Majority Lost: Global Evidence and Field Experiments on Electoral Miscoordination

Voters in multiparty systems often fail to coordinate on majority-preferred parties. Using constituency-level election data linked to party-ideology measures across 96 countries, we show that in 20–30% of multiparty elections since 1940 the Condorcet winner does not win, and in roughly 10% the winner is the Condorcet loser. Failures are most common under plurality rule and in fragmented, volatile party systems, and systematically disadvantage opposition and culturally liberal parties while benefiting organizationally strong ones. Can information fix this? In four pre-registered experiments around Indian elections (N > 4,000), constituency-level polls shift voting intentions by at most 2 percentage points, a precisely estimated null, despite modest belief updating, though undecided voters become 7 points more likely to support a viable party. A model with expressive motives rationalizes both results: polls refine beliefs but lack the leverage to overcome entrenched attachments, identifying boundary conditions on polls as coordination devices.