Inducing potential voters to go the polls

Expected Closeness or Mobilisation : Why Do Voters Go to the Polls ?

Using data of Swiss referenda from 1981 to 1999, this paper presents new empirical results which allow us to discriminate better between the decision and mobilisation hypotheses of electoral participation. First, the theoretical considerations are presented which lead to these hypotheses are presented as well as the theory of expressive voting, and a survey of the available empirical evidence i...

What Makes Voters Turn Out: The Effects of Polls and Beliefs

We use laboratory experiments to test for one of the foundations of the rational voter paradigm —that voters respond to probabilities of being pivotal. We exploit a setup that entails stark theoretical effects of information concerning the preference distribution (as revealed through polls) on costly participation decisions. The data reveal several insights. First, voting propensity increases s...

Predicting Preferences of Voters from Opinion Polls by Machine Learning and Game Theory

We present a method to determine political profiles of a voters population through the application of learning algorithms and game theory. Our process began with a collection of surveys gathered in two ways, from a website and directly from voters. Having a linear hierarchy on the attributes expressing the political preferences of the voters allow to apply a zero-sum game approach to distribute...

The realities behind the polls.

Do Polls InBuence the Vote?

PO L L S P ROV I D E I N F O R M AT I O N A B O U T how well the parties are doing in a campaign. That information may affect voters’ perceptions of the various parties’ chances of winning in a Arst past the post (FPP) system such as Canada or the chances of being part of a coalition government in a proportional representation (PR) system. By affecting voters’ expectations about the outcome of ...