The Impact of Candidate Name Order on Election Outcomes

Miller, Julie; Krosnick, Jon A.

doi:10.1086/297848

Cited by 279 publications

(272 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…More troubling, however, is the finding that primacy effects have a significant impact on voting behavior, resulting in more votes for the candidate whose name is listed first on a ballot (26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32). In one recent experimental study, primacy accounted for a 15% gain in votes for the candidate listed first (30).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections

Epstein

Robertson

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

426

285

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Internet search rankings have a significant impact on consumer choices, mainly because users trust and choose higher-ranked results more than lower-ranked results. Given the apparent power of search rankings, we asked whether they could be manipulated to alter the preferences of undecided voters in democratic elections. Here we report the results of five relevant double-blind, randomized controlled experiments, using a total of 4,556 undecided voters representing diverse demographic characteristics of the voting populations of the United States and India. The fifth experiment is especially notable in that it was conducted with eligible voters throughout India in the midst of India's 2014 Lok Sabha elections just before the final votes were cast. The results of these experiments demonstrate that (i) biased search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more, (ii) the shift can be much higher in some demographic groups, and (iii) search ranking bias can be masked so that people show no awareness of the manipulation. We call this type of influence, which might be applicable to a variety of attitudes and beliefs, the search engine manipulation effect. Given that many elections are won by small margins, our results suggest that a search engine company has the power to influence the results of a substantial number of elections with impunity. The impact of such manipulations would be especially large in countries dominated by a single search engine company.search engine manipulation effect | search rankings | Internet influence | voter manipulation | digital bandwagon effect R ecent research has demonstrated that the rankings of search results provided by search engine companies have a dramatic impact on consumer attitudes, preferences, and behavior (1-12); this is presumably why North American companies now spend more than 20 billion US dollars annually on efforts to place results at the top of rankings (13,14). Studies using eye-tracking technology have shown that people generally scan search engine results in the order in which the results appear and then fixate on the results that rank highest, even when lower-ranked results are more relevant to their search (1-5). Higher-ranked links also draw more clicks, and consequently people spend more time on Web pages associated with higher-ranked search results (1-9). A recent analysis of ∼300 million clicks on one search engine found that 91.5% of those clicks were on the first page of search results, with 32.5% on the first result and 17.6% on the second (7). The study also reported that the bottom item on the first page of results drew 140% more clicks than the first item on the second page (7). These phenomena occur apparently because people trust search engine companies to assign higher ranks to the results best suited to their needs (1-4, 11), even though users generally have no idea how results get ranked (15).Why do search rankings elicit such consistent browsing behavior? Part of the answer lies in the basic design of a search engin...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections

Epstein

Robertson

2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

426

285

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“…The topic is almost as old as the political science discipline itself (Bagley 1966;Brooks 1921;Dana 1912;Gold 1952;Mackerras 1968;Mueller 1969;White 1950;Wilson 1912). But scientific interest really took hold in the last quarter of the twentieth century (Bakker & Lijphart 1980;Bowler et al 1992;Brook & Upton 1974;Byrne & Pueschel 1974;Darcy 1986;Darcy & McAllister 1990;Hughes 1970;Kelley & McAllister 1984;Lijphart & Pintor 1988;Miller & Krosnick 1998;Robson & Walsh 1974;Scott 1977;Taebel 1975;Volcansek 1981) The more recent literature recognizes the problem and turns to experimental methods to deal with it. In the following we focus on such studies -which also include some early contributions -in order to assess the current knowledge of name order effects, to identify lacunae in the literature and to argue for the added value of our study.…”

Section: What We Already Know About Ballot Position Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Positive effect of being listed first Chen et al (2014) Positive effect of being listed first Darcy (1986) No position effect Ho & Imai (2008) Positive effect of being listed first Koppel & Steen (2004) Positive effect of being listed first Krosnick et al (2004) Positive effect of being listed first Meredith & Salant (2013) Positive effect of being listed first Miller & Krosnick (1998) Positive effect of being listed first …”

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confidence: 99%

Факторы Голосования: Вопросы Классификации И Анализа

Трегубов¹

2017

Полис

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Abstract:Candidates listed first on the ballot paper regularly receive more votes than other candidates. Experimental studies from first-past-the-post systems show that this ballot position effect is causal, not just a result of parties affording top positions to popular candidates, and stems from the physical ordering of candidate names functioning as a cue to voters. Does this also hold for PR systems where voters may avoid the challenge of choosing a specific individual candidate and instead simply vote for a party? We identify a natural experiment in the Danish simultaneous local and regional elections -pure list PR systems -where the ballot design make the allocation of some top positions as-if random. Based on election results for more than 10,000 candidates, listed on 103 different ballot papers, we find that ballot position, indeed, also has a causal effect on election results in PR systems. Our findings indicate that the empirical domain of ballot position effects is much wider than suggested by previous research. ____________________ * The first draft of this paper was presented at NOPSA 2014 in Gothenburg, Sweden.. We very much appreciate the constructive comments by participants in the workshop on Causal Effects in Political Science. We also appreciate the very competent and helpful research assistance from Lea Lauridsen, Katrine Wied Thomsen, and Niels Bjørn Grund Petersen. 2The question of whether a top position on the ballot paper affords a candidate an advantage over his or her fellow candidates in an election has a long history, both in political science and in practical politics. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Woodrow Wilson made an observation that summed up speculations that were to last until the present days:I have seen a ballot of this kind 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, engagement, educated voters and many other factors -may modify or even nullify ballot position effects (e.g. Chen et al. However, identifying ballot position effects with some accuracy is challenging. The reason is that political parties and candidates are likely to anticipate them and act strategically to harvest them. If being listed first really brings electoral advantages, parties and candidates are likely to actively seek this position on th...

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“…It has also spawned several targeted research programs examining the electoral impact of the order of candidates on the ballot (cf. Ho and Imai( 2008), Miller and Krosnick (1998), Lijphart and Lopez-Pintor (1988)), the use of color and symbols (Reynolds and Steenbergen (2006)), and overall ballot complexity (Niemi andHerrnson 2003, Wand et al (2001)). …”

Section: Theses About the Consequences Of The Australian Ballotmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can Institutions Cure Clientelism? Assessing the Impact of the Australian Ballot in Brazil

Gingerich

2013

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. Terms of use: Documents inThe unauthorized commercial use of Bank documents is prohibited and may be punishable under the Bank's policies and/or applicable laws. Copyright ©Inter-American Development Bank. This working paper may be reproduced for any non-commercial purpose. It may also be reproduced in any academic journal indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, with previous consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. This paper examines how the adoption of the Australian ballot (AB), and ipso facto, the transition from the nominal to effective secret vote, shaped the nature of party politics in Brazil. Engaging the literature on political clientelism, the impact of the AB on three outcomes is studied: 1) the ideological leanings of voters at the ballot box; 2) the degree of electoral control enjoyed by local vote brokers; and 3) the capacity of citizens to effectively participate in the electoral process. In order to get leverage on these issues, the paper utilizes an original dataset-painstakingly assembled from regional electoral archives-which contains municipal-level vote returns for federal deputy and senate contests during the period before and after the AB's introduction in Brazil (1958Brazil ( -1962. The dataset exploits the fact that the AB was introduced at different times in different states and for different offices in the country, thereby creating an unprecedented opportunity to assess the impact of this institution. Using a triple difference-in-difference procedure, the study finds that the AB: 1) shifted the ideological balance of power from Right to Left; 2) did not greatly weaken the hand of vote brokers; and 3) greatly increased the proportion of wasted votes cast in elections. Cataloging-in-PublicationJEL Classification: K, O17, D72, N4, N46

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The Impact of Candidate Name Order on Election Outcomes

Cited by 279 publications

References 53 publications

The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections

The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections

Факторы Голосования: Вопросы Классификации И Анализа

Can Institutions Cure Clientelism? Assessing the Impact of the Australian Ballot in Brazil

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