Abstract
While perceptions of candidate character traits are believed to be an important predictor of vote choice, very little research attempts to explain where these perceptions come from. There is also a remarkable inconsistency in the literature about which voters use traits and which use issues in voting-with completely contradictory results common. The solution to the inconsistency developed here is to focus on the relationship between issues and traits as opposed to just these attitudes' direct effect on candidate evaluations. By positing that the relationship between issues and trait perceptions depends on the citizen's certainty about the candidate's issue positions the theory develop here answers questions about the nature of trait perceptions and the heterogeneity of voter decisionmaking. The theory is tested using evaluations of ten different presidential candidates from five National Election Studies.
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