments are often made to experimental data. Since randomization does not justify the models, bias is likely; nor are the usual variance calculations to be trusted. We evaluate regression adjustments using J. Neyman’s [see the English translation of the original Polish article from 1923, Stat. Sci. 5, No. 4, 465–472 (1990; Zbl 0955.01560)] nonparametric model. Previous results are generalized, and more intuitive proofs are given. A bias term is isolated, and conditions are given for unbiased estimation in finite samples.
Regular Voters, Intermittent Vot-ers, and Those Who Don't: Who Votes, Who Doesn't, and Why Using E-mail to Mobilize Voters: A Field Experiment
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Communication and Politics in the Age of Information
- D R D O Kinder
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- Jervis
Kinder, D. R. 2002. "Communication and Politics in the Age of
Information." In Handbook of Political Psychology, ed. D. O.
Sears, L. Huddy, and R. L. Jervis. Oxford: Oxford University
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Get Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout
- D P Green
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Green, D. P., and A. S. Gerber. 2004. Get Out the Vote! How to
Increase Voter Turnout. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Regular Voters, Intermittent Voters, and Those Who Don't: Who Votes, Who Doesn't, and Why
- Research Pew
- Center
Pew Research Center. 2006. "Regular Voters, Intermittent Voters, and Those Who Don't: Who Votes, Who Doesn't, and
Why." Washington, DC.
Using E-mail to Mobilize Voters: A Field Experiment.” Unpublished manuscript
- J A Phillips
Phillips, J. A. 2001. "Using E-mail to Mobilize Voters: A Field
Experiment." Unpublished manuscript. Yale University.
Voting and Registration in the Election of
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