Voting Can Be Hard, Information Helps

Melody Crowder-Meyer, Shana Kushner Gadarian, Jessica Trounstine

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

36 Scopus citations

Abstract

Many U.S. elections provide voters with precious little information about candidates on the ballot. In local contests, party labels are often absent. In primary elections, party labels are not useful. Indeed, much of the time, voters have only the name of the candidate to go by. In these contexts, how do voters make decisions? Using several experiments, we find that voters use candidates’ race, ethnicity, and gender as cues for whom to support—penalizing candidates of color and benefiting women. But we also demonstrate that providing even a small amount of information to voters—such as candidate occupation—virtually erases the effects of candidate demographics on voter behavior, even among voters with high levels of racial and gender prejudice.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)124-153
Number of pages30
JournalUrban Affairs Review
Volume56
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2020

Keywords

  • American politics
  • and politics
  • ethnicity
  • experimental research
  • gender and politics
  • local elections
  • political behavior
  • race

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science
  • Urban Studies

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