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

Abstract

What 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.

‘This time I’m (not) voting’: A comprehensive overview of campaign factors influencing turnout at European Parliament elections

“…Another source of EU-related information may stem from political parties and candidates advertising their issue positions and trying to persuade the electorate to vote for them. Yet direct contacts between campaigners and the electorate are less common in European countries, and their mobilizing effects are much smaller when compared to the United States (Bhatti et al., 2016; but see Townsley, 2018).…”

“…Here, exposure to political coverage in the news media exerted the strongest influence on turnout, and personal modes of party contact were less effective than impersonal forms. In contrast, findings from Townsley (2018) demonstrate that party leaflets have a stronger effect on turnout in the United Kingdom (UK) when combined with canvass visits, and Gerber and Green (2000) document that, when compared to mail and telephone appeals, face-to-face canvassing has the strongest effect on turnout likelihood in the United States (see also Hillygus, 2005). These findings highlight the importance of simultaneously accounting for different forms of campaign communication and further show that national contexts matter.…”

Drowned Out by the Noise? The Downstream Mobilisation Effects of Party Campaigning between Local and General Elections

“…Subjects were split between postal voter households and non-postal voter households, then cluster randomised (at the household level) into either a control group or one of two treatment groups (Figure 1). As such, all subjects within a given household were assigned to the same treatment (or control) condition (Townsley 2018). As with most experiments involving canvassing, noncompliance was an issue in the original study, with 28% of subjects in the canvass + leaflet group being successfully treated.…”

“…The original experiment (Townsley 2018) was conducted during the May 2017 round of local elections in cooperation with the local Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems). Nationally, turnout at the local elections was 35.1%typical for local elections in the UK (Electoral Commission 2017).…”

Introduction: Parties at the Grassroots

“…2016; Carty & Eagles, 1999;Eagles, 2004;Ennser-Jedenastik & Hansen, 2013;Farrell & Webb, 2000;Fisher & Denver, 2008;Frendreis, Gibson & Vertz, 1990;Geser, 1999;Johnston, Pattie, Cutts, Fieldhouse & Fisher, 2011;Pattie, Whiteley, Johnston & Seyd, 1994;Ramiro, Morales & Jiménez-Buedo, 2012;Townsley, 2018;Webb et al, 2017). In addition, studies have also emphasised that a strong local anchorage increases the chances of survival of new parties (Beyens, Lucardie & Deschouwer, 2016;Bolleyer, 2013).…”