Exit Polls and Voter Turnout
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Standard
Exit Polls and Voter Turnout. / Andersen, Asger Lau; Jensen, Thomas.
In: Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 26, No. 1, 2014, p. 117-134.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Harvard
APA
Vancouver
Author
Bibtex
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
T1 - Exit Polls and Voter Turnout
AU - Andersen, Asger Lau
AU - Jensen, Thomas
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - After the 2009 referendum on a proposed change to the Danish Law of Succession, it was widely claimed that the early publication of exit poll results changed the rate of turnout and eventually the outcome. We investigate this claim and contribute to the wider debate on the implications of exit polls by setting up and analyzing a formal model. We find that the introduction of an exit poll influences the incentive to vote both before and after the poll is published, but the signs of the effects are generally ambiguous. The observation that exit polls influence the incentive to vote even before they are published is often overlooked. We show that this can lead to premature conclusions about the impact of exit polls on electoral outcomes. In particular, in cases such as the Danish referendum where it clearly appears that exit polls changed the outcome, it could well be that the outcome would have been the same had there been no exit polls
AB - After the 2009 referendum on a proposed change to the Danish Law of Succession, it was widely claimed that the early publication of exit poll results changed the rate of turnout and eventually the outcome. We investigate this claim and contribute to the wider debate on the implications of exit polls by setting up and analyzing a formal model. We find that the introduction of an exit poll influences the incentive to vote both before and after the poll is published, but the signs of the effects are generally ambiguous. The observation that exit polls influence the incentive to vote even before they are published is often overlooked. We show that this can lead to premature conclusions about the impact of exit polls on electoral outcomes. In particular, in cases such as the Danish referendum where it clearly appears that exit polls changed the outcome, it could well be that the outcome would have been the same had there been no exit polls
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - Exit polls
KW - formal modeling
KW - voter turnout
U2 - 10.1177/0951629813493210
DO - 10.1177/0951629813493210
M3 - Journal article
VL - 26
SP - 117
EP - 134
JO - Journal of Theoretical Politics
JF - Journal of Theoretical Politics
SN - 0951-6298
IS - 1
ER -
ID: 51174313