Polls, coalition signals and strategic voting: An experimental investigation of perceptions and effects

TLDR: In this paper, the authors investigate how poll information and coalition signals affect strategic voting, defined as casting a vote for a party other than the most preferred party to better influence the election outcome.

Abstract: The paper investigates how poll information and coalition signals affect strategic voting, defined as casting a vote for a party other than the most preferred party to better influence the election outcome. In particular if the outcome of an election is perceived to be close, voters in multi-party systems with proportional representation and coalition governments should have an incentive to cast a vote for the party that best influences the formation of the next government. The study focuses in particular on voters’ attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals sent by parties before elections. The study used an innovative design that embedded a laboratory experiment in two real election campaigns, allowing the manipulation of poll results and coalition signals in a realistic environment. The findings suggest that political sophistication plays a crucial role for the accurate perception of polls and strategic voting. Coalition signals are found to have a surprisingly strong effect on (apparently) strategic voting.

Figures

Figure 1. Screenshots of front page and article page of information board.

Table 4. Effect of close polls and coalition signals on insincere voting

Figure 3. Plan of study.

Table 2. Errors in poll perception

Figure 2. Poll results page after pre-election poll.

Figure 4. Selection of articles by category. Notes: Bars represent the average number of articles selected for reading in six different headline categories. Each category was represented with one randomly chosen headline on each of the 15 screens. The party categories are based on the initial party rankings provided by each participant.

Full text

www.ssoar.info
Polls, coalition signals and strategic voting: an
experimental investigation of perceptions and
effects
Meffert, Michael F.; Gschwend, Thomas
Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version
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Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation:
Meffert, M. F., & Gschwend, T. (2011). Polls, coalition signals and strategic voting: an experimental investigation
of perceptions and effects. European Journal of Political Research, 50(5), 636-667. https://doi.org/10.1111/
j.1475-6765.2010.01986.x
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Polls, coalition signals and strategic voting: An experimental
investigation of perceptions and effects
ejpr_1986 1..32
MICHAEL F. MEFFERT
1
& THOMAS GSCHWEND
2
1
Department of Political Science, Leiden University, The Netherlands;
2
Department of
Political Science, University of Mannheim, Germany
Abstract. Polls and coalition signals can help strategic voters in multiparty systems with
proportional representation and coalition governments to optimise their vote decision.
Using a laboratory experiment embedded in two real election campaigns, this study focuses
on voters’ attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals. The manipulation of
polls and coalition signals allows a causal test of their influence on strategic voting in a
realistic environment. The findings suggest that active information acquisition to form fairly
accurate perceptions of election outcomes can compensate for the advantage of high politi-
cal sophistication. The theory of strategic voting is supported by the evidence, but only for a
small number of voters. Most insincere vote decisions are explained by other factors. Thus,
the common practice to consider all insincere voters as strategic is misleading.
Keywords: strategic voting; polls; coalitions; expectations; experiment
Introduction
Voters face a dilemma if their preferred party has no chance of winning in
the upcoming election. If instrumental considerations motivate the vote, the
expressive satisfaction of casting a ballot for the most preferred party is
insufficient to compensate for the feeling of ‘wasting’ a vote that fails to
influence government formation and, ultimately, desirable policy outcomes.
For those who feel a citizen’s duty is to vote and who care about the
outcome of the next election, just staying at home is not an option. Such
voters might rather decide to defect and cast a ballot for a less-preferred
party, but one that will play a more decisive role in the formation of the next
government. Such behaviour is called ‘strategic voting’ (Cox 1997; Fisher
2004). Paraphrasing a former United States Secretary of Defense, strategic
voters work with the parties they have, not the parties they want. Voters in
multiparty systems with proportional representation and coalition govern-
ments often will not only find themselves in such a situation, but also have
options to do something about it.
European Journal of Political Research ••: ••–••, •• 2011
1
doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2010.01986.x
© 2011 The Author(s)
European Journal of Political Research © 2011 European Consortium for Political Research
Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA

Strategic voting usually requires that election outcomes be close and uncer-
tain. Voters can then at least believe that their vote (and that of like-minded
voters) will be decisive (Acevedo & Krueger 2004; Darmofal 2010). It also
requires that voters form fairly accurate expectations about the electoral
chances of parties and coalitions in the upcoming election. This implies that
strategic voters not only are politically sophisticated, but also have access to
fairly accurate and current information such as polls. The existing evidence for
strategic voting, however, is based mostly on district-level and survey-based
studies that offer corroborating but circumstantial evidence. Even the key
dependent variable – strategic voting – is ambiguous. Observed defections
from the most preferred party are assumed to be due to deliberate strategic
considerations and not due to other, non-instrumental factors. Many of these
votes may in fact be merely ‘insincere’ (following the definition that only a vote
for the most-preferred party is sincere). Without carefully distinguishing
strategic from insincere voters, the results of previous research might be
misleading.
Conclusive micro-level causal tests of the conditions and processes that
lead to strategic voting decisions are mostly missing. Notable exceptions are
laboratory experiments in the economic tradition that do offer direct,
individual-level support for strategic voting (e.g., Forsythe et al. 1993, 1996;
McCuen & Morton 2010; Meffert & Gschwend 2007). At the same time, these
experiments use highly abstract, context-free settings and monetary incentives
that make a generalisation of the findings very difficult.
The purpose of this study is to test whether voters in multiparty systems
conform to the expectations of the theory of strategic voting. The method is
an information-selection and voting experiment conducted during two real
German state election campaigns. Two crucial pre-electoral cues – nonparti-
san polls and partisan coalition signals – were unobtrusively manipulated
and participants’ decision-making behaviour closely traced and measured.
First, we develop our specific expectations by reviewing research on strategic
voting in general and on polls and coalition signals in particular.
Strategic voting
Strategic voting, or more precisely, behaviour that looks like strategic voting,
has been documented for a variety of election systems, from parliamentary
democracies to presidential systems, and under different electoral rules. Evi-
dence has been found for countries such as Austria (Meffert & Gschwend
2010), Germany (Bawn 1999; Gschwend 2007a; Pappi & Thurner 2002;
Shikano et al. 2009), Great Britain (Alvarez & Nagler 2000; Franklin
2
michael f. meffert & thomas gschwend
© 2011 The Author(s)
European Journal of Political Research © 2011 European Consortium for Political Research

et al.1994; Lanoue & Bowler 1992; Niemi et al. 1992, 1993), Israel (Bargsted &
Kedar 2009), The Netherlands (Irwin & Van Holsteyn 2002, 2003), Canada
(Blais et al. 2001, 2006; Lanoue & Bowler 1998), New Zealand (Karp et al.
2002), Spain (Lago 2008), Portugal (Gschwend 2007b) and the United States
(Abramson et al. 1992, 1995). While evidence for strategic voting can be found
for most elections, the number of voters who actually engage in strategic voting
is fairly low and typically ranges between 5 and 15 per cent of the electorate.
In fact, strategic voting only makes sense if the appropriate conditions are
given – primarily a close race and plausible alternative choices (Alvarez et al.
2006).
Strategic voting behaviour has been very well documented for electoral
systems with single member districts and plurality elections – most notably
Great Britain – and to a lesser degree for electoral systems with multiparty
systems using proportional representation (Cox 1997). The latter type of
system usually leads to coalition governments but might offer as many, if not
more, incentives for strategic voting than British-type systems, especially for
supporters of small parties (Abramson et al. 2010). First, proportional rep-
resentation is usually not free from important restrictions – most notably a
minimum vote threshold that a party must pass to become eligible for seats
in parliament. Falling short of such a threshold means that a vote for a party
is ‘wasted’ or ‘lost’ because it does not count toward the distribution of seats
in parliament. Small parties that are close to the threshold, or fail to pass the
threshold, should raise strategic considerations of the electoral chances
among supporters of small parties. Strategic voters might also be found
among supporters of major parties. If the preferred major party has a pre-
ferred junior coalition partner that is in danger of falling short of the elec-
toral threshold, they might employ a coalition insurance strategy. Casting a
strategic list vote for the junior coalition partner might ensure that it can
pass the threshold and make the preferred coalition possible (Gschwend
2004, 2007a).
Our expectation is deceptively simple. A close election and plausible
alternative choices should increase the likelihood of strategic voting.
The challenge is to find, or more precisely to create, circumstances under
which voters face a close election for their preferred party along with
available options to vote strategically. In most real elections, few voters find
themselves in such a situation, and even if they do and defect from their
most preferred party, it is virtually impossible to rule out alternative,
non-strategic considerations for this decision. The solution we propose
below involves an experimental manipulation of poll information to create
theoretically relevant scenarios, but in the context of actual election
campaigns.
polls, coalition signals and strategic voting
3
© 2011 The Author(s)
European Journal of Political Research © 2011 European Consortium for Political Research

Polls, electoral expectations and political sophistication
Polls are a fact of life in political campaigns and widely reported in the media.
The question as to whether polls have any consistent effect on voters, however,
is far from settled (e.g., Mutz 1998).The theory of strategic voting assumes that
voters form rational expectations about the outcome of an election or, more
precisely, how well the parties will perform in the upcoming election (Cox
1997). Pre-election polls are the most important (even if not always correct)
source of such information and widely disseminated in the media during
political campaigns.
The availability of reliable polls, however, is not enough. Evidence from
public opinion research suggests that political expectations are subject to
prevalent projection effects. Expectations are often found to be strongly
shaped and distorted by existing political preferences (Abramson et al. 1992;
Babad 1995; Babad et al. 1992; Bartels 1985, 1987; Blais & Turgeon 2004; Dolan
& Holbrook 2001; Gimpel & Harvey 1997; Granberg & Brent 1983; Johnston
et al. 1992; Lewis-Beck & Skalaban 1989; Mutz 1998). For Germany, Schoen
(1999, 2000) shows that the expectation of whether or not a small party will
pass the 5 per cent minimum vote threshold is shaped by party identification.
Voters tend to overestimate the chances of preferred small parties while
underestimating the chances of disliked small parties. The literature cited
above suggests that expectations are a product of both preference-driven
projections and objective external sources of information such as polls. The
opposite case, that expectations influence preferences, is possible as well, but
given only a very low probability in the literature (Granberg & Brent 1983;
Mutz 1998).
If we accept that polls are the best available source of nonpartisan, fairly
objective information about the possible outcome of an upcoming election, the
more pertinent questions become who pays attention to polls and who uses
such information to make better predictions of electoral outcomes.
The most obvious answer is political sophisticates. Voters with a high level
of political knowledge should be most aware of the latest polls and thus
have a better ability to make accurate election forecasts. Awareness of
political information is, after all, a defining characteristic of political
sophistication (Zaller 1992). Dolan and Holbrook (2001) show that knowledge
improves the forecasting accuracy of voters. While mere ‘membership in the
polity’ (Lewis-Beck & Skalaban 1989;see also Irwin & Van Holsteyn 2002) and
experience with historical coalition formation patterns (Armstrong & Duch
2010) should be sufficient to make reasonable predictions, access to current
polls is required for more accurate forecasts of particular elections.
4
michael f. meffert & thomas gschwend
© 2011 The Author(s)
European Journal of Political Research © 2011 European Consortium for Political Research

Frequently asked questions

Q1. What are the contributions mentioned in the paper "Www.ssoar.info polls, coalition signals and strategic voting: an experimental investigation of perceptions and effects" ?

Using a laboratory experiment embedded in two real election campaigns, this study focuses on voters ’ attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals. The findings suggest that active information acquisition to form fairly accurate perceptions of election outcomes can compensate for the advantage of high political sophistication. 

Q2. What future works have the authors mentioned in the paper "Www.ssoar.info polls, coalition signals and strategic voting: an experimental investigation of perceptions and effects" ?

Due to the small and non-representative sample and the country-specific context, their conclusions are necessarily more tentative and require further corroboration with future research. If the authors consider coalition signals as valuable pieces of information for strategic voters, the evidence suggests that campaign managers need to rethink their campaign strategies in terms of coalition signals. Such behaviour was only found, as it should be, if polls © 2011 The Author ( s ) European Journal of Political Research © 2011 European Consortium for Political Research suggested a close election. Taken together, the high number of insincere voters and the low number of strategic voters suggest that researchers have to be very careful about how they classify and interpret voting behaviour that defects from the preferred party. 

Q3. What indicators were used to assess the attention of the participants to polls?

To better assess who pays attention to poll information, the number of manipulated poll articles (0 to 5) read by a participant was regressed on two self-reported indicators of political motivation, political interest and strength of party identification, an indicator for small party supporters, and the factual political knowledge scale. 

Q4. What is the key advantage of a strategic voting approach?

A crucial advantage of such an approach is the possibility to tap into and use the actual party preferences of participants, making a strategic voting decision more ‘costly’ compared to purely fictional parties and campaigns. 

Q5. Why are the conclusions of this study more tentative?

Due to the small and non-representative sample and the country-specific context, their conclusions are necessarily more tentative and require further corroboration with future research. 

Q6. Why did the poll manipulation focus on the more uncertain outcome for the three small parties?

Because the large party in each state was expected to win by large margins, the poll manipulation focused on the more uncertain outcome for the three small parties. 

Q7. What did the experimental design allow us to do?

The experimental design allowed us to create theoretically relevant scenarios, customised to participants’ actual party preferences, and gave us the opportunity to measure participants’ information selection behaviour and prediction abilities in unusual detail. 

Q8. What is the effect of reading more poll articles on the accuracy of predictions?

In short, while both political knowledge and the reading of additional poll articles can be expected to reduce prediction errors, the interaction of both variables should show a declining error-reduction effect of reading more articles as political knowledge increases. 

Q9. What is the effect of reading more poll articles on the accuracy of the predictions?

According to the latter, the error reducing effect of reading poll articles diminishes with increasing levels of sophistication and, in fact, completely disappears for high sophisticates (Figure 6). 

Q10. What is the effect of reading additional poll articles on the prediction error model?

While the prediction error model has only modest explanatory power (Adj. R2 = 0.17, Table 2), it demonstrates again the important role of political sophistication, along with a conditional effect of reading additional poll articles. 

Q11. What is the important source of information during the election campaign?

Pre-election polls are the most important (even if not always correct) source of such information and widely disseminated in the media during political campaigns. 

Q12. What makes the results of this study difficult?

At the same time, these experiments use highly abstract, context-free settings and monetary incentives that make a generalisation of the findings very difficult.