To explore the psychology of voting secrecy, we conducted a field experiment to examine voter sensitivity to arrangements for ballot paper selection under the French ballot system (i.e., multiple ballot papers). Working closely with Swedish election authorities, we randomly assigned participants to vote in a fictional election under low, medium-high and high privacy conditions with a follow up paper-and-pen survey to record perceived voting secrecy. Results show that participants perceived an arrangement for selecting ballot papers behind a closed screen as clearly more secret than one where selection was public, and that a third and even more private arrangement, where voters did not have to walk a few meters with ballot papers in hand, potentially visible to onlookers, provided even higher levels of perceived secrecy. The study demonstrates that voters are sensitive even to small changes in the voting environment. Accordingly, election administrators should be aware that details matter for the experience of voting secretly. Copyright 2023, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

People are commonly expected not to waste their vote on parties with small probabilities of being elected. Yet, many end up voting for underdogs. We argue that voters gauge the popular support for their preferred party from their social networks. When social networks function as echo chambers, a feature observed in real-life networks, voters overestimate underdogs’ chances of winning. We conduct voting experiments in which some treatment groups receive signals from a simulated network. We compare the effect of networks with a high degree of homogeneity against random networks. We find that homophilic networks increase the level of support for underdogs, which provides evidence to back up anecdotal claims that echo chambers foster the development of fringe parties.

This article focuses on how party identity can shape policy support or opposition to the controversial issue of legalizing cannabis in Sweden, which is strongly opposed by the public. In a survey experiment (N = 3612), we manipulated if a message that supported or opposed a policy proposal to legalize cannabis was presented by a representative of the own party or an outgroup party. Results showed increased opposition to the proposal when the ingroup party opposed the policy and when the outgroup party endorsed the policy. When the ingroup party endorsed the policy and when the outgroup party opposed the policy, attitudes to the policy were not influenced. We argue that prior attitudes moderate how ingroup- and outgroup party messages are processed and that voters do not blindly follow the party line. Only when the own party presents a position that coincides with the individual’s prior position, are attitudes strengthened and voters follow the party line. Attitudes are also strengthened as a way to increase distance to a disliked outgroup party. When the party cue contradicts prior beliefs (ingroup-endorse; outgroup-oppose), the information is ignored, which allows individuals to retain their view of the party, be it positive or negative.

Compensational voting refers to when voters cast a vote for a more extreme party than they prefer, in order to push policies closer to an ideal point. This article develops the idea of compensational voting in regard to pre-electoral coalition signals and polling trends. The argument is that a significant share of voters consider the relative strength of the parties in their preferred pre-electoral coalition, and adjust their vote choice accordingly. This is elaborated by conducting a mixed logit model over eight Swedish general elections where parties were more or less clear about their intentions to collaborate with other parties. Combining unique data from parties’ election manifestos including negative and positive quotes about other parties with polling trends and voters’ approval rating of parties, the analysis lends support to the idea that this type of coalition-oriented compensational voting occurs.

We propose that leaders play a more important role in voters’ party sympathy in proportional representation systems (PR) than previous research has suggested. Voters, from the 2018 Swedish General Election, were in an experiment asked to describe leaders and parties with three indicative keywords. Statistical models were conducted on these text data to predict their vote choice. The results show that despite that the voters vote for a party, the descriptions of leaders predicted vote choice to a similar extent as descriptions of parties. However, the order of the questions mattered, so that the first questions were more predictive than the second question. These analyses indicate that voters tend to conflate characteristics of leaders with their parties during election campaigns, and that leaders are a more important aspect of voting under PR than previous literature has suggested. Overall, this suggests that statistical analysis of words sheds new light of underlying sympathies related to voting.

Objectives Previous research suggests that governments usually gain support during crises such as the Covid-19. However, these findings are based on rating scales that only allow us to measure the strength of this support. This article proposes a new measure of how voters evaluate Prime Ministers (PM) by asking for descriptive keywords that are analyzed by natural language processing. Methods By collecting a representative sample of citizens' own key words describing their PM in 15 countries in Europe during the outbreak of Covid-19, and analyzing these by latent semantic analysis and a multiple OLS regression, we could quantify the strength and direction of voters' view. Results The strength analysis supported previous studies that describing the PM with positive words was strongly associated with vote intention. Furthermore, a change in the direction of the attitudes from "good" to "honest" was found. A new finding was that the pandemic was associated with an increase in polarization. Conclusions The keyword evaluation analysis provides opportunities of evaluating both strength and direction of voters' view of their PM, where we show new results related to increased polarization and shift in the direction of attitudes.

There is perennial debate in comparative politics about electoral institutions, but what characterizes this debate is the lack of consideration for citizens’ perspective. In this paper, we report the results of an original survey conducted on representative samples in 15 West European countries (N = 15,414). We implemented an original instrument to elicit respondents’ views by asking them to rate “real but blind” electoral outcomes. With this survey instrument, we aimed to elicit principled rather than partisan preferences regarding the kind of electoral outcomes that citizens think is good for democracy. We find that West Europeans do not clearly endorse a majoritarian or proportional vision of democracy. They tend to focus on aspects of the government rather than parliament when they pass a judgment. They want a majority government that has few parties and enjoys wide popular support. Finally, we find only small differences between citizens of different countries.

Coronakrisen har gynnat regeringspartier i olika länder. Och väljarens förtroende för partiet är kopplat till vem som leder partiet - en tendens som förstärkts under Corona. I Norden brukar partiet framhållas framför ledaren så det vi nu ser är en "amerikanisering" av politiken. Och så har krisen tydligare delat den svenska väljarkåren i två läger: de som gillar Löfven, och de som inte gör det, skriver bland andra Annika Fredén, universitetslektor i statsvetenskap.

Quantitative text analysis is a growing research field in political science, whereas very few combine survey experiments with in-depth analysis of citizens’ word expressions. This chapter illustrates how a survey experiment and a latent semantic analysis are successfully combined in analyzing the 2016 EU referendum in Great Britain (Brexit). This example combines an analysis of semantic cluster approach based on experimental text data with multivariate maximum likelihood estimations. Using this approach, we are able to make finer inferences on the relationship between threat conditions and individual political behavior.

Objectives

Preelectoral party coalitions are common in multiparty systems. We examine the proposition that individuals who choose between parties from competing coalitions think and behave differently compared to those who only consider voting for parties of the same coalition. Part of the reason, we suggest, is that coalition‐straddling voters play a key role in deciding who forms government.

Methods

We rely on data from a multiwave panel with thousands of participants collected during two election campaigns in Sweden. Statistical regression techniques are used to analyze the data.

Results

We find that citizens who straddle opposing coalitions think that the vote decision is harder and rely more on voting advice applications. Moreover, the evidence suggests that their ultimate vote choice is more consequential in how they view parties.

Conclusion

Coalition‐straddling influences political behavior. The evidence is largely in line with the notion that coalition‐straddling individuals are aware of their importance.