The effect on turnout of campaign mobilization messages addressing ballot secrecy concerns: A replication experiment.

Alan S Gerber,Albert H Fang,Catlan E Reardon,Gregory A Huber

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0182199

Alan S Gerber, Albert H Fang + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182199

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Aug 9, 2017
Citations: 2	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Yale University, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract

Given the persistence of public doubts about the integrity of ballot secrecy, which depress turnout, two prior experiments have shown precise evidence that both official governmental and unofficial mobilization campaigns providing assurances about ballot secrecy increase turnout among recently registered nonvoters. To assess whether these findings replicate in other political settings, we describe a replication experiment where a non-governmental, non-partisan mobilization campaign sent similar treatment mailings containing assurances about ballot secrecy protections to recently registered nonvoters during the 2014 general election in Mississippi. We find that sending this mailer has no effect on turnout rates in this setting, which is characterized by an unusually low baseline turnout rate. These results are consistent with past research concluding that nonpartisan Get Out The Vote (GOTV) mail has very weak effects among very low turnout propensity registrants, and suggest that there are heterogeneous effects of ballot secrecy treatments associated with subjects’ characteristics and the electoral context.

Highlights

Doubts about the integrity of ballot secrecy protections are prevalent among nonvoters [1, 2] and have been linked to depressed levels of political participation [2, 3]
To assess whether the treatment effects reported in these previous experiments are reproducible in other political settings, this article reports findings from a replication field experiment in which a non-governmental and non-partisan mobilization campaign randomly sent Get Out the Vote (GOTV) appeals addressing ballot secrecy concerns to recently registered nonvoters in Mississippi during the 2014 general election
Subjects were randomly assigned to a treatment group (n = 8,704) that was sent a GOTV appeal addressing ballot secrecy concerns, which we describe in greater detail below, or to a control group (n = 4,034) that was sent no mailing

Summary

Introduction

Doubts about the integrity of ballot secrecy protections are prevalent among nonvoters [1, 2] and have been linked to depressed levels of political participation [2, 3].

Results

Conclusion