Voting Can Be Hard, Information Helps

Abstract

Many U.S. elections provide voters with precious little information about candidates on the ballot. In local contests, party labels are often absent. In primary elections, party labels are not useful. Indeed, much of the time, voters have only the name of the candidate to go by. In these contexts, how do voters make decisions? Using several experiments, we find that voters use candidates’ race, ethnicity, and gender as cues for whom to support—penalizing candidates of color and benefiting women. But we also demonstrate that providing even a small amount of information to voters—such as candidate occupation—virtually erases the effects of candidate demographics on voter behavior, even among voters with high levels of racial and gender prejudice.

Communicating Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Efforts in American Cities

“…Future research might examine the degree to which cities actually "walk the talk"-that is, do mayors who discuss climate change policies actually put mitigation or adaptation policies in place? This question is particularly important given the budgetary constraints that cities face and the low level of information that most citizens have about the functioning of their government [51,52]. In essence, citizens are rarely equipped to hold their governments accountable and cities rarely have the resources to engage in proactive policymaking.…”

Ballot Cues, Business Candidates, and Voter Choices in Local Elections

“…In our experiment participants had no other information about the candidates–if they knew party affiliation or a candidate’s demographic profile would the effects of occupation diminish? Kirkland and Coppock (2018) and Crowder-Meyer et al (2019) provide a good start to this line of inquiry, but more work needs to be done exploring the interaction and relative importance of various cues. It is possible that in more salient campaigns where voters have greater information about the candidates the effects of occupation will disappear.…”

“…A large body of literature demonstrates that voters typically lack detailed information about candidate policy views and qualifications and rely on simple cues such as endorsements, name recognition, incumbency status, party affiliation, and visible demographic characteristics to make their choices (e.g., Lupia, 2015). This tendency is especially evident at the local level where elections tend to be low information affairs, leading some voters to distinguish among candidates using gender or ethnic identification (Crowder-Meyer et al, 2019; Matson & Fine, 2006). In elections where party labels do not appear on the ballot (such as California local elections), voters appear less likely to use party as a cue to determine vote choices even if it is possible to find candidate party preferences (Lim & Snyder, 2015; Schaffner et al, 2001; but see Bonneau & Cann, 2015).…”

“…McDermott (2005), using a survey experiment that presented respondents with information about actual candidates for statewide office below the governor’s level (e.g., state treasurer, secretary of state) with or without occupational cues, concluded that when occupational labels were present voters were more likely to choose the candidate whose listed experience better aligned with the elective position. 1 In addition, a recent study based on survey experiments (Crowder-Meyer et al, 2019) indicates that adding occupational information can significantly reduce the voting impact of demographic cues such as gender and race. The importance of occupational cues has also been documented in studies in other countries, such as Germany (Mechtel, 2014), Great Britain (Campbell & Cowley, 2014), and New Zealand (Coffé & Theiss-Morse, 2016).…”

“…While the first claim about heavy use of cues and heuristics is widely accepted by scholars, it is much less clear that identification of candidates as businesspeople provides a significant behavioral cue—it is one thing for voters to express support for “running the government like a business” and quite another to be inclined to support a business candidate when other choices are available. We know relatively little about how occupational cues affect voting choices in the United States or abroad (Coffé & Theiss-Morse, 2016), though the small body of literature in this area suggests they may be significant (see especially Crowder-Meyer et al, 2019; Mechtel, 2014). In the American context observational research typically is hampered because (outside of California) occupational background is not listed on the ballot, making it difficult to determine the impact of simple cues in this area.…”