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Political Behavior

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07.11.2018 | Original Paper

Cue-Taking, Satisficing, or Both? Quasi-experimental Evidence for Ballot Position Effects

verfasst von: Thomas Däubler, Lukas Rudolph

Erschienen in: Political Behavior | Ausgabe 2/2020

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Abstract

Ballot position effects have been documented across a variety of political and electoral systems. In general, knowledge of the underlying mechanisms is limited. There is also little research on such effects in preferential-list PR systems, in which parties typically present ranked lists and thus signaling is important. This study addresses both gaps. Theoretically, we formalize four models of voter decision-making: pure appeal-based utility maximization, implying no position effects; rank-taking, where voters take cues from ballot position per se; satisficing, where choice is a function of appeal, but voters consider the options in the order of their appearance; and a hybrid “satisficing-with-rank-taking” variant. From these, we derive differential observable implications. Empirically, we exploit a quasi-experiment, created by the mixed-member electoral system that is used in the state of Bavaria, Germany. Particular electoral rules induce variation in both the observed rank and the set of competitors, and allow for estimating effects at all ranks. We find clear evidence for substantial position effects, which are strongest near the top, but discernible even for the 15th list position. In addition, a candidate’s vote increases when the average appeal of higher-placed (but not that of lower-placed) competitors is lower. Overall, the evidence is most compatible with the hybrid satisficing-with-rank-taking model. Ballot position thus affects both judgment and choice of candidates.

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To avoid confusion, note that throughout the text we use the words “high” and “low” in the context of list ranks in a positional way, i.e. higher means further up.

In 2011, from 30 European countries covered by Pilet et al. (2016), 60% used a PLPR system (ten with flexible lists, six with open lists and two with open list panachage systems).

With semi-open/flexible lists, pre-electoral list ranks can matter for intra-party seat allocation after the votes are cast, since candidates need to reach a certain number of preference votes to qualify for being moved to the top of the post-electoral ranking (Marsh 1985; Renwick and Pilet 2016). However, even in fully open list PR (OLPR) systems, where this is not the case, lists may be intentionally ordered. In elections to the European Parliament, five out of ten OLPR cases (Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland) use ranked lists although the pre-electoral ranks have a direct influence on post-electoral vote–seat translation only in the case of a tie (Däubler and Hix 2018 , p. 3).

Throughout the paper, we use the terms list position, list rank and ballot position interchangeably.

As discussed by Rudolph and Däubler (2016, pp. 748–749) in more detail, this is a plausible approach in the context of OLPR. Many citizens can be expected to choose first a party and then a specific candidate, and even if they do not proceed that way, differences between the most preferred candidates within lists are unlikely to affect the choice between lists (as long as party-level factors weigh strong in voters’ utility function, which is typically the case in the parliamentary systems of Europe).

Empirically, list position and the candidate vote would be correlated, of course – this, however, is only a consequence of unobserved confounders (e.g. media attention after the ranking is made, compare van Erkel and Thijssen 2016) that may add to the appeal of a candidate.

Through a related mechanism, list rank may signal the viability of a candidate, which would matter to voters who choose strategically and may also anticipate that many other voters take list position as a cue. We do not elaborate on this, since strategic voting should not be relevant to the ballot position effect that we identify in our context and with our research design. In addition to our doubts that many voters cast their OLPR vote instrumentally, very sophisticated voters understanding the consequences of the complex Bavarian electoral system would also grasp that viability in the OLPR tier must be assessed on a region-wide basis, rather than using the list observed in the given SMD.

Meredith and Salant (2013), on the other hand, report that simple satisficing cannot explain the patterns found in multi-winner races in California city council and school board elections, which employ random rotation.

As of 2013; 2008: 91; 2003: 92.

Although not doing so, i.e. indicating a party preference by markings on the list, has been deemed lawful by the constitutional court. Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier (2015) suggested that obligatory preference voting is associated with stronger placement effects compared to systems in which the candidate vote is optional, and less informed voters may vote for the list “as a whole”. However, whether this argument extends to placement effects beyond the first list position is theoretically unclear.

Thus, this model also rules out any anchoring (Ariely et al. 2003), contrast (Simonson and Tversky 1992), or other effects between the alternatives. We do by no means claim that they are irrelevant in the context of candidate choice but leave an incorporation of such effects for further research.

As pointed out there, an equivalent way of interpreting the model is that candidate utility is fixed, but voters are uncertain about their reservation value.

In case the value of a certain list position to a voter does not vary across parties or districts, it would actually be the same for any list of the same length.

This is because such candidates are more readily accepted due to the value of their list position alone, and the assumed acceptance function has a sigmoid rather than linear shape (so additional gains decrease for baseline acceptance probabilities above .5).

See http://landtagswahl2008.bayern.de/ for 2008 and http://landtagswahl2013.bayern.de/ for 2013. Additionally, we use information on individual candidates from Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte (http://www.hdbg.de/parlament/content/index.html).

List length C varies between 13 and 60 candidates.

We include zeros with half the observed value, i.e. we count zeros as half a vote.

Put differently, our theoretical framework provides a theoretical rationale for the log-transformation, which is often motivated from a data perspective (Blom-Hansen et al. 2016; van Erkel and Thijssen 2016; Marcinkiewicz 2014).

Even if there is correlation in candidate performance across tiers, there is no obvious bias, since the counterfactual focuses on another candidate: if we expect that some SMD-candidate A would do better in the OLPR tier of her SMD, this leads to a comparison of some other candidate B’s performance in SMDs in which A competes (and has not got the advantage) with B’s performance in the SMD of A (in which A would do better but does not appear on the list).

Binary variables: district with 2013 CSU relatives affair (Rudolph and Däubler 2016; Kauder and Potrafke 2015), urban district (SMD district predominantly is a city or town); continuous variables, binarized at the 50th percentile: CSU first vote, employment share, immigrant share, population density, population influx, number of constructions, number of farmers, taxes per capita.

Additionally, Online Appendix Figures A.2 and A.3 provide a graphical overview of the places of residence of candidates on general list position 1 to 3 and SMDs with a candidate on first, second or third OLPR list rank. As can be seen, there is some clustering in larger cities (especially Munich and Nuremberg; note, though, that these as well have 8 and respectively 4 local SMD districts). Overall, however, spatial patterns do not seem to point to systematic clustering of candidates with higher OLPR list rank in specific types of districts.

Which they do, cf. Tables 2, 3 and A.5.

Cf. Online Appendix Section A.2.

When estimating our models for long lists, our results show similar patterns (see Table A.7).

As such covariates, we use direct indicators of candidate appeal (incumbent MP, prominent politician) or indirect ones, such as the rank of the dropped candidate.

Clustering at a higher level (we considered clustering at the district–year–party level) did not change our substantive conclusions; the changes to the standard errors were marginal. As clustering at a higher level is not the per se more conservative approach (standard errors are smaller for some coefficients), we cluster at the candidate level given the bias–variance trade-off inherent in choosing larger clusters (Cameron and Miller 2015).

Online Appendix Table A.2 shows that our results hold for the full sample, and also with one single treatment dummy providing an average effect over all candidates (see discussion in Online Appendix Section A.4).

With the exception of the coefficient for moving up from 7th to 10th as compared to 11th to 15th, although this difference is significant with controls in Model 2-2.

Models A.2-1 and A.3-2 in the Online Appendix show that the argument of a diminishing return to list rank is mirrored in the (correlational) pattern that higher pre-election list rank is associated with increasingly higher vote shares.

Also note that the candidate fixed effects capture the denominator of the expected vote share, so the model does not predict values out of range, see Online Appendix Section A.1. In addition, Table A.4 provides empirical evidence that the marginal benefit of appeal is higher in lower list positions, which anticipates the evidence for the satisficing-with-rank-taking model further discussed below.

See Online Appendix Table A.3 for results displaying pre-election rank coefficients and including controls.

Political attention during campaigns is usually focused on one candidate (“Spitzenkandidat”) in each party, who leads the campaign across the whole state. Since these candidates, who lead (no more than) one list, typically also run as SMD candidates, one may wonder to which extent their removal drives the observed differences in treatment effects shown in Fig. 1. Models 2 and 3 of Online Appendix Table A.8 contrast lists with and without Spitzenkandidat. While the difference in effects depending on which list position is dropped is much larger where a Spitzenkandidat takes baseline rank 1, it is still considerable in the remaining cases (In the 3\(\rightarrow\)2 case, the two treatment coefficients imply vote gains of 63% versus 21% even without a Spitzenkandidat being removed). Note, however, that Spitzenkandidaten tend to cluster in one (and the largest) OLPR district, Upper Bavaria (10 out of 14 observed cases).

The indicator variable for being a prominent politician refers to the time just before the election and equals one for ministers (excluding junior ministers), party leaders, parliamentary party group leaders, party general secretaries, and state-wide campaign frontrunners (if these positions exist in the party).

Note that only 20 candidates are removed below baseline list position two and only 12 below rank three. The latter are mainly CSU candidates in 2003. This could lead to statistical anomalies, which is also why we refrain from estimating effects for baseline list positions four or further down the list.

We also assumed there is only one type of “average” voter, whom the empirical results characterize as deciding on the basis of a mixture of satisficing and rank-taking. On the other hand, we may think of the electorate as being composed of different types of voters, perhaps with variation in composition across districts and parties.

Also note that parties may do this only because lists are not closed, and having the original order overturned may imply reputation costs. In this case, a correlation between list rank and candidate vote share must not lead to the wrong conclusion that PLPR is redundant.

Parties may also strategically anticipate that ballot placement affects voters’ choices. The Bavarian Green Party, for example, places frontrunner candidates from time to time not at a top rank. This gives them de-facto-control over the entry of at least one other candidate via OLPR list votes. Similarly, the CSU regularly places SMD candidates at the bottom of lists in some regional districts, for other candidates to gain visibility.

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Titel: Cue-Taking, Satisficing, or Both? Quasi-experimental Evidence for Ballot Position Effects
verfasst von: Thomas Däubler
Lukas Rudolph
Publikationsdatum: 07.11.2018
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Political Behavior / Ausgabe 2/2020
Print ISSN: 0190-9320
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-6687
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9513-1

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