Are Voting Norms Conditional? How Electoral Context and Peer Behavior Shape the Social Returns to Voting

Research on turnout in presidential elections has shown that “battleground” state status has modest effects on turnout, raising the question of why individuals vote even in noncompetitive states. We present experimental evidence showing that the typically small effect of battleground status on turno...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of politics 2017-07, Vol.79 (3), p.1095-1100
Main Authors: Doherty, David, Dowling, Conor M., Gerber, Alan S., Huber, Gregory A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Election results
Elections
Norms
Presidential elections
Presidents
Rewards
SHORT ARTICLE
Variability
Voter behavior
Voter turnout
Voting
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Summary:Research on turnout in presidential elections has shown that “battleground” state status has modest effects on turnout, raising the question of why individuals vote even in noncompetitive states. We present experimental evidence showing that the typically small effect of battleground status on turnout may be tied to the fact that voting norms are insensitive to whether a given individual’s vote is likely to affect the outcome of an election. Instead, variability in the social rewards to voting are more closely tied to the behaviors of others.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1086/691689