IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/now/jlqjps/100.00011073.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Emails from Official Sources Can Increase Turnout

Author

Listed:
  • Malhotra, Neil
  • Michelson, Melissa R.
  • Valenzuela, Ali Adam

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Malhotra, Neil & Michelson, Melissa R. & Valenzuela, Ali Adam, 2012. "Emails from Official Sources Can Increase Turnout," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 7(3), pages 321-332, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00011073
    DOI: 10.1561/100.00011073
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00011073
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1561/100.00011073?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lieberman, Evan S. & Posner, Daniel N. & Tsai, Lily L., 2014. "Does Information Lead to More Active Citizenship? Evidence from an Education Intervention in Rural Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 69-83.
    2. Carisa Bergner & Bruce A. Desmarais & John Hird, 2019. "Speaking truth in power: Scientific evidence as motivation for policy activism," Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, Center for Experimental and Behavioral Public Administration, vol. 2(1).
    3. Moura, Mauricio & Michelson, Melissa R., 2017. "WhatsApp in Brazil: mobilising voters through door-to-door and personal messages," Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG), Berlin, vol. 6(4), pages 1-18.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:now:jlqjps:100.00011073. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lucy Wiseman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nowpublishers.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.