A Little Information Can Be Dangerous Ballot Paper Design at Low Information Elections in Ireland

Abstract

Ideology and policy issues play a relatively minor role in elections in Ireland. Recently, it seems policy discourse has declined further while there is a marked increase in the emphasis on image. This presents a challenge in explaining how voters make their decisions. Research on alphabetical and ordinal voting has already established an element of chance to voting behaviour. At the same time, Banducci, Karp, Rallings and Thrasher (2008) have identified that voters include the attractiveness of candidates as a factor in their decision-making. In an attempt to facilitate greater voting participation in Ireland, photographs of candidates have been placed on the ballot paper for local, national and European elections. This policy change was implemented to address a perceived knowledge deficit and to provide assistance for those with literacy difficulties. Additionally, many candidates have similar names and this was thought to render the choice on the ballot paper less clear. The addition of photographs was designed to improve participation and encourage engagement. Social psychology research has long demonstrated that people are willing to make significant judgements about a person when shown a photograph. The advent of ballot paper photographs allows candidates to be evaluated on the basis of their appearance. This research considers how this is occurring. Whilst photographs were introduced to improve political knowledge, this paper suggests that they may be used in an altogether different way. Ironically, providing additional knowledge to encourage greater participation and engagement, may have introduced a new level of superficiality into the voter decision-making process. The paper will present data from an experimental study on ballot paper design taken at the 2009 elections in the Republic of Ireland. Using ballot paper photographs from a Dublin local electoral area, replica ballot papers were developed and tested in different parts of the country. The paper will demonstrate that voters are willing to use photographs in their decision making process. It will develop a hierarchy of cues employed by voters at low information elections.