Private Ballot Secrecy Ads Boost Election Turnout, Two Experiments Show

Voting and Elections @PSR&M 4 Stata files 1 dataset Dataverse

Doubts about ballot secrecy persist and depress voter participation in the U.S.🚫

New experiments suggest private groups can help. 🔥

A nonpartisan nonprofit sent mail emphasizing ballot secrecy to nonvoters during the 2014 election, 🗳️ resulting in a ~1 percentage point turnout increase among recently registered voters.
This effect is precisely estimated and robust across different state political contexts. ✅

But wait: 🔍

The increase was not statistically significant when compared to standard voter mobilization appeals (reminder + encouragement). 🤔

This finding has important implications for understanding how campaign messaging influences elections in the U.S.🃏 and points toward future research directions. 💡

Article card for article: Non-Governmental Campaign Communication Providing Ballot Secrecy Assurances Increases Turnout: Results from Two Large Scale Experiments

Non-Governmental Campaign Communication Providing Ballot Secrecy Assurances Increases Turnout: Results from Two Large Scale Experiments was authored by Alan S. Gerber, Gregory Huber, Albert H. Fang and Andrew Gooch. It was published by Cambridge in PSR&M in 2018.