Voting Intentions Research Articles

Apathy or Anger? How Crime Experience Affects Individual Vote Intention in Latin America and the Caribbean

Does the experience of crime lead to individual disenchantment from politics or can it even stir political activism? We study how crime victimization affects the intention to vote with survey data from Latin America and the Caribbean. Research on non-electoral political behavior reveals that crime victims become politically more engaged. In contrast, findings from psychological research suggest that victimization increases apathy due to loss of self-esteem and social cohesion. Building a cognitive foundation of political activism, we propose that it is the level of distress which increases—in the case of non-violent crime—or decreases—in the case of violent crime experience—the likelihood of voting. The results support the hypothesis on victims of non-violent crime. The probability of turnout does, however, not change for victims of criminal violence. We subsequently test for a possible anti-right-wing incumbent effect, to explain the mobilization of victims of non-violent crime, but only find evidence for an anti-center incumbent tendency.

10 Downing Street: who’s next? Seemingly unrelated regressions to forecast UK election results

ABSTRACT In recent years, the British polling industry has encountered difficulties in its attempts to measure voting intentions in important popular consultations, notably the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the 2015 UK general election, and the 2016 EU membership referendum. In such a context, it is extremely valuable to explore how different forecasting models that rely on political and economic variables can be used to predict the outcome of elections. In this paper, we propose such a model by introducing a political economy equation to estimate the vote share obtained by the incumbent party in UK general elections three months before the vote as well as a set of seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) to forecast the results of the Official Opposition, the Liberal Democrats, and the remaining parties.

Political Trust as a Determinant of Volatile Vote Intentions: Separating Within- From Between-Person Effects

Abstract This article studies the oft-assumed destabilizing effect of political distrust on party preferences. We argue that there are two mechanisms that relate political trust to electoral volatility: (1) structurally low trust undermines the formation of stable party preferences and thereby stimulates volatility, and (2) declining trust drives voters, particularly supporters of parties in government, to change party preference. These rivaling mechanisms are often conflated. Using the within–between random effects approach on two extensive panel data sets (covering three different governmental periods in The Netherlands between 2006 and 2017) allows us to separate both mechanisms and estimate them simultaneously. We find evidence for both the structural and the dynamic effects of political trust on changing vote intentions.

Predicting referendum results in the Big Data Era

In addressing the challenge of Big Data Analytics, what has been of notable significance is the analysis of online search traffic data in order to analyze and predict human behavior. Over the last decade, since the establishment of the most popular such tool, Google Trends, the use of online data has been proven valuable in various research fields, including -but not limited to- medicine, economics, politics, the environment, and behavior. In the field of politics, given the inability of poll agencies to always well approximate voting intentions and results over the past years, what is imperative is to find new methods of predicting elections and referendum outcomes. This paper aims at presenting a methodology of predicting referendum results using Google Trends; a method applied and verified in six separate occasions: the 2014 Scottish Referendum, the 2015 Greek Referendum, the 2016 UK Referendum, the 2016 Hungarian Referendum, the 2016 Italian Referendum, and the 2017 Turkish Referendum. Said referendums were of importance for the respective country and the EU as well, and received wide international attention. Google Trends has been empirically verified to be a tool that can accurately measure behavioral changes as it takes into account the users’ revealed and not the stated preferences. Thus we argue that, in the time of intelligence excess, Google Trends can well address the analysis of social changes that the internet brings.

Electoral alliance with sworn opponent political party: factors impacting voting intention

ABSTRACTAlliance with sworn political opponents is becoming a growing phenomenon within the realm of political alliances. Here, two or more competitive political parties join hands to defeat a particular common opponent. During election, alliance partners face election together and distribute electoral seats mutually to avoid vote share. However, ensuring vote in favour of opponent alliance candidate is only possible when voters prefer to cast vote for the alliance candidate. Thus, this is crucial to know influencing factors that shape voters’ voting intention in favour of opponent alliance candidate. This study is an attempt to empirically investigate factors that have significant influence to shape voters’ voting intention for opponent alliance. The result shows that opponent alliance perceived fit impacts opponent alliance voting intention positively. Opponent alliance brand trust has a positive impact on opponent alliance voting intention. In addition, opponent alliance preference impacts opponent alliance voting intention positively.

Das TV-Duell Timmermans gegen Weber: Wahrnehmung und Wirkungen von TV-Debatten am Beispiel der Europawahl 2019

While the perception processes and effects of political TV duels at the (sub-)national level have been examined in great detail, studies with a similar scope of analytical profoundness and detail for TV duels at the European level are largely lacking . Therefore, the perceptions and effects of the duel between Manfred Weber (EVP) and Frans Timmermans (S&D) on the perception of the debate’s winner, the attitudes towards the candidates and voting intentions under consideration of the real-time reactions (RTR) of its viewers are analysed . In addition to the duel’s general perception, one can identify the determinants of the verdicts on the debate’s winner, the candidate evaluations including their images as well as the voting intentions of our study participants and show that the debate’s reception has significant effects . Aside from political predispositions, it is primarily the immediate perception during the debate, captured by real-time-response measurement that possesses great explanatory power . The data verify that the duel’s reception at the European level has significant effects on political cognitions, motivations, and audiences’ attitudes and therefore can be regarded as an effective instrument in European election campaigns . Such duels have the potential to contribute to the strengthening of the democratic quality of the European Union . [ZParl, vol . 50 (2019), no . 4, pp . 736 - 753]

MARGINALIZED YET MOBILIZED

AbstractBoth African American and LGBT voters can prove pivotal in electoral outcomes, but we know little about civic participation among Black LGBT people. Although decades of research on political participation has made it almost an article of faith that members of dominant groups (such as White people and individuals of higher socioeconomic status) vote at higher rates than their less privileged counterparts, recent work has suggested that there are circumstances under which members of marginalized groups might participate at higher rates. Some of this research suggests that political participation might also increase when groups perceive elections as particularly threatening. We argue that when such threats are faced by marginalized groups, the concern to protect hard-earned rights can activate a sense of what we call “political hypervigilance,” and that such effects may be particularly pronounced among members of intersectionally-marginalized groups such as LGBT African Americans. To test this theory, we use original data from the 2016 National Survey on HIV in the Black Community, a nationally-representative survey of Black Americans, to explore the relationship among same-sex sexual behavior, attitudes toward LGBT people, and respondent voting intentions in the 2016 presidential election. We find that respondents who reported having engaged in same-sex sexual behavior were strongly and significantly more likely to say they “definitely will vote” compared to respondents who reported no same-sex sexual behavior. More favorable views of LGBT individuals and issues (marriage equality) were also associated with greater intention to vote. We argue that these high rates provide preliminary evidence that political hypervigilance can, in fact, lead to increased political engagement among members of marginalized groups.

Political Entrenchment and GDP Misreporting

By examining discrepancies between officially reported GDP growth figures and the actual economic growth implied by satellite-based night time light (NTL) density, we investigate whether democracies manipulate officially reported GDP figures, and if so, whether such manipulation pays political dividends. We find that the over-reporting of growth rates does indeed precede increases in popular support, with around a 1% over-statement associated with a 0.5% increase in voter intentions for the incumbent. These results are robust to allowing the elasticity of official GDP statistics to NTL to be country specific, as well as accounting for the quality of governance, and checks and balances on executive power.

Can media drive the electorate? The impact of media coverage on voting intentions

A growing literature uses media data to explain perception and behaviour in the economic and political context. In this paper, we investigate how media coverage affects political preferences, namely voting intention. For our empirical analysis, we merge 14 years of human-coded data obtained from leading media in Germany with results of the comprehensive German Politbarometer survey from February 1998 through December 2012. In contrast to the existing literature, we do not utilize access to certain media outlets, but use the tonality of articles and newscasts on political parties and politicians based on human coded media data. To account for endogeneity, we employ instrumental variable probit estimations. In addition, we control for a multitude of (internal) personal characteristics, such as age, and gender, as well as for (external) macroeconomic variables, such as business climate, unemployment, and inflation. The results show that media coverage of a political party has a positive and significant effect on the voting intention for this party. When media outlets cover a political party more positively, the electorate has a greater tendency to vote for it. Hence, we conclude that the electoral success or failure of political parties is at least partially caused by the media coverage on them. This hints on the special responsibility of media in democracies.

VAAs Users’ Voting Behavior and the Role of Partisanship. Evidence from the 2014 Belgian Federal Elections

Abstract In this article, I investigate the effects of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on voting behavior of their users. It has been already demonstrated that voters are more likely to follow VAAs recommendation when this latter is consistent with their previous vote intentions. However, the role of partisan attachments in this process has been generally overlooked. The basic idea that I intend to test, indeed, is that partisanship works as strong attitude in voters’ minds, making their preferences less amenable to VAAs advices if compared to those of non-partisan citizens. By implementing logistic regression models on panel data from the 2014 Belgian Federal elections, I show that it is actually unlikely that citizens decide to switch their vote after having played the test, if the advice is not consistent with pre-existing vote intentions. More importantly, I find that the impact of VAAs advice on vote choice is even weaker among citizens that declare to feel attached to a party.

What Voters are Asked to Verify Affects Ballot Verification: A Quantitative Analysis of Voters' Memories of Their Ballots

As a new generation of voting system technology is deployed in response to concerns about the security of American election infrastructure, the role of voter verification of paper audit trails (VVPAT) has re-emerged as central to insuring election integrity. A key step in many electronic voting systems relies on the ability of a voter to carry out what seems at first blush like a simple task: review a computer-generated record of ballot choices made moments before to verify that those choices have been fully and accurately recorded. Prior studies have not addressed what appears to us to be the fundamental question to be resolved if VVPAT is to be a cornerstone of voting technology: can electors verify their votes by reviewing a paper ballot summary? If so, then the paper records are relatively secure evidence of voter intent that can be used to conduct audits and recounts. If not, then adversaries who are able to compromise voting systems can change votes with impunity. The experiments described in this paper, conducted in 2018 during the May 1 and August 2 Tennessee primary elections, suggest that the answer may be “No.” In asking this question we are not concerned so much about the practical problems associated with VVPAT as whether there are fundamental cognitive limitations on the act of verification itself. We present preliminary evidence suggesting that, in actual polling place settings, most voters will not attempt to verify paper ballot summary cards, even when directed to do so. Furthermore, polling place exit interviews of voters who attempt to review their ballots reveal that a statistically significant fraction is unable to recall important details of ballots cast only moments before. Voters either fail to recognize errors in ballots presented to them for verification or fail to recognize that the ballots presented for verification were not the ones they cast. These results are broadly consistent with other recent studies that cast doubt on the reliability and accuracy of memory recall and are evidence of voter memory errors that would make a verified ballot summary card impossible to rely upon as a reliable source record for a post-election audit. This study differs from prior studies on VVPATs used with DRE (“Direct Recording Electronic”) machines, as this study is limited to more recent electronic ballot marking device (“BMD”) technology. Such technology involves a voter making choices on a touchscreen machine that produces a ballot summary card (not the full ballot contents). The ballot summary card is inserted into a separate mark sense scanner to complete the vote casting process. A consequence of the results presented here is that voters who cast ballots on compromised ballot marking devices in which votes have been changed but who have not securely registered their ballot choices by, for example, hand-marking paper ballots, are generally unable to detect vote manipulation. The implications for future voting system design are also discussed.

Summative Usability Assessments of STAR-Vote: A Cryptographically Secure e2e Voting System That Has Been Empirically Proven to Be Easy to Use.

From the project's inception, STAR-Vote was intended to be one of the first usable, end-to-end (e2e) voting systems with sophisticated security. To realize STAR-Vote, computer security experts, statistical auditors, human factors (HF)/human-computer interaction (HCI) researchers, and election officials collaborated throughout the project and relied upon a user-centered, iterative design and development process, which included human factors research and usability testing, to make certain the system would be both usable and secure. While best practices in HF/HCI methods for design were used and all apparent usability problems were identified and fixed, summative system usability assessments were conducted toward the end of the user-centered design process to determine whether STAR-Vote is in fact easy to use. After collecting efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction measurements per ISO 9241-11's system usability criteria, an analysis of the data revealed that there is evidence for STAR-Vote being the most usable, cryptographically secure voting system to date when compared with the previously tested e2e systems: Helios, Prêt à Voter, and Scantegrity. STAR-Vote being one of the first e2e voting systems that is both highly usable and secure is a significant accomplishment, because tamper-resistant voting systems can be used in U.S. elections to ensure the integrity of the electoral process, while still ensuring that voter intent is accurately reflected in the cast ballots. Moreover, this research empirically shows that a complex, secure system can still be usable-meaning that implemented security is not an excuse for poor usability.

Does truth matter to voters? The effects of correcting political misinformation in an Australian sample.

In the ‘post-truth era’, political fact-checking has become an issue of considerable significance. A recent study in the context of the 2016 US election found that fact-checks of statements by Donald Trump changed participants' beliefs about those statements—regardless of whether participants supported Trump—but not their feelings towards Trump or voting intentions. However, the study balanced corrections of inaccurate statements with an equal number of affirmations of accurate statements. Therefore, the null effect of fact-checks on participants’ voting intentions and feelings may have arisen because of this artificially created balance. Moreover, Trump's statements were not contrasted with statements from an opposing politician, and Trump's perceived veracity was not measured. The present study (N = 370) examined the issue further, manipulating the ratio of corrections to affirmations, and using Australian politicians (and Australian participants) from both sides of the political spectrum. We hypothesized that fact-checks would correct beliefs and that fact-checks would affect voters’ support (i.e. voting intentions, feelings and perceptions of veracity), but only when corrections outnumbered affirmations. Both hypotheses were supported, suggesting that a politician's veracity does sometimes matter to voters. The effects of fact-checking were similar on both sides of the political spectrum, suggesting little motivated reasoning in the processing of fact-checks.

Effects of Issue‐Specific Political Advertisements in the 2015 Parliamentary Elections of Switzerland

AbstractOur paper captures the influence of political advertisements on vote intentions in the framework of the 2015 parliamentary elections. We focus on the two winning parties, the FDP and SVP, and the promotion of their stances on immigration/asylum, relations to the EU and the economy. We make use of an extensive database on political advertisements collected in 50 important national and regional newspapers that we link to the Selects respondents. Our findings only hint at limited effects of issue‐specific advertisements with regard to the activation of latent preferences, suggesting that campaigns mattered more when they have managed to make a party's issue positions known to the electorate. The general reinforcement tendencies detected for migration ads of the SVP suggest that reinforcement effects might be particularly prone when highly contentious issues are at stake. Our results indicate that the SVP did not manage to mobilize new voters with their political advertisements.

Brexit and Everyday Politics: An Analysis of Focus‐Group Data on the EU Referendum

The article presents an analysis of lay political reasoning on the U.K. EU referendum drawing on data from nine focus groups conducted in England in the few weeks preceding the vote. Participants were from across the political spectrum and with varied voting intentions in the upcoming referendum (Remain, Leave, and some undecided). A rhetorical analysis of the data showed that the ideological dilemma of nationalism (between safeguarding national distinctiveness and sovereignty, on the one hand, and valuing international collaboration and exchange, on the other hand) was a key organizing principle in participants’ accounts, as was the distinction between reason and bias. Participants intending to vote Leave as well as Remain engaged with both sides of the nationalism dilemma, seeking to present themselves as both open to cosmopolitan values and as concerned about preserving national sovereignty. Further, the liberal distinction between reason and bias in the data often took the form of a distinction between politics (as biased and corrupt) and the economy (as rational), thus depoliticizing the economy as a neutral and postideological sphere. The implications of these findings for contemporary politics are discussed.

The role of intuitive moral foundations in Britain's vote on EU membership

AbstractIn June 2016, British voters took part in a referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (EU). By a margin of 52% to 48%, they voted to leave. Studies have demonstrated that fixed demographic factors were the best predictors of voting intentions in either direction, or that “leave” voters were driven by perceived threats from immigration. In this paper, we examine the role of moral intuitions in referendum voting intentions. In Study , demographic variables did not predict voting intentions after adding psychological variables to our statistical model. Instead, voting leave was predicted by political conservatism, social change insecurities, and placing moral importance on personal liberty. In contrast, only an adherence to the care foundation of morality predicted “remain” voting. These findings were also reflected in linguistic analyses of campaign materials and news items (Study ). We discuss these data in relation to common discourses around the Brexit vote.

The Lessons and Limitations of Experiments in Democratic Deliberation

Experiments are essential to the practice of democratic deliberation, which itself is an experimental remedy to the problem of self-governance. This field, however, is constrained by the impossibility of conducting ecologically valid experiments that take into account the full complexity of deliberative theory, which spans different levels of analysis and has a multidimensional variable at its core. Nonetheless, informative patterns have emerged from the dozens of lab studies, survey experiments, and quasi-experiments in the field conducted to date. This body of work shows the feasibility of gathering diverse samples of people to deliberate, but it also underscores the difficulties that arise in deliberation, including extreme disagreement, poor conflict management, and how a lack of diversity can forestall meaningful disagreement. When public engagement strategies and discussion formats mitigate those hazards, deliberation can improve participants’ understanding of issues, sharpen their judgments, and change their attitudes toward civic engagement. Well-publicized deliberative minipublics can even influence wider public opinion and voting intentions.

The impact of social networking sites on socialization and political engagement: Role of acculturation

This research examines the extent to which immigrant consumers' use of social networking sites affect their socialization and political engagement in the Netherlands. The study uses self-administered questionnaires to collect data from 514 Turkish-Dutch respondents of various ages, occupations, levels of education and locations in the Netherlands. The study finds that the propensity to share information, the intensity of use, and privacy concerns positively impact socialization on online social networking sites. In addition, a significant positive relationship between socialization and political involvement positively impacts voting intentions. The study also examines the interaction effects of enculturation and acculturation orientations on the relationship between socialization and political involvement. The study's findings point to a positive moderating role of acculturation in this relationship but a negative one for enculturation. The study is the first to investigate simultaneously the drivers of socialization on social networking sites in the context of immigrant consumers and the impact of their socialization on political involvement and voting intention. The research further contributes to the scholarly work by exploring the interaction effects of acculturation and enculturation orientation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Do volatile voters vote less correctly? An analysis of correct voting among vote (intention) switchers in US presidential election campaigns

ABSTRACTThe literature on electoral volatility and the literature on electoral campaigns hold contradictory views on voters switching vote (intention) during the campaign. In this note, we shed new light on this contradiction, making two contributions. First, we investigate the extent to which stable and volatile voters choose the correct party. Second, we distinguish levels of correct voting and the impact of the act of switching on the correctness of the vote. Our analyses of vote-switching in American elections show that, while volatile voters are less likely to vote correctly, they are more likely to switch from an incorrect to the correct party than vice versa. Furthermore, we show that following the campaign more closely makes voters more likely to switch vote (intention) towards the correct party.

Perceptions of scientific consensus do not predict later beliefs about the reality of climate change: A test of the gateway belief model using cross-lagged panel analysis

The gateway belief model posits that perceptions of scientific agreement play a causal role in shaping beliefs about the existence of anthropogenic climate change. However, experimental support for the model is mixed. The current study takes a longitudinal approach, examining the causal relationships between perceived consensus and beliefs. Perceptions of scientific consensus and personal beliefs about climate change were collected over a five-month period in a student sample (N = 356). Cross-lagged panel analysis revealed that perceived scientific consensus did not prospectively predict personal agreement with the reality of climate change, thus the current study did not find support for the gateway belief model. However, the inverse pathway was significant for those with liberal voting intentions: personal beliefs about the reality of anthropogenic climate change prospectively predicted subsequent estimates of consensus. The results suggest that individuals’ perceptions of a consensus among scientists do not have a strong influence on their personal beliefs about climate change.