Information and voting: An empirical note

Closeness counts in horseshoes and dancing ... and elections

“…Where the unit of analysis is an election, every study surveyed shows a relationship between closeness and turnout. This conclusion holds for presidential and congressional elections, tax and incorporation referenda, and both time-series and cross-sectional analyses (Barzel and Silverberg, 1973;Filer and Kenny, 1980;Rubinfeld, 1980;Settle and Abrams, 1976;Silberman and Durden, 1975;and Tollison, Crain and Rauter, 1975). And, where tested, this finding is confirmed via the empirical support provided for second order inferences (Tollison and Willett, 1973) derived from the expected utility model; e.g., turnout varies inversely with the size of the polity in question and directly with the number of items on the ballot.…”

A positive correlation between turnout and plurality does not refute the rational voter model

“…The extensive empirical literature on the relation between turnout and political competition assumes that under the rational actor model of voting turnout is higher the smaller the expected plurality of the winning candidate (Downs, 1957;Ferejohn and Fiorina, 1975;Foster, 1984;Gray, 1976;Grofman, 1983;Patterson and Caldeira, 1983;Settle and Abrams, 1976;Tollison et al, 1975). This conclusion appears to follow from the assumption that a person's expected benefit from voting is…”

Incentives and political contributions

“…Kau and Rubin (1979) argue that ideology enters into the calculation since contributors may support candidates with the greatest advocacy of their views about government policy. Others suggest the importance of "closeness of the race" (Riker and Ordeshook, 1968) and the costs of voter-information (Tollison, Crain and Paulter, 1975).…”