Ballot position and election results: Evidence from a natural experiment

Abstract

Abstract:Candidates listed first on the ballot paper regularly receive more votes than other candidates, but what role does ballot layout play in this connection? Experimental studies from first-pastthe-post systems show that the ballot position effect is causal as the order of names functions as a cue to voters. Does this also hold for PR systems where voters may vote for a party instead of a specific candidate? We identify a natural experiment in Danish local and regional elections involving more than 10,000 candidates on 103 different ballot papers using ballot layout to study ballot position effects. We find indeed, the ballot position/layout has a causal effect on election results in PR systems. Our findings indicate that the empirical domain of ballot position and layout effects is much wider than suggested by previous research. 2The question of whether a top position on the ballot paper affords a candidate an advantage over other candidates in an election has a long history, both in political science and in practical politics. Woodrow Wilson made the following observation in the beginning of the twentieth century, and it remains valid to this day:I have seen a ballot … which contained seven hundred names. It was bigger than the page of a newspaper and was printed in close columns as a newspaper would be. Of course no voter who is not a trained politician, who has not watched the whole process of nomination carefully, who does not know a great deal about the derivation and character and association of every nominee it contains, can vote a ticket like that with intelligence. In nine cases out of ten, as it has turned out, he will simply mark the first name under each office (Wilson 1912: 593).Since then, a considerable body of political science research has been devoted to identifying more exactly the effect of being listed first on the ballot. Many studies find positive effects, but many studies also find that the contingent effects suggested by Wilson -publicity, It is especially unfortunate that there is so little evidence from proportional representation (PR) systems, which is the most common type of electoral system worldwide (Reynolds et al. 2005: 31). We are primarily interested in list PR systems where voters may vote for a specific candidate or simply vote for a party and thus avoid the challenge of having to select a specific candidate. It is therefore far from clear that ballot position effects will be found in these systems. 4The purpose of this paper is to study list PR systems to determine the degree to which they belong to the empirical domain of ballot position effects. Danish local and regional elections offer a unique opportunity to do this. The paper is structured as follows: We begin by reviewing the existing empirical literature in order to evaluate the present knowledge of ballot position effects, to identify lacunae in the literature, and to argue for the value added by our study. Second, we introduce the Danish local and regional electoral system and its merits as a natural experimen...

Cue-Taking, Satisficing, or Both? Quasi-experimental Evidence for Ballot Position Effects

“…Starting at the top of the ballot, voters choose the first candidate who is satisfactory, since continuing to evaluate the alternatives is tiring or not worth the effort. This is in line with findings from PLPR-focused observational studies pointing to a vote bonus of the best-ranked candidate with an (on average) appealing characteristic such as being female (Blom-Hansen et al 2016) or living in the same area (Jankowski 2016). 8 In what we refer to as a pure satisficing world, ballot position affects the order of candidate assessment, but not the actual verdict of acceptability.…”

“…Different mechanisms may underlie such effects. First, particularly in an institutional setting with ranked candidate lists, voters may turn to (list) position as a signal of candidate quality (Katz and Bardi 1980;Lutz 2010;Marcinkiewicz 2014;van Erkel and Thijssen 2016;Blom-Hansen et al 2016)even in the extreme case of not knowing anything about the candidates. A position near the top of the ballot constitutes a form of endorsement by the party, which voters may use as orientation in their choice, even if these candidates are actually not more appealing.…”

“…In addition to observational work (e.g. Villodres 2003;Marcinkiewicz 2014;Lutz 2010;van Erkel and Thijssen 2016), two studies draw on quasi-random variation created by multi-column ballot designs (Geys and Heyndels 2003;Blom-Hansen et al 2016). However, this approach does not allow for inferences about position effects at the top of the list, which are theoretically and substantively the most interesting ones.…”

“…Put differently, our theoretical framework provides a theoretical rationale for the log-transformation, which is often motivated from a data perspective (Blom-Hansen et al 2016;van Erkel and Thijssen 2016;Marcinkiewicz 2014).…”

“…The estimated share of switched votes is probably driven up by the fact that our ATE does not take into account baseline list leaders (see Appendix A.2 for further discussion). Also, the lack of an explicit party list vote option should lead to stronger ballot position effects, as many poorlyinformed voters feel compelled to choose a candidate (Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier 2015;Blom-Hansen et al 2016). On the other hand, with additional information provided on the ballot (gender, title, occupation/incumbency, place of residence), position is only one of several cues available, probably dampening its effects (Brockington 2003).…”