The Impact of Personalized Information on Vote Intention: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Voting advice applications (VAAs) are voter information tools that millions of individuals have used in recent elections throughout the world. However, little is known about how they affect political behavior. Until now, observational studies of VAA have produced inconclusive results. Here we presen...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of politics 2019-07, Vol.81 (3), p.833-847
Main Authors: Pianzola, Joëlle, Trechsel, Alexander H., Vassil, Kristjan, Schwerdt, Guido, Alvarez, R. Michael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Elections
Observational studies
Political behavior
Political parties
Politics
Voter behavior
Voters
Voting
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Voting advice applications (VAAs) are voter information tools that millions of individuals have used in recent elections throughout the world. However, little is known about how they affect political behavior. Until now, observational studies of VAA have produced inconclusive results. Here we present the results from a randomized field experiment in Switzerland that estimates the causal effects of VAA use on voters’ vote intentions. Our results suggest that usage of the Swiss VAA smartvote strengthened the vote intention for the most preferred party and also increased the number of parties considered as potential vote options. These results imply that VAAs can influence voting behavior and that they can play an important role in electoral politics.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1086/702946