Partisanship and Voting Rule Trade-offs

David Doherty (), Conor Dowling (), Michael Miller () and Jeffrey Milyo
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David Doherty: Department of Political Science, Loyola University Chicago
Conor Dowling: Department of Political Science, University at Buffalo, SUNY
Michael Miller: Department of Political Science, Barnard College, Columbia University

No 2517, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Missouri

Abstract: To what extent are partisan differences about voting rules rooted in sincere disagreements about the relative importance of maximizing turnout versus preventing ineligible voters from casting ballots? We document partisan differences in preferences regarding this trade-off over time, demonstrating that these differences are particularly pronounced among the most politically interested respondents. We then report findings from two pre-registered survey experiments that shed light on whether these gaps are a product of partisan sorting or responses to elite cues. The experiments asked participants to make trade-offs between a pair of voting systems: one that would entirely prevent ineligible votes, randomly varying turnout rates among eligible voters, and one that would have 100 percent turnout among eligible voters, but result in some randomly varied number of ineligible voters casting ballots. Some participants were also provided with cues signaling which party endorsed which system. Our results suggest that the effects of divergent partisan cues, rather than differing priorities regarding maximizing eligible turnout and minimizing ineligible turnout explain the partisan gaps we find in our observational data. Taken together, the findings suggest that strategic elites can stoke partisan disagreements about how the democratic process should work.

Keywords: Voting rules; partisanship; survey; experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H79 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-12
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