How do voters decide

What kind of information mattered to them? How long did they continue evaluating the candidates? How did they deal with too much information about the race or too little? In other words, what does the voter decision process look like from a cognitive standpoint? Do all voters decide the same way or are there differences in how they pick their candidate.

And does the nature of the election itself change the way people decide? In , Richard Lau and David Redlawsk published How Voters Decide , a book based on a series of experimental studies they conducted attempting to answer these questions. Their methodological innovations and findings should be of interest to political consultants and campaign operatives. One of the most important methodological innovations in the Lau and Redlawsk study was the use of a dynamic information board to simulate elections.

This technical innovation allowed the experimenters to present political information to subjects in a way that mimics how they would actually encounter it in the real world. What kind of information was presented? Just like in a campaign, the information was presented as a transient news feed, interrupted by occasional political ads. No laboratory experiment can ever fully replicate the conditions of the real world. Another important methodological innovation in this study was the development of an empirical concept of correct voting.

Lau and Redlawsk operationalized their correct voting measure in two ways. First, they asked subjects a series of questions about their own preferences before holding the mock election — and compared their answers to the way they ultimately voted.

In other words, the vast majority of subjects who voted incorrectly did so according to both ways of measuring it. Lau and Redlawsk analyzed publicly available data from the highly respected American National Election Study.

This figure — and the ways in which it increased and decreased from election to election — was consistent with the evidence their simulated elections produced. While voters across the political spectrum vote for the wrong candidate in every election, incorrect votes are neither distributed nor determined randomly.

In both the real world and in simulated elections, the campaign with the most money consistently won the largest share of incorrect votes. Just as important, certain decision-making strategies in certain conditions predictably led voters astray. Over the course of their study, Lau and Redlawsk found evidence pointing to four basic decision models.

In other words, most voters go through a decision-making process that looks approximately like one of the following four alternatives.

Rational choice voters use reason, evidence and informed judgments to make decisions. Motivated by self-interest and a need for accuracy, they base their decisions on retrospective evaluations and prospective judgments about the candidates in the race.

Here are some examples of distortion techniques that you should watch for as you review candidates' campaign materials. These are attacks on an opponent based on characteristics that will not affect performance in office.

References to race, ethnicity or martial status can be subtly used to instill prejudice. These include statements such as, "Everyone says my opponent is a crook, but I have no personal knowledge of any wrongdoing," which imply but do not state that the opponent is guilty.

These are statements such as, "We all know Candidate B is backed by big money interest," that attack candidates because of their support rather than because of their stands on the issues. These are phrases such as "Law and Order" or "un-American" that are designed to trigger a knee-jerk emotional reaction rather than to inform. These are instances in which a candidate denies responsibility for an action or blames an opponent for things over which he or she had no control.

These include instances in which candidates may avoid answering direct questions, offer only vague solutions or talk about the benefits of proposed programs but never get specific about possible problems or costs. List your positions and rank the candidates on how they stand on the issues and your positions.

List the Leadership Qualities you want and rank the candidates on those qualities. The League of Women Voters does not support or oppose candidates for public office or political parties. The League of Women Voters Education Fund works to encourage the active and informed participation of citizens in government and to increase understanding of major public policy issues. Skip Navigation.

How do voters go about comparing and then judging candidates? The seven steps outlined below are designed to help you judge a candidate. Decide what you are looking for in a candidate. Find out about the candidates Gather materials about the candidates Evaluate candidates' stands on issues Learn about the candidates' leadership abilities Learn how other people view the candidate Sorting it all out Step 1: Decide what you are looking for in a candidate.

Step 2: Find out about the candidates. Step 3: Gather materials about the candidates. Sources of information from which you may choose include: campaign literature, including campaign Web sites nonpartisan online voter information Web sites like Smart Voter direct mail letters press reports newspapers, television, and radio radio and television ads candidates speeches candidate debates.

Step 4: Evaluate candidates' stands on issues. Look at the candidates' background and their experience. How well prepared are they for the job? Observe the candidates' campaigns. Do they accept speaking engagements before different groups - even those groups that might not be sympathetic? Do they accept invitations to debate? Do the campaigns emphasize media events where the candidates can be seen but not heard?

Review the campaign materials. As you read the materials and watch the campaign develop, add to the Candidate Report Card. I recently spoke with Professor Lau by telephone from the Rutgers campus as he was grading final exams: Q: Are voters usually rational when they choose a candidate? Yes, absolutely.

A more formal economic definition of rationality is … to very actively and conscientiously consider the consequences of the different alternatives for your own well-being, however you want to define that, and, in this case, vote for the candidate that maximizes your self-interest, however you want to define that.

Not very many people do that. Q: What kinds of information or forms of persuasion are voters most likely to be influenced by? Q: Is there anything that is least likely to sway a voter? Q: When you did your research, did you look at the effect of TV political ads, fliers, print ads, newspaper editorials? Was that part of your research? Really people often do better with little information than with a lot of information. We had two different types of voters who we talked about.

It is important to note that each party respectively in certain elections, would have stronger voting behavior of their strongest party identifiers. The same level of voting behavior can also be applied to state and local levels. While straight ticket voting has declined among the general voting population, it is still prevalent in those who are strong Republicans and strong Democrats.

In contrast to party voting, issue voting is when voters base their election decisions on political issues. These issues can relate to any questions of public policy that are a source of debate between political parties. Individuals vote for the candidate that best matches their own views. Voting Booth : Issue voting has affected the decisions Americans make at the voting booth. Issue voting has become prominent in recent elections. The in issue voting rise can be traced to increasing polarization between the Democratic and Republican parties.

Moderates, who account for a large segment of the American population, become more alienated as each party adopts more extreme viewpoints. Subsequently, this alienation has led to an increase in the amount of people who identify as independents in order to escape the constraints of a polarized party. The loss of party identification affiliated with being an independent generates the greater issue voting. While issue voting has risen in recent years, many factors can complicate it.

For instance, many stances can be taken on issues and voters must settle for the candidate whose views most closely match their own. When the aforementioned situations take place, a voter may revert to party voting or may base their decision off of the individual personalities of the candidates. Similarly, issue salience is when people vote on the basis of how relevant an issue is to their lives. Most issues that are part of the national agenda can sometimes be a consequence of media agenda-setting and agenda-building.

In a commercialized media context, the media can often not afford to ignore an important issue which another television station, newspaper, or radio station is willing to pick up. The media may be able to create new issues by reporting and should that should be considered seriously.