Correct Voting at the 2013 German Federal Election: An Analysis of Normatively Desirable Campaign Effects

Abstract

This article studies campaign effects at the 2013 German Federal Election. It analyses whether and how the 2013 campaign contributed to electors' ability to cast votes in line with their political preferences – ‘correct’ votes in the terminology of Lau and Redlawsk. The article takes a novel perspective at correct voting by analysing its dynamic development during the course of an election campaign, using observational data collected by means of a rolling cross-section survey. It finds that voters’ likelihood to choose correctly significantly increased during the election campaign. Two campaign-induced processes in particular contributed to explaining this development: voters' growing involvement with electoral politics and their decreasing indifference with regard to the parties competing for their votes. These findings suggest that by stimulating citizens to engage more intensively with electoral politics campaigns can strengthen the linkage between voters’ preferences and their actual voting behaviour. Despite much criticism of how they are conducted, election campaigns can exert normatively desirable effects, thereby improving the quality of representative democracy.