Previous research by Nickerson (2007a) testing 13 email get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns concludes that email from third parties is not an effective method of increasing voter turnout. We conducted three rounds of email GOTV experiments in San Mateo County, California, in cooperation with the local registrar, the elected official responsible for administering elections. Unsolicited emails sent from the registrar consistently increased turnout among registered voters. The treatment effects are small, but statistically significant. In contrast, identical messages sent from a fictional voter mobilization organization had no measurable effect, consistent with Nickerson’s results. We conclude that email sent from an official source can in fact be a cost-effective method of increasing turnout.
Emails from Official Sources Can Increase Turnout* Available to Purchase
This research was conducted in cooperation with Warren Slocum, former Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder, San Mateo County, California, and Carol Marks, San Mateo County Director of Communications/Special Programs, as well as other members of Mr. Slocum’s office. We are also grateful to Raechelle Clemmons for helpful feedback on various IT issues, and to the anonymous reviewers and editor of the Quarterly Journal of Political Science. We also thank Kevin Arceneaux, Elizabeth Bennion, Donald Green, David Nickerson, and Costas Panagopoulos for valuable comments on previous drafts.
Malhotra N, Michelson MR, Valenzuela AA (2012), "Emails from Official Sources Can Increase Turnout*". Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Vol. 7 No. 3 pp. 321–332, doi: https://doi.org/10.1561/100.00011073
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