Voters and the Personal Vote: A Counterfactual Simulation

Electoral formulas and campaign practices in some nations encourage voters to consider the personal qualifications of candidates for legislative office, whereas individuating information about candidates is unavailable to voters in other nations. Where electoral rules and elite behavior foster the p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPolitical research quarterly Vol. 53; no. 3; pp. 663 - 676
Main Authors Canache, Damarys, Mondak, Jeffery J., Cabrera, Ernesto
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 260 SO. Central Campus Drive, RM. 252, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9153, USA University of Utah 01.09.2000
SAGE Publications
University of Utah Press, etc
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Candidates
Comparative politics
Contrafactuals
Decision Making
Elections
Electoral behaviour
Electoral rules
Electoral systems
Local elections
Mexico
Personal information
Personal relationships
Personality
Personality traits
Political campaigns
Political candidates
Political parties
Political Systems
Research Note
Venezuela
Voter behavior
Voters
Voting
Voting Behavior
Voting behaviour
Venezuela
Mexico
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Summary:Electoral formulas and campaign practices in some nations encourage voters to consider the personal qualifications of candidates for legislative office, whereas individuating information about candidates is unavailable to voters in other nations. Where electoral rules and elite behavior foster the personal vote, the personal vote flourishes. However, it is unclear why voters respond to personal information about candidates. We test two competing hypotheses: that the personal vote reflects a general human tendency to attend to information regarding individuals' personal qualifications; and that the personal vote is an acquired behavior that emerges after voters are socialized to attend to personal information about candidates. We use counterfactual simulations to test these hypotheses. Specifically, we conduct laboratory experiments in which subjects drawn from Mexico and Venezuela—nations in which electoral rules ensure that the personal vote does not flourish—are provided the opportunity to consider candidates' personal qualifications. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that the personal vote stems from a general tendency in human decision making.
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ISSN:1065-9129
1938-274X
DOI:10.1177/106591290005300310