How do voters decide?Preliminary results from a field experiment

G. Michael WeiksnerStanford University

April 2, 2008

Agenda

• Why local primaries• Theory & Predictions• Methodology• Preliminary Results– A short-term effect– Why?

Why local primaries

• Not well understood• In low information environment, information

treatment should have a larger impact• Regularly occurring – More opportunities to research– Possibility to generalize to large class of elections

Theory & Predictions

• Dahl: “A person’s interest or good is whatever that person would choose with fullest attainable understanding of the experiences resulting from that choice and its most relevant alternatives”– Our information conditions are close to a practical operationalization

of “full-information” voting—does it make a difference? Are citizens competent under better circumstances?

• Popkins: “Low information rationality,” or using heuristics or shortcuts to the information to make decisions– Information should reduce reliance on heuristics, like voting for the

candidate who shares my gender

Methodology

A Randomized Field Experiment• Mundane realism: the subjects are in a realistic setting • Internal validity: causal inference appropriate through

random assignment• Generalizable: ideally, random sampling• Cheap & easy to administer

E.g., Iyengar’s MAPSS talk, 2/6/07 and Green’s talk 2/13/07

Methodology (cont’d)Procedure

• Orlando primaries, Tues Sept. 5, 2006– Orlando Sentinel uses theVoterGuide.org to collect candidate data on

22 races including Governor, Senate, Congress, non-partisan judges• 514 participants recruited from online panel on Thurs Aug 31

– Skews towards more education, politically aware, male– Randomly assigned to condition differing by kind and amount of

election information– 307 participants responded to follow up survey (Sept 6-7)

• Surveyed on vote intentions, vote choice, attitudes and general and campaign-specific knowledge

Research design

R X1 O1 O2

R X2 O1 O2

R X3 O1 O2

R X4 O1 O2Party,

Vote Choice,Attitudes,

Demographics

Turnout, Vote Choice,Bio & Issue Knowledge,

Contact Information Only

Biographical Information

Issue Information

Random Assignment

Contact Information OnlyBiographical InformationIssue information

All Information

Condition

T1 Vote Choice-Executive

Likelihood ratio test

Issue Bio

Governor 0.024 * 0.732

FL Attorney General 0.047 * 0.134

FL Chief Financial Officer 0.046 * 0.683

Orange County Mayor 0.028 * 0.006 **

T1 Vote Choice-Legislative

Likelihood ratio test

Issue Bio

US Senate 0.158 0.085

US Congress 5th 0.246 0.238

US Congress 8th 0.655 0.759

US Congress 15th 0.814 0.697

US Congress 24th 0.008** 0.313

Florida Senate - 8th 0.424 0.772

Florida house - 36 0.963 0.204

Florida House - 41 0.015* 0.072

T1 Vote Choice - Judicial

Likelihood ratio test

Issue Bio

County Judge – 17 0.380 0.040 *

County Judge – 6 0.477 0.012 *

County Judge – 7 0.778 0.768

County Judge – 5 0.726 0.289

Circuit Judge 5th Group 7 0.027 0.124

Circuit Judge 9th Group 5 0.304 0.005 **

Circuit Judge 18thF 0.796 0.836

Reduce support for the leading candidate?

n = 2,335 voter * races

Reduce gender-based voting?

n = 1,412 voter * races

Percent who vote forcandidate of same gender

0.59

0.510.51

0.61

0.46

0.48

0.50

0.52

0.54

0.56

0.58

0.60

0.62

No Biographical Information Biographical Information

Male

Female

Summary of results

• No long –term effects• Election information makes a difference in local primary vote

choice– Issue information changes choices in many executive races– Issue information changes some choices in legislative races– Biographical information changes choices in judicial

• Some evidence that information affects vote choice through gender- No consistent story (yet?) for why issue information changes vote choice- Among males, biographical information reduces gender-based voting- Among females, biographical information increases gender-based voting

Parting thoughts…

• Memory aids are really important and interesting potential impact of mail & internet voting

• What is the point of local primaries?• Future research:

– Can we replicate the gender results in a lab experiment?– How would these results differ in a general election?– Would deliberation make a difference?– What impact does social information (i.e., personal endorsements)

have?– Would edited information make a difference?– Does one-sided information make a difference?

Random Assignment (cont’d)

Age FemaleGen'l Political

KnowledgeN M SD M SD M SD

No issue infoNo Bio 133 47.9 14.4 0.368 0.484 0.882 0.193Bio 124 48.1 14.4 0.339 0.475 0.866 0.203

Issue InfoNo Bio 112 48.0 15.1 0.402 0.492 0.860 0.244Bio 105 48.9 13.7 0.505 0.502 0.902 0.190

T2 Vote Choice

Likelihood ratio test Likelihood ratio test

Issue Bio Issue Bio

Governor 0.128 0.621

Attorney General 0.734 0.444 Cty Judge 17 0.664 0.087

CFO 0.567 0.570 Cty Judge 6 0.982 0.082

OC Mayor 0.691 0.307 Cty Judge 4 0.128 0.492

U.S. House 8Th 0.193 0.243 Cty Judge 5 0.781 0.206

U.S. House 13Th 0.144 0.581 Crct 5 Judge 0.139 0.092

U.S. House 24Th 0.259 0.994 Crct 9 Judge 0.780 0.148

State Senate 8 0.165 0.441 Crct 18 Judge 0.890 0.326

State House 41 0.083 0.253

T1 Results

Source df F Eta pIssue Information

Endorsement Knowl. Item 1 3.385 0.082 0.066Candidates on Issues 1 8.666 0.130 0.003

Biographical InformationEndorsement Knowl. Item 1 22.310 0.205 0.000Candidates on Issues 1 1.391 0.052 0.239

Issue x Biographical InformationEndorsement Knowl. Item 1 0.349 0.026 0.555Candidates on Issues 1 0.367 0.027 0.545

ErrorEndorsement Knowl. Item 506 0.170Candidates on Issues 506 0.055

T1 Vote Choice – GovernorIssue Information Bio Information

No Yes No YesDemocrats

Carol Castagnero 1.4 0.8 1.2 1.2 Glenn Burkett 1.8 1.7 1.2 2.4

Jim Davis 22 21.1 20.8 22.4 John M. Crotty 2.9 0.4 1.9 1.6

Rod Smith 11.9 17.3 12.4 16.5Republicans

Charlie Crist 36.1 29.5 35.9 30.2 Michael W. St. J 1.1 0.4 0.8 0.8

Tom Gallagher 11.9 11.4 10.4 12.9 Vernon Palmer 1.8 0.4 1.5 0.8

Likelihood ratio test .024 * .732

T1 Results

Endorsement Knowledge Item

Understand candidates on the

issuesN M SD M SD

No Issue Info

No Bio Info 139 0.165 0.373 0.268 0.168

Bio Info 136 0.360 0.482 0.305 0.188

Issue Info

No Bio Info 117 0.120 0.326 0.342 0.204

Bio Info 118 0.271 0.446 0.354 0.191

T2 Turnout, Knowledge

T2 TurnoutT2 Issue

KnowledgeT2 Biographical

Knowledge

N M SD M SD M SD

No issue info

No Bio Info 90 64.4 48.1 0.157 0.217 0.419 0.351

Bio Info 76 61.8 48.9 0.202 0.23 0.482 0.320

Issue Info

No Bio Info 66 63.6 48.5 0.25 0.251 0.523 0.327

Bio Info 74 64.8 48.1 0.207 0.221 0.421 0.346