IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/feb/natura/00250.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Partisan mail and voter turnout: Results from randomized field experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Alan Gerber
  • Donald Green
  • Matthew Green

Abstract

Political campaigns currently make extensive use of direct mail, particularly in state and local races, yet its effects on voter behavior are not well understood. This essay presents the results of large-scale randomized field experiments conducted in Connecticut and New Jersey during state and municipal elections of 1999. Tens of thousands of registered voters were sent from zero to nine pieces of direct mail. The target populations included party registrants with a strong history of voter participation, independents, and a random subset of registered voters. Our results indicate partisan campaign mail does little to stimulate voter turnout and may even dampen it when the mail is negative in tone.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan Gerber & Donald Green & Matthew Green, 2003. "Partisan mail and voter turnout: Results from randomized field experiments," Natural Field Experiments 00250, The Field Experiments Website.
    • Handle: RePEc:feb:natura:00250
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://s3.amazonaws.com/fieldexperiments-papers2/papers/00250.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cox, Gary W. & Munger, Michael C., 1989. "Closeness, Expenditures, and Turnout in the 1982 U.S. House Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 217-231, March.
    2. Alan Gerber & Donald Green, 2000. "The effects of canvassing, direct mail, and telephone contact on voter turnout: A field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00248, The Field Experiments Website.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Enrico Cantoni & Vincent Pons, 2021. "Do interactions with candidates increase voter support and participation? Experimental evidence from Italy," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(2), pages 379-402, July.
    2. Lisa M. George & Joel Waldfogel, 2006. "The New York Times and the Market for Local Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 435-447, March.
    3. Lyytikäinen, Teemu & Tukiainen, Janne, 2019. "Are voters rational?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 230-242.
    4. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2016. "Local representation and strategic voting: Evidence from electoral boundary reforms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 31-45.
    5. Katharina E. Hofer, 2017. "Partisan Campaigning and Initiative Petition Signing in Direct Democracies," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 153(3), pages 261-291, July.
    6. Franziska Marquart & Andreas C Goldberg & Claes H de Vreese, 2020. "‘This time I’m (not) voting’: A comprehensive overview of campaign factors influencing turnout at European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(4), pages 680-705, December.
    7. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2016. "Local representation and strategic voting: Evidence from electoral boundary reforms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 31-45.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Haman, 2021. "Recall Elections: A Tool of Accountability? Evidence from Peru," Revista Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes,Facultad de Economía, CEDE, vol. 87(3), March.
    2. Helios Herrera & Massimo Morelli & Salvatore Nunnari, 2016. "Turnout Across Democracies," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(3), pages 607-624, July.
    3. Konstantinou, Panagiotis Th. & Panagiotidis, Theodore & Roumanias, Costas, 2021. "State-dependent effect on voter turnout: The case of US House elections," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 753-765.
    4. Alabrese, Eleanora, 2022. "National Polls, Local Preferences and Voters’ Behaviour : Evidence from the UK General Elections," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1426, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    5. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel François, 2015. "Mobilization, cost of voting and turnout: a natural randomized experiment with double elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 183-199, January.
    6. León, Gianmarco, 2017. "Turnout, political preferences and information: Experimental evidence from Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 56-71.
    7. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03384143, HAL.
    8. Grácio, Matilde & Vicente, Pedro C., 2021. "Information, get-out-the-vote messages, and peer influence: Causal effects on political behavior in Mozambique," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    9. Lisa M. George & Joel Waldfogel, 2006. "The New York Times and the Market for Local Newspapers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 435-447, March.
    10. Alan Gerber & Mitchell Hoffman & John Morgan & Collin Raymond, 2020. "One in a Million: Field Experiments on Perceived Closeness of the Election and Voter Turnout," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 287-325, July.
    11. Alberto Chong & Gianmarco León‐Ciliotta & Vivian Roza & Martín Valdivia & Gabriela Vega, 2019. "Urbanization Patterns, Information Diffusion, and Female Voting in Rural Paraguay," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 63(2), pages 323-341, April.
    12. Yusaku Horichi & Jun Saito, 2009. "Rain, Elections and Money: The Impact of Voter Turnout on Distributive Policy Outcomes in Japan," Asia Pacific Economic Papers 379, Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    13. Julia Cage & Edgard Dewitte, 2021. "It Takes Money to Make MPs: Evidence from 150 Years of British Campaign Spending," Sciences Po publications 2021-08, Sciences Po.
    14. Laurent Bouton & Julia Cagé & Edgard Dewitte & Vincent Pons, 2021. "Small Campaign Donors," Working Papers hal-03878175, HAL.
    15. Julia Cage & Yasmine Bekkouche, 2018. "The Price of a Vote: Evidence from France, 1993-2014," Sciences Po publications 12614, Sciences Po.
    16. Musharraf Rasool Cyan & Antonios M. Koumpias & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2016. "The Effects of Media Campaigns on Individual Attitudes towards Tax Compliance; Quasi-experimental Evidence from Survey Data in Pakistan," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1609, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    17. Watanabe, Hajime & Maruyama, Takuya, 2023. "A Bayesian instrumental variable model for multinomial choice with correlated alternatives," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    18. Francesco Drago & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Sobbrio, 2014. "Meet the Press: How Voters and Politicians Respond to Newspaper Entry and Exit," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 159-188, July.
    19. Vincenzo Galasso & Tommaso Nannicini, 2016. "Persuasion and Gender: Experimental Evidence from Two Political Campaigns," CESifo Working Paper Series 5868, CESifo.
    20. Hessami, Zohal & Resnjanskij, Sven, 2019. "Complex ballot propositions, individual voting behavior, and status quo bias," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 82-101.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:feb:natura:00250. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: David Franks (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.fieldexperiments.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.