Leveraging Peer‐to‐Peer Connections to Increase Voter Participation in Local Elections

Abstract

In local elections, outcomes can turn on just hundreds of voters. Smallscale political entrepreneurs find it increasingly difficult to wage effective turnout campaigns relying on traditional, costly methods of outreach. Yet a growing literature on social pressure indicates that recasting voting as a socially motivated act increases the likelihood that voters participate. In this article, I present matching analyses of the impact of a new platform that relies on peer-to-peer voter outreach. I find that the intervention is responsible for significant increases in the likelihood that a voter casts a ballot in low-information elections across different sorts of voters.