A Digital Field Experiment Reveals Large Effects of Friend-to-Friend Texting on Voter Turnout

Because non-voters are less politically informed than voters, some propose that increasing voter turnout would reduce the quality of information among the active voting population, damaging electoral outcomes. However, the proposed tradeoff between increased participation and informed participation is a false dichotomy. This article demonstrates that political information is endogenous to participation. A field experiment integrates an intensive mobilization treatment into a panel survey conducted before and after a city-wide election. Subjects who were mobilized to vote also became more informed about the content of the election. The results suggest institutions that encourage participation not only increase voter turnout – mobilizing electoral participation also motivates citizens to become more politically informed.

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If We Build It, Only Some Will Come: An Experimental Study of Mobilization for Seattle’s Democracy Voucher Program

Journal of Experimental Political Science ◽

10.1017/xps.2020.32 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-16

Author(s):

Geoffrey Henderson ◽

Hahrie Han

Keyword(s):

Experimental Study ◽

Field Experiment ◽

Voter Turnout ◽

Election Cycle ◽

Advocacy Organizations ◽

Underrepresented Groups ◽

Voucher Program ◽

Electoral Reforms ◽

New Democracy ◽

Registered Voter

Abstract Seattle, Washington instituted a new “democracy voucher” program in 2017 providing each registered voter with four $25 campaign finance vouchers to contribute to municipal candidates. Prior research shows that without efforts to mobilize voters, electoral reforms like the voucher program are often insufficient to increase participation among underrepresented groups. We examine how mobilization affects the voucher program’s redistributive goals – does it increase participation among infrequent voters, or does it engage regular participants in politics? In the 2017 election cycle, we partnered with a coalition of advocacy organizations on a field experiment to estimate the effects of providing voters with information about democracy vouchers through door-to-door canvassing, texting, digital advertisements, and e-mails. While mobilization increased voucher use and voter turnout, responsiveness was greatest among frequent voters. As our findings suggest that transactional mobilizing is insufficient to engage infrequent participants, we posit that deeper organizing is necessary to fulfill the program’s redistributive goals.

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Does canvassing increase voter turnout? A field experiment

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.96.19.10939 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 96 (19) ◽

pp. 10939-10942 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

A. S. Gerber ◽

D. P. Green

Keyword(s):

Field Experiment ◽

Voter Turnout

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A field experiment shows that subtle linguistic cues might not affect voter behavior

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1513727113 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 113 (26) ◽

pp. 7112-7117 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Alan S. Gerber ◽

Gregory A. Huber ◽

Daniel R. Biggers ◽

David J. Hendry

Keyword(s):

Field Experiment ◽

Voter Turnout ◽

Large Scale ◽

Point Estimate ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Linguistic Cues ◽

Scale Field ◽

Recent Developments ◽

Large Scale Field ◽

The Difference

One of the most important recent developments in social psychology is the discovery of minor interventions that have large and enduring effects on behavior. A leading example of this class of results is in the work by Bryan et al. [Bryan CJ, Walton GM, Rogers T, Dweck CS (2011) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108(31):12653–12656], which shows that administering a set of survey items worded so that subjects think of themselves as voters (noun treatment) rather than as voting (verb treatment) substantially increases political participation (voter turnout) among subjects. We revisit these experiments by replicating and extending their research design in a large-scale field experiment. In contrast to the 11 to 14% point greater turnout among those exposed to the noun rather than the verb treatment reported in the work by Bryan et al., we find no statistically significant difference in turnout between the noun and verb treatments (the point estimate of the difference is approximately zero). Furthermore, when we benchmark these treatments against a standard get out the vote message, we estimate that both are less effective at increasing turnout than a much shorter basic mobilization message. In our conclusion, we detail how our study differs from the work by Bryan et al. and discuss how our results might be interpreted.

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Is it worth door-knocking? Evidence from a United Kingdom-based Get Out The Vote (GOTV) field experiment on the effect of party leaflets and canvass visits on voter turnout

Political Science Research and Methods ◽

10.1017/psrm.2018.39 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Joshua Townsley

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

United Kingdom ◽

Field Experiment ◽

Voter Turnout ◽

The United States ◽

Individual Level ◽

Liberal Democrats ◽

Percentage Points ◽

Get Out The Vote

AbstractWhat impact do party leaflets and canvass visits have on voter turnout? Get Out The Vote (GOTV) experiments consistently find that campaigning needs to be personal in order to be effective. However, the imbalance between United States and European-based studies has led to recent calls for further European GOTV experiments. There are also comparatively few partisan experiments. I report the findings of a United Kingdom-based field experiment conducted with the Liberal Democrats in 2017. Results show that party leaflets boost turnout by 4.3 percentage points, while canvassing has a small additional effect (0.6 percentage points). The study also represents the first individual level experiment to compare GOTV effects between postal voters and in-person voters outside the United States.

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