Can ATMs Get Out the Vote? Evidence from a Nationwide Field Experiment

Tavares, José, Joao Pereira Dos Santos and Pedro Vicente

No 13991, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We report on a large-scale field experiment to assess ATMs (automatic teller machines) capacity to “get out the vote†. This is a heretofore unexploited method. Our experimental design used the universe of functioning ATMs in Portugal. We randomly selected a set of treatment civil parishes, where a civic message took over the totality of ad time, which we compare with a set of control areas. The campaign we follow was active for three days before and during the 2017 local elections. Although we do not achieve statistical significance on a stable but small average treatment effect, when we consider the intensity of treatment, results show a statistically significant increase in the likelihood of voting. Placebo tests using turnout rates in previous elections strengthen our interpretation. We ran a post-treatment survey around ATMs located in two neighbouring civil parishes, one treated, the other not. We found a sizeable difference in recall.

Keywords: Voter mobilization; Atms; Portugal; Local elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 D72 H70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-exp, nep-pay and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13991 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Can ATMs get out the vote? Evidence from a nationwide field experiment (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13991

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP13991

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().