RAPID: Assessing Voting Behavior in Elections

这个项目研究多候选人选举中的投票。主要调查人员试图了解选民在什么情况下愿意不投票给他们最喜欢的替代方案，而是考虑投一张“战略性”选票，以帮助第二选择替代方案击败第三选择替代方案。在使用单一选区多数选举法的民主国家，选民很少在大选的三名候选人中进行选择。私人投资机构提议在六个州进行选举前后的多波电话调查，这些州的民意调查显示有三名候选人是可行的。因此，私人投资机构有能力调查选民可能在什么情况下选择放弃他们最喜欢的候选人，转而投票给第二好的候选人，希望击败他们最不喜欢的候选人。因此，这项调查为审查同一选举周期内不同种族和背景下的战略投票提供了一个无与伦比的机会。这个项目做出了几项贡献。该项目不仅将在多路竞选中，而且在更广泛的范围内，将加强对选民决策的了解。理解选民的行为反过来又是政治学关注的核心问题，有助于更深入地了解民主进程和制度的运作。PI旨在通过使用交互式语音应答(IVR)调查来最大限度地利用赠款，受访者通过按下键盘上的按钮来记录他们对问题的回答。IVR电话调查提供高质量的数据，极具成本效益，但在政治学研究中并未广泛使用。该项目产生的数据将提供给学者和政策制定者。政策制定者和专门研究舆论以及选举和政党政治的政治学家将对该项目的研究结果感兴趣。

This project examines voting in multi-candidate elections. The principal investigators seek to understand the conditions under which voters are willing to not vote for their most preferred alternative, and to instead consider casting a "strategic" ballot in order to help a second-choice alternative defeat a third-choice alternative. In democracies using single-member-district plurality electoral laws, voters only rarely choose among three candidates in the general election. The PIs propose to conduct multi-wave telephone surveys both before and after elections in six states where public opinion polling has indicated that three candidates are viable. The PIs are thus equipped to probe the conditions under which voters might opt to abandon their most-preferred candidate, and to vote instead for a second-best candidate in hopes of defeating their least preferred alternative. This survey thus permits an unmatched opportunity to examine strategic voting in different races and contexts within the same electoral cycle. This project makes several contributions. The project will enhance understanding of voter decision-making not only in multi-way races but more broadly as well. Comprehending the behavior of voters in turn stands as a central concern of political science and contributes to a deeper knowledge of the workings of democratic processes and institutions. The PIs aim to maximize leverage from the grant through their use of interactive voice response (IVR) surveys, where respondents note their answers to questions by pressing buttons on their keypad. IVR telephone surveys deliver high-quality data, are extremely cost-effective, and yet are not widely used in political science research. The data generated by the project will be made available to scholars and policymakers. Findings from the project will be of interest to policymakers and to political scientists specializing in public opinion and in electoral and party politics.