Getting Voters
The Effects of Political Advertising on Facebook and Instagram before the 2020 US Election
Hunt Allcott et al.
NBER Working Paper, May 2025
Abstract:
We study the effects of social media political advertising by randomizing subsets of 36,906 Facebook users and 25,925 Instagram users to have political ads removed from their news feeds for six weeks before the 2020 US presidential election. We show that most presidential ads were targeted toward parties’ own supporters and that fundraising ads were most common. On both Facebook and Instagram, we found no detectable effects of removing political ads on political knowledge, polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, political participation (including campaign contributions), candidate favorability, and turnout. This was true overall and for both Democrats and Republicans separately.
National Influences on Election Outcomes for State Executive Offices
James King
Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Spring 2025, Pages 253-280
Abstract:
Many argue that American elections at all levels of government are now national affairs. Yet to what extent are state executive election outcomes influenced by national factors? Individual election outcomes are used to test the relative influences of national, state, and individual factors in elections for governor and secondary executive offices. The results reinforce the federalist nature of American elections by indicating that individual and state factors exert greater influence than national factors on state executive elections, especially for high-profile offices and, to a somewhat lesser degree for other, lesser-profile offices. Similar outcomes in national and state elections appear to result from the partisan composition of the electorate rather than top-down influences. The analysis supports the view that American federalism is alive and well in the electoral arena.
Raced-Gendered Electability: Support, Donations, and Democratic Double Standards for Black Women Candidates
Philip Chen & Ashley Sorensen
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars are consistently concerned about the relative lack of gender and racial representation in Congress. As explicitly sexist and racist attitudes have waned (though by no means disappeared) in the population, we are left searching for alternative explanations for continued representational gaps. We theorize that one driving force is a paradox among Democratic primary voters: namely, that Black women are seen both as more liberal and less electable. Using two different survey experiments, we show that, while most Democratic primary candidates benefit from perceptions of being more liberal, this cannot be said for Black women due to beliefs that they are less likely to win in the general election. These cross-cutting evaluations of Black women candidates by Democratic primary voters perpetuate representational inequities, making it more difficult for Black women to emerge victorious from Democratic primaries compared to men and White women.
Do Symbolic Laws Produce Feedback Effects? The Impact of Second Amendment Sanctuaries on Voter Turnout
Cassidy Reller, Alexandra Filindra & Craig Burnett
University of Illinois Working Paper, May 2025
Abstract:
Changes in substantive policies can have both material and psychological effects on voters' behavior and especially election turnout, an effect scholars call "policy feedback." Existing studies of policy feedback have not considered "symbolic" legislation-that is, policies that affirm values but do not affect benefits or rights. We argue that some symbolic laws can impact voter turnout rates to an observable degree through unobserved psychological mechanisms. The effects can be disparate, encouraging some groups to vote while discouraging others. We test our expectations in the case of Second Amendment Sanctuary (2AS) laws, a symbolic legislation that expresses an absolutist commitment to gun rights. Exploiting the timing of these laws' enactment, we test whether passing 2AS resolutions affected voter turnout among Republicans, Democrats, and African Americans. Using North Carolina voter data between 2016 and 2022, we find that, compared to pre-enactment, 2AS counties experienced a decline in voting among Democrats and Black voters. By contrast, we find no effect among Republicans. We replicate our analysis using national data from the 2016-2022 CES. The models confirm our state-level results but also show a boost in Republican turnout. The results suggest that, despite being symbolic, 2AS resolutions have had a measurable impact on voting patterns.
Student Loan Debt and Participation in American National Elections
David Macdonald
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
More than 40 million American adults have student loan debt and collectively owe approximately $1.8 trillion. Despite the societal importance of student loan debt, we know little about its consequences for electoral behavior. I address this oversight here by testing the relationship between student loan debt and participation in American national elections. I do so with pooled cross-sectional survey data from the 2016–2020 Cooperative Election Studies (CES). Net of various demographics, political interest, and campaign contact, I find that Americans with student loan debt are significantly more likely to vote and engage electorally than their counterparts without student loan debt. In short, student loan debt appears to spur political engagement, rather than withdrawal. I attribute these findings to the nature of student loan debt, relative to other types of financial burdens, specifically its connection to the federal government. Overall, these findings help to advance collective knowledge regarding the political consequences of student loan debt and help us to better understand how economic burdens shape mass politics.
Voting for Disabled Candidates
Stefanie Reher
Journal of Politics, April 2025, Pages 790-794
Abstract:
Despite important advances in the rights of disabled people, stigma and prejudice remain widespread. Meanwhile, disabled political representatives are few and far between. This raises the question: do voters discriminate against disabled candidates? This study uses conjoint experiments in the United States and the United Kingdom to show that candidates with physical or sensory impairments are preferred by voters on the left, whereas voters on the right are more likely to vote for nondisabled candidates. However, these effects are almost entirely due to voters’ perceptions of disabled candidates as more left-wing. When perceived ideology is held constant or candidates’ party affiliation is known, candidate disability does not affect the vote choice among right-wing voters. Left-wing voters still reward left-wing disabled candidates for representing under-represented groups. The findings expand our understanding of the role of disability in electoral politics and should encourage candidates and parties concerned about discrimination at the ballot box.
Nevertheless, Role Models Persisted: Girls Exposed To Women Politicians More Likely To Vote as Adults
Christina Wolbrecht & David Campbell
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do girls exposed to women politicians become more politically engaged adults, as many politicians and scholars predict? To our knowledge, no previous research has examined whether exposure to women politicians in adolescence contributes to a greater likelihood of political participation in adulthood. We employ a panel study that followed more than 6,000 adolescents into adulthood, controlling for a range of individual and contextual variables associated with both turnout and the presence of women candidates. We find that adolescent girls who were exposed to a woman running a viable campaign for a visible office in 2002 were more likely to vote in both presidential and non-presidential elections as adults than those who did not experience any such women candidates. The effect is concentrated among women who grew up in less political households; absent political socialization in the family, the presence of women politicians made a difference. Men’s turnout is unrelated to exposure to women candidates in adolescence.
Unconditional cash transfers & voter turnout
Alexander James, Nathaly Rivera & Brock Smith
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
We estimate the effect of unconditional cash transfers on voter turnout, leveraging a large-scale natural experiment, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) program, which has provided residents with a check of varying size 1 month before election day since 1982. We find that larger transfers cause people to vote, especially in gubernatorial elections in which a 10% increase in cash ($190) causes a 1.4 percentage point increase in turnout. Effects are concentrated among the young and poor. Survey data suggests the mechanism is reduced voter apathy. Implications are discussed.
Am I Eligible to Register? Registration Rules, Eligibility Uncertainty, and Youth Voter Turnout
Alexander Held
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Is a lack of information about eligibility rules partly responsible for the particularly low youth voter turnout in U.S. elections? In a context where new voters usually have to register several weeks before Election Day and where registration rules vary by state, this article argues that there is substantial uncertainty among young Americans about their eligibility to register and vote in elections. It uses a natural experiment that leverages the as-if random assignment of a person’s 18th birthday around a state registration deadline to identify the causal effect of uncertainty about whether someone has to be 18 by the registration deadline or by Election Day to register and vote in an election on youth voter turnout. Drawing on fine-grained data from 19 U.S. state voter files, the study finds a sharp discontinuity in turnout in nine states. There are smaller or no effects in states with same day registration, a later registration deadline closer to Election Day or explicit information that 17-year-olds are eligible to register. Moreover, the effect persists over time, with people who are discouraged from voting due to eligibility uncertainty significantly less likely to vote in future elections. These findings have important implications for our understanding of youth turnout, election reforms, habit formation, and the study of citizens’ information and beliefs about electoral rules with administrative data.
Informed or Overwhelmed? Disentangling the Effects of Cognitive Ability and Information on Public Opinion
Adam Panish
British Journal of Political Science, April 2025
Abstract:
Received wisdom in political science holds that informed citizens are better able to develop coherent, stable policy preferences. However, past research fails to differentiate between the effects of information and cognitive ability. I show that, for people with low levels of ability, consuming more political information predicts lower levels of ideological constraint and response stability. This effect is driven by relatively technical issues, suggesting that attempts to inform the electorate may backfire by overwhelming some voters. More broadly, these results suggest that an increasingly saturated information environment may exacerbate, rather than ameliorate, differences in political sophistication.
Overvotes, Overranks, and Skips: Mismarked and Rejected Votes in Ranked Choice Voting
Stephen Pettigrew & Dylan Radley
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Voters express their electoral preferences through their ballot. More states and local jurisdictions are adopting ranked choice voting (RCV), which affects how voter preferences are translated into electoral results by introducing a more complex ranked ballot and accompanying tabulation process. This research provides empirical estimates of rates of improper marking and vote rejection, and compares them to those rates on non-ranked offices (particularly single-mark, ‘choose-one-candidate’ offices). We describe a new, general typology for categorizing the ways voters can improperly mark a ranked ballot. We apply this typology to a database of ranked choice ballots that includes 3 million cast vote records representing over three-quarters of all Americans living in a jurisdiction that uses RCV. The data show that in a typical ranked choice race, nearly 1 in 20 (4.8%) voters improperly mark their ballot in at least one way. We argue that these improper marks are consistent with voter confusion about their ranked ballot, and find evidence that this mismarking rate is higher in areas with more racial minorities, lower-income households, and lower levels of educational attainment. We further find that votes in ranked choice races are about 10 times more likely to be rejected due to an improper mark than votes in non-ranked choice races. These findings raise key questions about voter participation and representation in ranked choice systems and have important policy implications for jurisdictions that already have or are considering adopting ranked choice voting.
Motivating Future Voters: Comparing the Effects of ‘I Voted’ and ‘I Will Vote’ Stickers on Intention to Vote
Alon Kraitzman, Stephanie DeMora & Dolores Albarracín
Political Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
“I Voted” stickers have long symbolized civic pride and voter participation in American political culture. This study examines the impact of these stickers’ language on voting intentions, comparing the effects of future tense (“I Will Vote”) with past-tense stickers (“I Voted”) and control stickers. Through two pre-registered experiments involving low-propensity voters (Total N = 1500), we find that “I Will Vote” stickers significantly enhance voting intentions compared to “I Voted” and control stickers. We also find that “I Will Vote” stickers induce more positive attitudes toward voting and greater voting self-efficacy. These findings contribute to the understudied intersection of language and political behavior, illuminating how linguistic choices in voter outreach can shape civic engagement. We conclude with a call for scholars to explore how incorporating the future tense in get-out-the-vote campaigns can effectively boost turnout.