Doctoral Dissertation Research In Economics: Compulsory versus Voluntary Voting: An Experimental Study

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This award funds a doctoral dissertation that will use laboratory experiments to study the consequences of compulsory voting mechanisms on voting behavior. Voting may be voluntary or compulsory. For instance, voting may be compulsory (no abstention) or voluntary (abstention allowed) in small committees or in jury deliberations. In U.S. federal district courts, juror abstention from voting on a verdict in a criminal matter is not allowed while juror abstention is allowed in certain U.S. state courts; for example in civil cases where unanimity is not required. There are also differences in voting rules for larger-scale, national elections. Argentina, Australia and Belgium are among several nations where voting (more accurately, showing up to vote) in national elections is compelled by law. The coPI plans a laboratory experiment to study the consequences of compulsory or voluntary voting mechanisms on voting behavior using the set-up of the Condorcet jury model. In that setting, individual voters all share a common interest, for instance, to acquit the innocent or to convict the guilty, but prior to any voting, each individual receives noisy private information regarding the true binary state of nature, e.g., whether the accused is innocent or guilty. The jury's (electorate's) choice is determined by majority rule. He studies two different voting mechanisms: (1) compulsory voting, where all voters are required to vote, and (2) voluntary voting, where each voter may first independently choose whether to abstain or to vote. In the latter case, we also consider whether voting is costly or not. Game theory predicts that under either voting mechanism rational (i.e. strategic) voters will employ mixed strategies in equilibrium (under certain conditions). In the mixed strategy equilibrium of the compulsory voting mechanism, rational voters should sometimes vote strategically, i.e., against their private signal regarding the true state of nature, and otherwise vote sincerely, i.e., in accordance with their private signal. Such behavior can be rationalized by the recognition that other voters may have different signals and in small groups, there is some chance that an individual voter?s choice is pivotal to the outcome; these pivotality concerns can outweigh the value of the private signal, creating incentives to vote strategically. By contrast, in the mixed strategy equilibrium of the voluntary voting mechanism, rational voters resolve pivotality issues by playing a mixed strategy not with respect to the sincerity of their vote but with respect to their decision to vote or to abstain from voting; under the voluntary mechanism, all those who choose to vote are predicted to vote sincerely, according to their private signal. Voter participation rates under the voluntary mechanism are all endogenously determined. Participation decisions are further affected if there are costs to voting. The laboratory study funded by this award investigates all of these behavioral predictions. The study uses a 2x2 design where the treatment variables are whether 1) voting is compulsory or voluntary and 2) (in the voluntary treatment) whether voting is costly or not. Experimental methods are well-suited to testing these theoretical predictions as the laboratory environment enables precise control over the voting mechanisms, the states of nature, private signals, group sizes and voting costs; environmental features that are difficult (if not impossible) to control in the field. The experimental findings from this first-ever study comparing compulsory and voluntary voting mechanisms will yield us a better understanding of voting behavior under these two mechanisms and may also provide some rationale as to why both mechanisms are used.