How voter mobilization from short text messages travels within households and families: Evidence from two nationwide field experiments

Abstract

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Assortative mating and turnout: a self-reinforcing pattern of unequal voting participation

“…The results are in line with previous research finding that marrying a voter increases one's likelihood of voting (Stoker and Jennings, 1995;Bhatti et al, 2018). Theoretically, the results support the idea of a social mobilizing effect (a spill-over effect, a companion effect, or a contagion effect) (Gerber et al, 2008;Nickerson, 2008;Fieldhouse and Cutts, 2012;Rolfe, 2012;Sinclair et al, 2012;Bhatti et al, 2017) and a social demobilizing effect (Partheymüller and Schmitt-Beck, 2012) in the case of marriage and cohabitation. Moreover, showing that both selection into, and the social influence in relationships, matter for who participates in politics, the paper adds valuable insights to the longstanding debate on selection versus social influence (Kandel, 1978;Huckfeldt and Sprague, 1987;Jennings and Stoker, 2005;Alford et al, 2011).…”

“…For example, the death of a spouse has a larger negative impact on turnout if the spouse one lost was a voter (Hobbs et al, 2014), and active mobilization in Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) experiments directed toward one person in a household has spillover effects to other members in the household (Nickerson, 2008;Sinclair et al, 2012). Moreover, support for contagion effects within households has not been limited to the United States but is also found in a European context, for example, by Bhatti et al (2017) in a study using text messages to mobilize voters in Denmark. In sum, these recent studies support what is sometimes labeled a companion effect (Fieldhouse and Cutts, 2012), a causal story of a social voter.…”

It’s a Group Thing: How Voters go to the Polls Together

“…Research also shows that the intra-household turnout correlation is very high and increasing attention has been given to the household as the most important unit for influencing the decision to turnout (Cutts and Fieldhouse 2009;Bhatti et al 2018). Individuals sharing residency are remarkably congruent in their voting behaviors and when one individual in a household is mobilized to vote, between 30 and 60% of the mobilization effect spills-over to other household members (Nickerson 2008;Sinclair et al 2012;Bhatti et al 2017). Fieldhouse and Cutts (2012) have coined the phrase the companion effect which points to the likely importance of voting in tandem.…”

“…When utilizing the register data we focus exclusively on voting together with other eligible household members because this can be objectively identified by address of residence. As noted above, the household is theoretically the most interesting unit with respect to joint voting, having been identified as the most influential context for political socialization (Berelson et al 1954;Glaser 1959;Zuckerman et al 2007) and empirically the most important context for inter-personal influence on turnout (Nickerson 2008;Cutts and Fieldhouse 2009;Sinclair et al 2012;Bhatti et al 2017). It is also worth noting that the polling card has the address of the assigned the polling station and that assignment to polling stations are based on residential address such that household members are always assigned to the same polling station.…”

“…In other words, does the availability of a voting partner cause an increased probability of voting? Recent studies have found that households are perhaps the most important unit for inter-personal mobilization (Nickerson 2008;Sinclair et al 2012;Bhatti et al 2017). This could, at least partly be due to the possibility of accompanying each other to the polls, as suggested by the companion effect.…”