Ballot Position Effects Under Compulsory and Optional Preferential-List PR Electoral Systems

Voting for locals: Voters’ information processing strategies in open-list PR systems

“…Kam (2007), for example, has shown that voters are likely to use less reliable information shortcuts when party membership is not known. In a similar vein, Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier (2014) observe that ballot position effects are much stronger in Poland compared to the Czech Republic, simply because the Czech open-list system allows voters to cast a vote for the party list whereas under the Polish system preferential voting for candidates is compulsory.…”

“…Existing studies analyzing information shortcuts in open-list PR systems have focused intensively on the effect of the ballot position on voters' decision making (Geys and Heyndels, 2003;Faas and Schoen, 2006;Lutz, 2010;Marcinkiewicz, 2014;Marcinkiewicz and Jankowski, 2014;Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier, 2014). More specifically, these analyses have argued that it is the candidate placed first on the ballot who receives a large proportion of the votes.…”

“…There are two potential reasons why the ballot position could influence the observed residence effects. First, studies about ballot position effects often argue that the effects are caused by the psychological prominence of certain positions (Kim et al, 2014;Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier, 2014). If this is the case, one might expect that voters pay more attention to information provided at prominent positions and simply do not read the information at less prominent positions.…”

“…For example, Faas and Schoen (2006) control with a dummy variable for the first ballot position of a candidate and additionally include a linear term for all other ballot positions. Other approaches include log-transforming the dependent variable to make the relationship more linear (Marcinkiewicz, 2014;Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier, 2014).…”

Determinants of candidate advantage in communal executive direct elections

“…Jeżeli zaś w wyborach brakuje inkumbentów, wówczas wyborcy ułatwią sobie decyzję, koncentrując się na pozostałych łatwo identyfikowalnych sygnałach, jak np. płeć, wiek, pozycja na karcie do głosowania, ale też na stereotypach i identyfikacjach grupowych (Marcinkiewicz, Stegmaier, 2015;Matson, Fine, 2006).…”