Impact of information shortcuts on preferential voting: Gender and ballot position effects in Luxembourg and Switzerland

Abstract

AbstractFree party lists provide voters with greater freedom of choice than other electoral systems, allowing them to select candidates within and between parties. Given that free party lists are cognitively highly demanding, voters have incentives to use shortcuts to discriminate between candidates. This study uses multilevel linear regression models to analyze the effect of candidates' gender and ballot position on preference voting in Luxembourg and Switzerland. Our results show that both candidates' gender and ballot position have a significant effect on their preference voting share and provide evidence on how they interact in intraparty competition. Candidates' ballot position has an inverse J‐shaped effect on their preference vote share. This effect varies with candidates' gender in both countries but works in different directions. Our findings have important implications for electoral system design, outlining the potential consequences of alphabetical and party‐ordered lists for candidates' chances and for electoral gender quotas' effectiveness under intraparty preference voting procedures.