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The electoral implications of politically irrelevant cues under demanding electoral systems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2019

Taishi Muraoka
Taishi Muraoka*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Washington University, One Brookings Dr., St. Louis, MO63130, United States
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Cognitively demanding electoral systems increase the chance that voters make their choices based on politically irrelevant cues. To illustrate this argument, I analyze the effect of candidate name complexity—a visual cue that contains no politically meaningful information—in Japan, where voters need to write their preferred candidate's name on a blank ballot paper. I find that when electoral systems require voters to weigh a large number of candidates and simultaneously reduce the usefulness of partisan cues, candidates with more complex names tend to receive lower vote shares. By contrast, under less cognitively demanding systems, candidate name complexity has no effect on election outcomes. These findings have important implications for the debate on the “best” electoral system design.

Keywords

Comparative politicspolitical institutionsrepresentation and electoralsystemsvoting behavior
Type
Original Article
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 312 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2019

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Supplementary material: Link

Muraoka Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/2PTJJV
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Muraoka supplementary material

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