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Parties on the Ballot: Cues and Voting Behavior in a New Party System
Devra C. Moehler
Annenberg School for Communication
University of Pennsylvania
[email protected]
Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz
Department of Political Science
Michigan State University
[email protected]
Rosario Aguilar Pariente
División de Estudios Políticos
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas(CIDE)
[email protected]
[Please do not cite or circulate without permission from the authors]
This version: August 21, 2012
Key Words: Elections / Campaigns; International & Comparative; Political Behavior – Other;
Political Knowledge & Sophistication; Priming; Quantitative – Experiment; Quantitative –
Survey;
Party cues are thought to be consequential because they provide information, and effects are
expected to be greatest in established systems with clear party reputations. We conducted an
experiment to test the effects of including party names and symbols on ballots in Uganda, a
young party system. We find that party cues are associated with selection of major-party
candidates rather than independents, straight-ticket voting, and partisan compliance.
Surprisingly, party cue effects are similar in magnitude to experimental results from established
party systems, even though multiparty elections were only five-years old in Uganda.
Furthermore, effects are not due to learning but due to an alternative mechanism triggered by the
party symbol’s inclusion on the ballot. Party cues did not create more informed voters, but did
seem to create more partisan-minded voters. Results suggest scholars should be attentive to a
broader range of mechanisms through which party cues alter attitudes and behaviors.
Abstract: 150 words
Paper: 9,476 words
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Parties on the Ballot: Cues and Voting Behavior in a New Party System
Voters often lack basic information about candidates, even on Election Day. One
solution has been to provide the party name and symbol on ballots, under the assumptions that 1)
some voters do not know the partisanship of candidates when they enter the voting booth, and 2)
party affiliation, when provided, can help citizens identify the candidate who best represents
their interests (Reynolds and Steenbergen 2006).
Advocates for including partisan cues on ballots find substantial support in the scholarly
literature. Numerous experiments and observational studies document substantial effects of
party cues on voting, candidate evaluations, and policy favorability (for a review see Bullock
2011). Scholars argue that party cues act as heuristics, or cognitive shortcuts, that allow citizens
to make decisions with minimal information and effort (Downs 1957). There is a debate about
whether party cues enhance or detract from informed decision-making writ large, but this debate
is more about whether the information they provide supplants search for more relevant
information than about whether individuals learn from the cues (Bullock 2011). In short, most
literature on party cues argues that they are influential because they provide voters with novel
information.
Providing ballot information (especially visual cues like party symbols and candidate
photographs) is most often recommended for, and most common in, developing countries, where
voters have less education, access to media, and previous experience with voting (Reynolds and
Steenbergen 2006). Most of the existing research on party cues has been conducted in the
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United States, but there is also a nascent literature on party cues in other countries, including
several younger party systems. So far this literature documents party-cue effects of a similar
nature, though smaller in magnitude than in the United States (Bullock 2011). Furthermore, the
evidence suggests that party-cue effects are smaller where competitive party systems are less
well established and where parties do not take distinct policy positions (Brader and Tucker 2009;
Brader et al. 2010; Bullock 2011; Merolla et al. 2008). Party cues are thought to be less
informative and salient for voters in new and volatile multiparty systems. The comparative
literature suggests that party cues on ballots may have no effects or minimal effects in new party
systems, which are precisely where ballot cues are most strongly recommended.
In sum, policy makers recommend including party cues on ballots based on the
assumption that they provide novel and useful information. Most existing research supports the
assumption that party cues will be consequential by providing information. However, a
burgeoning literature suggests that party cues may have only a weak effect or no effect in new
party systems, because party affiliation might not be meaningful to voters.
Here, we examine the effect of ballot design on voting behavior by conducting a survey
experiment with 902 adults in one electoral area of Uganda in February 2011, just days prior to
presidential, parliamentary, and local elections. The experiment involved subjects’ random
assignment to different types of ballots featuring the actual candidates. Although we are
interested in a wide range of outcomes, we focus in this article on how ballot design affects
party-based voting. We examine the extent to which the inclusion of party names and symbols
on ballots influences vote choice.
Our findings indicate that the inclusion of party identifiers on ballots has no discernible
impact on the likelihood that respondents mark their ballot, but it does affect vote choice. Party
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cues result in greater support for major parties, lower support for independent candidates, greater
rates of straight-ticket voting, and greater partisan compliance with party identification.
Surprisingly, the estimated effects from Uganda are similar or greater in magnitude to party-cue
effects found in more-established systems, such as Great Britain, Canada, Poland, Russia,
Hungary, and Mexico despite the fact that multiparty elections were only re-introduced in
Uganda in 2006. These strong effects challenge the conventional view that party cues are less
consequential in nascent party systems than in longstanding ones (Brader and Tucker 2009;
Brader et al. 2010; Bullock 2011; Merolla et al. 2008).
Even more surprising, we find no evidence that the large party-cue effects in Uganda are
due to learning. Respondents looking at the ballot with party names and symbols were no more
able to identify candidate partisanship than those looking at ballots without party identifiers.
Furthermore, when literate respondents were provided information about partisanship in the form
of party names they did not vote differently than other literates who were not provided with the
names. Yet the literate respondents who received partisan information in the form of party name
voted differently from those literates who saw the party symbol, in addition to the name. In
short, party symbols were still influential despite the fact that literate respondents were fully
informed about party affiliation.
These results call for a revision of the conventional wisdom on party cues. Scholars have
too often assumed party-cue effects are due to learning. We call for greater attention to
measuring causal processes and more theorizing about alternative mechanisms such as priming
and framing. 1 The research also enriches our understanding of partisanship and voting in new
1
We are not the first to suggest that party cues can have priming or framing effects. However, we find that learning
mechanisms receive the most of the attention, especially in the interpretation of empirical results. While authors
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party systems. Parties can become meaningful to citizens even in nascent party systems. And,
these cue effects may be present even when cues do not provide novel information. Rather than
help voters accurately voice their preferences by increasing knowledge about candidates, certain
features of ballots might themselves contribute to the shaping of those preferences, through
processes such as priming or framing.
The article proceeds as follows. We first review the literature on party cues and develop
three sets of hypotheses on the relationship between the inclusion of party identifiers on ballots
and voting. Second, we discuss the Uganda case and provide an overview of our survey and
experimental methodologies and measures. Third we cover the analyses and present our
findings, and we conclude with a discussion of implications.
Literature and Hypotheses on Party-Cue Effects
Inclusion of photos and symbols dramatically raises costs; increases the complexity, color
and size of the ballot paper; and makes the process of producing, printing and distributing ballots
more complicated. Nonetheless, many in the democracy-promotion community recommend that
developing countries include party names and symbols and/or candidate pictures on ballots to
facilitate accurate voting by citizens with little education, political knowledge, and voting
experience. For example, a leading election assistance organization advises: “In all
environments, inclusion of the party symbols on the ballot paper will help voters. In less literate
sometimes theorize about causal processes of party cues, scholars rarely attempt to test them, and those that do
(including us) typically focus on learning.
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societies, especially where party affiliations are more fluid, candidate or party leader
photographs are useful” (ACE Electoral Knowledge Network 2011). Visual cues are thought to
reduce voting errors and enfranchise disadvantaged populations (Reynolds and Steenbergen
2006; Smith et al. 2009).
Despite the widespread use of these identifiers on ballots, we currently lack systematic
evidence about their effects on voting in developing countries (ACE Electoral Knowledge
Network 2007; Katz et al. 2011; Reynolds and Steenbergen 2006). 2 There are sound theoretical
and empirical reasons to think that such identifiers are consequential, either because they affect
who votes, or because, as the literature on heuristics suggests, how people vote (Chaiken 1980;
Kam 2005; Lau et al. 2008; Mondak 1993; Petty and Cacioppo 1986; Rahn 1993). These cues
might not always facilitate efficient and accurate decision-making—they can also lead voters
astray—but they are often consequential (Arceneaux 2008; Boudreau 2009; Bullock 2011; Kam
2005; Lau and Redlawsk 1997, 2001; Levendusky 2010; Schaffner and Streb 2002).
2
While there are a number of observational analyses about party cues on ballots in the United States (for example
see Meredith and Grissom 2010; Schaffner and Streb 2002; Schaffner et al. 2007; Welch and Bledsoe 1986), we are
aware of only four experimental studies: Reynolds and Steenbergen’s (2006) simulation experiment with fictitious
parties and candidates with students in the United States as subjects; Klein & Baum’s (2001) experiment on judicial
elections in the United States whereby respondents were told candidate party affiliations and asked their vote choice
over the phone; Buckley, Collins, and Reidy’s (2007) randomization of the presence of party logos on ballots that
also contained photographs of candidates from the 2004 local election in Ireland with subjects from other election
areas; and Calvo, Escolar, and Pomares’ (2009) large-scale e-vote experiment during the 2005 Congressional
Election in Argentina in which the ease of access to party information varied across e-vote designs (on the same
experiment see also Katz et al. 2011). There are no tests of the effects of party cues on written ballots in new
democracies. (Argentina, depending on who you ask, is considered a developing country)
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In this article we present and discuss the findings of an experiment designed to test the
effects of different ballot cues on voters’ choices. The literature on party cues suggests a number
of ways party identifiers (names and symbols) on ballots might affect election outcomes. We
develop three sets of hypotheses based on the existing literature.
First, party cues are expected to affect election outcomes by increasing turnout and ballot
marking. Prior (ND) examined the causes and consequences of visual knowledge (based on
viewing pictures) compared with verbal knowledge (based on seeing names) among US citizens.
He found that women, minorities, and less-educated people were not disadvantaged in visual
knowledge as they were with verbal knowledge and that visual knowledge was more predictive
of turnout (see also Graber 1996). To the degree his findings travel, they suggest that visual cues
may encourage disadvantaged populations to vote by reducing the procedural skills necessary to
select a candidate.
Research on the consequences of partisan versus non-partisan races in the US also
suggests that party cues increase turnout, and voting in less salient races for those who do
turnout, especially among less-affluent and -educated voters (Klein and Baum 2001; Schaffner
and Streb 2002; Schaffner et al. 2007; Welch and Bledsoe 1986). Partisan elections are thought
to increase turnout by providing information on ballots that makes candidate choice less
demanding.
In short, party identifiers are expected to increase the number of ballot contests marked.
In fact, this is the primary rationale given for including party names and symbols on ballots in
developing countries.
H1: Party cues are positively related to the total number of contests marked.
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Second, party cues may not only affect whether people vote, but also for whom they vote.
Party identifiers are expected to alter citizen choices (and thus election outcomes) by providing
new information or by priming party-based considerations. For example, Schaffner et al. (2007)
find that partisan elections increase vote for majority-party candidates and decrease support for
minority-party candidates as compared to non-partisan elections. Majority parties by definition
have more supporters and should thus benefit from party-based decision-making, which is more
likely in partisan elections. In a study of alternative voting technologies in Brazil, Katz et al.
(2011) find that major parties benefited from e-vote devices that presented party name and
symbol more prominently, while minor parties benefited from candidate-centric displays.. Thus,
major parties are better positioned to benefit from party identifiers encountered in the ballot
booth.
We posit that all major parties (not just the leading one) will benefit from party cues,
while minor parties will lose support. The logic for minor parties also holds for independent
candidates; party cues are expected to decrease voting for independents.
H2a: Party cues are positively related to total votes for major-party candidates.
H2b: Party cues are negatively related to total votes for minor-party candidates.
H2c: Party cues are negatively related to total votes for independent candidates.
We probe additional effects of party identifiers on vote choice which we discuss briefly
here – details on specific hypotheses, measures, and analyses can be found in Online Appendix
A. Ballot cues should be more influential in low-salience, low-information elections.
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Individuals are more likely to engage in heuristic processing when issues are peripheral and they
lack motivation to seek and process information (Chaiken 1980; Petty and Cacioppo 1986).
Additionally, voters are more likely to be swayed by what they encounter in the voting booth if
information has been scarce during the campaign (Kam 2005; Rahn 1993). In Uganda, as in
most of the rest of Africa, the presidential race is highly salient and the most widely covered and
discussed. We therefore expect smaller party-cue effects for the presidential contest than for
“down-ballot” contests (MP, women MP, and district chairperson). We also expect party cues to
encourage straight-ticket voting if this information allows citizens to more accurately identify
party candidates and vote in line with their party preferences (Calvo et al. 2009; Karp et al. 2002;
Lewis-Beck and Nadeau 2004). Furthermore, among partisans, party identification should
exhibit a stronger influence on vote choice in the presence of party cues.
Third, party-cue effects are most often attributed to causal processes involving learning.
Party cues might provide novel information about the partisan affiliation of candidates, thereby
affecting evaluations of those candidates. So far, attempts to measure and test for mediating
variables, such as learning, are quite rare (for an exemplary exception, see Gottfried 2011).
While there is very limited empirical evidence establishing learning as the causal mechanism
driving party-cue effects, the literature suggests that party cues increase information, which in
turn affects decisions. In addition, it suggests that the learning causal mechanisms will be even
more likely for developing countries, given the supposed paucity of political knowledge.
We expect that party cues will facilitate the correct identification of all candidates’
partisan affiliations. However, we also concede that respondents might ignore information about
candidates who are not of interest. Therefore we also evaluate a less-demanding criterion for
learning: the correct identification of partisan affiliation for only those candidates for whom the
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respondent voted. Finally, we seek to evaluate the effect of the information provided in the party
cues separately from other characteristics of party cues. To do so we evaluate the effect of party
name separately from the effect of party symbol and we do so only for literate respondents –
those who would be able to read the party name. If changes in voting behavior are due solely to
information, then we expect to see significant differences in vote choice with the addition of the
party name as it provides full information about party affiliation to literate respondents.
However, in the presence of party name, the addition of symbol should have no effect on voting
among literates, since it conveys no additional information than that which is also supplied by
the party name. 3 We test the following four related hypotheses on learning:
H3a: Party cues are positively related to correct identification of partisan affiliation for all
candidates.
H3b: Party cues are positively related to correct identification of partisan affiliation for
those candidates for whom the respondent voted.
H3c: For literate respondents, party name is positively related to total votes for majorparty candidates and negatively related to total votes for minor-party or independent
candidates.
H3d: For literate respondents, given the presence of party name, party symbol will not be
related to total votes for major-party, minor-party or independent candidates. 4
3
The logic is similar to what Berinsky et al. (2011) use to test whether party cues act as information shortcuts. We
both hold information constant and vary the form (in our case) or placement (in their case) of the cue.
4
We recognize that testing these hypotheses is not sufficient to for establishing learning as a mediating variable.
Additional assumptions and tests must be made for a full test of mediation (Imai et al. 2011). However given that
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To date the existing evidence on party cues comes largely from advanced industrial
democracies, especially the United States. It is not clear how these findings will translate to
other parts of the world, such as rural Africa. The effects of heuristics on voting are expected to
be larger in environments where information about candidates is scarce and voting habits not yet
solidified, as is the case in many developing countries (Calvo et al. 2009; Kam 2005; Katz et al.
2011; Lawson et al. 2010; Lenz and Lawson 2010).
While Ugandans may be more likely to rely on voting heuristics in general, they would
seem to be much less likely to rely on party cues in particular. Party cues are expected to be less
consequential in new and unstable party systems than in established democracies (Brader and
Tucker 2009; Brader et al. 2010; Bullock 2011; Merolla et al. 2008; Sekhon 2004), and Uganda
is the youngest party system for which party-cue effects have been tested. Although significant
political liberalization started in 1986, multiparty elections did not resume until 2006. The
Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), the main opposition party and the most popular party in
the Teso sub-region where research for this project was conducted, was only founded in 2004. 5
Therefore Ugandans have had little time to develop partisan attachments, and party labels are
still in flux. Ugandans may be habituated to voting along criteria other than party lines, and
ballot design may not alter this tendency. The influence of party cues are thought to depend on
parties having clear and consistent partisan reputations (Merolla et al. 2008), which may not exist
we found no evidence of the independent variable being associated with the mediating variable, we did not pursue
this analysis further.
5
Several of the parties that fielded candidates in the elections that we studied are significantly older—the
Democratic Party was founded in the mid 1950s, and the Uganda People’s Congress in 1960—but none of them
enjoyed significant support.
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in the minds of most Ugandans. Parties throughout Africa seldom distinguish themselves from
each other on conventional policy positions (Conroy-Krutz and Lewis 2011; van de Walle 2003).
Therefore party identifiers might not convey policy-relevant information. At an even more basic
level, Ugandans may not be able to read party names or recognize party symbols. Most rural
Ugandans get their news from radio, which does not convey visual information, 6 though they
may have been exposed to party symbols in newspapers, on television, on campaign items, or
during rallies. Given this environment, rural Uganda would seem to be a tough case for testing
the effects of party cues on ballots.
In sum, the literature on party cues suggests three sets of hypotheses, which we test with
a survey experiment in Uganda. Although we hypothesize significant effects of party cues on
voting behavior, other literature suggests that finding significant effects is far from certain in a
party system that was, at the time of our study, only five-years old.
Case Selection, Experiment, and Research Design
Given the research questions addressed in this article and others, Uganda was an ideal
site for the experiment. Uganda is emblematic of the contexts where ballot cues are most often
recommended; it has relatively low education rates, poor communication infrastructures, and
only recently re-introduced multiparty politics. Uganda has a long tradition of using images on
6
In our sample, 72% said they get news from radio while only 25% reported getting news from newspapers and 2%
from television in the last week. The uneducated respondents in Prior’s study of visual knowledge were heavy TV
watchers as is typical of most Americans. They had greater exposure to visual political images.
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ballots, stretching at least as far back as the 1994 Constituent Assembly (CA) elections, when
candidates’ photographs appeared alongside their names. However, due to restrictions under the
“Movement” or “no-party” system, party cues did not appear on ballots until the 2006 general
elections. A ballot without partisan information would be familiar to most respondents and it
remains a plausible option in Uganda. Within Uganda, we focused on one rural electoral area
(i.e., a parliamentary constituency), Soroti County, whose residents are slightly less educated,
wealthy, and informed than the Uganda as a whole. 7 The sample is representative of Soroti
County at the household level but the analysis of ballot conditions is not representative of
individuals within the household. 8
7
Additional information about Uganda, Soroti County, case selection, and a discussion of external validity is
provided in Online Appendix B.
8
Due to an unfortunate and systematic interaction between the kish grid rules and the randomization procedure that
was only discovered after the fact, not all positions on the kish grid were equally likely to be assigned to the
different treatment groups. For the treatment comparisons we have included respondents only from those positions
on the kish grid (as determined by the number of individuals in a household and one’s age rank within the
household) that were equally likely to be assigned to the paired treatment conditions. This solution maintains the
experimental design but gives up about half the observations. It also reduces external validity in that the analysis
population is not representative of the population at the within-household level. For example, respondents in single
person households are more prevalent in our analysis of the combined party cues (27%) than they are in the general
(representative) sample (16%). The gender distribution is statistically indistinguishable in our analysis sample and
the general sample, but respondents are about 4 years older on average and the age difference is statistically
significant. The main results presented in the article are all robust to: inclusion of a control for gender, use of the
full data set without a control for gender and use of the full data set with a control for gender. We present the
corrected data set without the gender control because we think it is the most scientifically defensible approach (Mutz
and Pemantle 2011) and because it allows us to present difference of means tests that are easily interpretable by the
reader.
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A total of 902 individuals completed the survey that was conducted between from
February 10th-17th. Subjects had to be at least eighteen years of age, citizens of Uganda, and able
to understand and respond to questioning in any of the three survey languages (Iteso, English,
and Kumam); subjects did not have to be registered to vote in the upcoming election. Of the
eligible individuals who were approached for an interview, 93.5 percent accepted. Twelve
percent of our sample had no formal education and another 52 percent did not attend secondary
school. The average age of the sample is 35 and the sample is 48 percent female. Our sample is
63 percent Iteso, 36 percent Kumam, and one percent from other ethnicities. 9
The proximity of the experiment to actual elections—presidential and parliamentary
elections were held on 18 February, while district chairperson elections were held on 23
February—increases external validity, since respondents were asked to mark ballots after having
already experienced an entire campaign and all its associated stimuli, as would be the case in the
real world. Conducting the experiment earlier, or even prior to, the campaign would likely result
in larger effects, but since we are interested in the effects of ballot design on vote outcomes, we
sought to replicate the voting experience as closely as possible.
After initial questioning about age and education, subjects were asked to fill out a sample
ballot, in private, for each of four upcoming electoral contests: President, Member of Parliament
(MP) District Women Member of Parliament, and District Chairperson. Subjects were instructed
to mark the ballots, fold them, and place them in envelopes.
9
Additional information on subject recruitment is available in Online Appendix B.
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The Ballot Experiment
In order to test the effect of different information cues on voters’ behavior we designed
an experiment with five treatments. In general, experiments are a good method when evaluating
the effect of different stimulus on people’s political behavior. For example, researchers have
assessed the influence of candidates’ appearance on voters’ intention to vote for them (Aguilar
Pariente 2009; Bailenson et al. 2008; Buckley et al. 2007; Mattes et al. 2010; Terkildsen 1993),
or the effect of negative campaigns on people’s decision to vote (Ansolabehere and Iyengar
1997; Desposato 2007; Lau and Rovner 2009), among other issues. The strongest advantage of
experiments is their strong internal validity. It is easier to establish a causal relationship in the
study because the researcher is capable of isolating the causal factor and temporal precedence
(McGraw et al. 2003). For purposes of our research, experiments allow us to manipulate the
information included in the electoral ballots so we can be sure that the differences found across
experimental conditions are due to the different elements of information included in the ballots
and not to other factors.
Our interest is in estimating the effect of different information cues (and the combination
of those cues) on voters’ electoral behavior in developing democracies. Having this in mind we
designed an experiment manipulating the information included in the electoral ballots for the
four electoral contests: President, Member of Parliament, Women Member of Parliament and
District Chairperson. All five treatment conditions include the candidates’ names. Treatments 2
through 5 contain additional verbal or visual cues:
Treatment 1: no additional information
Treatment 2: party names
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Treatment 3: party names and party symbols 10
Treatment 4: candidates’ pictures
Treatment 5: party names, party symbols and candidates’ pictures
Table 1 shows the five treatment conditions by ballot features.
Table 1: Treatment conditions by ballot features
pictures
no
yes
party names
no
yes
party symbols
no
no
1
2
4
yes
yes
3
5
For each treatment the information provided accurately portrays the candidates running in
the actual election. Treatment 5 most closely mimics the real ballots that respondents
encountered in the voting booths later that week. 11 Respondents were randomly assigned to the
same treatment condition for all four races.
10
The Electoral Commission requires that independent candidates select an object from a pre-designated list. The
object appears on the ballot in the same location as the party symbol. We include (or exclude) the object (e.g. soccer
ball, chair, etc.) in the same way that we include (or exclude) party symbols.
11
The experimental ballots were similar in size, shape, and design to official ballots, but they differed in important
ways. We did not want voters to think that they were casting official ballots in this exercise and thus remain home
on election day. Online Appendix C discusses the measures we took to make sure subjects did not think they were
casting an official ballot. It also discusses the similarities and differences between the experimental ballots and
official ballots and provides images of the experimental ballots for the presidential race and a picture of the official
presidential ballot.
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Methodology and Measurement
The literature review suggests three sets of hypotheses that we can evaluate against
experimental evidence from Soroti. For the hypotheses about both party cues, we compare those
treatments that contain both party name and symbol (treatments 3 and 5) against those treatments
that do not contain any information about parties (treatments 1 and 4). It is common in the study
of party cues in the United States to have vote or policy choice on the left side of the equation
and the treatment interacted with an attribute of interest, such as party identity, on the right hand
side. Given that there are 31 candidates across the four races, seven parties, plus independent
candidates, this approach quickly becomes unwieldy. Therefore we recoded the dependent
variables to indicate the dimensions of vote choice we wish to test. 12 In this section we remind
the reader of the hypotheses and describe how we measure the dependent variable for each test. 13
H1: Party cues are positively related to the total number of contests marked.
The measure Marked Ballots ranges from zero to four, and it sums the total number of
contests where the respondent marked one and only one candidate across the presidential,
12
To evaluate hypotheses two through five, we drop all respondents who did not mark a choice for at least one of
the races. 9.81% of the sample did not mark at least one of the sample ballot races. We do not know what prevented
respondents from marking at least one ballot. For example, it could be due to lack of preference, fear of revealing
their vote, dissatisfaction or lack of understanding of the exercise (Uggla 2008). Excluding them from the analysis
eases interpretation of the findings. However, the main findings in this article are not affected by the inclusion or
exclusion of this set of respondents.
13
Descriptive statistics for the key dependent variables can be found in Online Appendix D.
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parliamentary, women parliamentary and chairperson’s contests. We acknowledge that marking
a sample ballot with an enumerator in the respondent’s own home is not the same thing as
turning out to vote in an actual election and marking a ballot. Nonetheless, the test provides
some suggestive evidence about whether party cues enhance the ability and motivation of rural
Ugandans to cast a vote. We also contend that the experimental conditions bear some
resemblance to reality for a portion of rural Ugandans who turn out to vote for reasons other than
their desire to vote for a specific candidate. The desire for patronage and financial rewards,
social approval, and entertainment also drive people to show up. Respondents may turn out to
vote for the presidential election but not necessarily for the down –ballot races. Whether or not
they actually mark all the races once they are in private is analogous to whether or not they mark
the sample ballot in our experiment.
H2a: Party cues are positively related to total votes for major-party candidates.
H2b: Party cues are negatively related to total votes for minor-party candidates.
H2c: Party cues are negatively related to total votes for independent candidates.
The NRM and the FDC are well known and favored by a significant portion of the
population in Soroti. 14 Thus we code major parties as votes for NRM or FDC and minor parties
as votes for UPC, PDP, PPP, UFA, or DP. Later we provide evidence that party identifiers had
no effect on the presidential race. Therefore we decided to include only the remaining three
14
FDC received 50.7% of the vote for president and NRM received 38.7% among the respondents that marked at
least one ballot.
19
races, parliamentary, women parliamentary and chairperson’s contests in our measures here. 15
Major Parties measures the total number of votes for major-party candidates in the three races.
Minor Parties measures the total number of votes for minor-party candidates in the three races.
Independents measures the total number of votes for independents in the three races. All three
variables range from zero to three.
H3a: Party cues are positively related to correct identification of partisan affiliation for all
candidates.
H3b: Party cues are positively related to correct identification of partisan affiliation for
those candidates for whom the respondent voted.
H3c: For literate respondents, party name is positively related to total votes for majorparty candidates and negatively related to total votes for minor-party or independent
candidates.
H3d: For literate respondents, given the presence of party name, party symbol will not be
related to total votes for major-party, minor-party or independent candidates.
After marking their ballot and putting it in an envelope, respondents were shown an
unmarked ballot of the same type (matching their treatment condition) and asked a series of
questions about all 23 candidates running for Parliament, Women’s Parliament, or District Chair.
While pointing to the candidate’s name on the ballot, enumerators asked: “What would you say
is the political party of this candidate [name] or is the candidate an independent?” Because
15
The results are less strong when the presidential race is included but the results for major party and independents
are still within conventional bounds of significance (p=.08, p=.03, p=.00, p=.01).
20
respondents were looking at the treatment ballots while answering the questions about
partisanship, we have a more robust measure of the effect of treatment on knowledge than if we
had relied on recall. The treatment is the same for the mediating variable (knowledge) as it is for
the outcome variable (vote choice) (Imai et al. 2011). 16 The variable Know Partisanship All
totals the number of candidates whose party affiliation was correctly identified by the
respondents while looking at the ballot. 17 The variable ranged from zero to 23. In order to test
the effect of party cues on knowledge of candidates that are most important to the respondent, we
created the variable Know Partisanship Voted, which totals the number of correctly identified
party affiliations only for the three candidates that the respondent marked on the ballot. It
records how well the respondent knew the partisanship of those candidates for whom they voted.
For the tests H1 through H3b we compare the full package of party cues (party name and
symbol) to ballots with no party cues. However for H3c we compare the treatment with just the
party name (treatment 2) to the one without (treatment 1), and for H3d we compare the treatment
with both party name and symbol (treatment 3) to the treatment with just the party name
(treatment 2). Furthermore, the tests of H3c and H3d include only literate respondents because
16
Had these hypotheses been supported by the data, we still would have had to make additional assumptions and
conduct additional tests to establish mediation (Imai et al. 2011). Given the null results for H5a, H5b, and H5c, we
did not pursue this analysis further.
17
Incorrect answers and non-responses were coded as zero. We conduct a robustness check to make sure that the
coding of the non-responses is not responsible for the findings. We create variables summing wrong answers where
correct or non-response answers are coded as zero. We did this for all the candidates and for those selected by the
respondent in the voting exercise. The results are consistent.
21
we wanted to ensure that the respondents in the analysis could gain information from reading the
party names. 18
Results
Table 2 displays the difference of means and proportions we use to evaluate Hypotheses
1 through 3b. The results do not support Hypothesis 1. Party cues are not significantly
associated with the number of marked ballots. 19 The null result is notable given that the main
justification for including partisan cues on ballots is to help citizens cast a vote. Illiterate voters
do appear to need help recording their preferences. 20 However, the addition of party names and
symbols did not provide that help, at least in the survey experiment. 21 Once again we want to
18
We are confident that respondents included could read the party names (or at least recognize the acronyms). For
details about our measure of literacy and an alternative measure used as a robustness check see Online Appendix E.
19
Results are also not significant if we drop respondents who failed to mark a single race and only examine
variation in the number of races marked among respondents who marked at least one race.
20
Of respondents who did not mark their sample ballots at all, 41.5% said they could not read the ballot and 19.2%
said they could read a little with difficulty. This compares with 10.5% and 29.0% respectively for those who did
mark at least one race.
21
9.81% of respondents failed to mark their ballots at all. It is possible, that for this group the symbols as well as
the names are meaningless. Most respondents can correctly identify the symbols for major parties (91.9% for
NRM’s symbol and 89.9% for FDC’s symbol), and sizeable numbers can identify the symbols of minor, but
longstanding, parties (45.3% for DP’s symbol and 75.8% for UPC’s symbol). Recognition of other minor-party
symbols was low: 18.9% properly identified PPP’s symbol, 20.9% properly identified UFA’s symbol, 6.6% properly
identified PDP’s symbol. Furthermore, symbols are informative even when words are not; of those who said they
22
note that marking a sample ballot in one’s household is not the same thing as casting a vote at a
ballot booth. Nonetheless, our results are consistent with findings from cross-national
observational data that there is no relationship between visual cues on ballots and spoilt ballots
(Reynolds and Steenbergen 2006).
could not read the ballot, 81.0% were still able to identify the NRM symbol correctly and 75% the FDC symbol.
While we have every reason to believe that the main-party symbols (if not the names) were familiar to most, they
may have been unintelligible to the minority who failed to mark the ballot. These percentages of respondents who
could properly identify the party when shown the symbols are based on respondents in conditions that were not
shown party labels on the ballots.
23
Table 2: Effect of party cues (name and symbol together) when ballots do not and do
include candidate picture
Dependent Variables
Treatments 1vs3
Treatments 4vs5
H1
Marked Ballot
0.24
p=0.15
n=222
-0.04
p=0.80
n=207
H2a
Major Parties
0.30
p=0.03
n=199
0.32
p=0.01
n=187
b
Minor Parties
0.03
p=0.61
n=199
-0.05
p=0.29
n=187
c
Independents
-0.31
p=0.00
n=199
-0.32
p=0.01
n=187
Know Partisanship All
-1.93
p=0.03
n=199
-1.25
p=0.16
n=187
Know Partisanship Voted
-0.05
p=0.73
n=199
0.05
p=0.73
n=187
H3a
b
Notes: Cell entries are the effect of the party cues (i.e. Treatment 3 means or proportions minus Treatment 1 means
or proportions for no pictures and Treatment 5 means or proportions minus Treatment 4 means or proportions for
pictures). P-values are for two-tailed tests.
24
Hypothesis 2a is supported by the evidence; total votes for major-party candidates are
significantly greater in the conditions with party cues than in the conditions without party cues
(p=0.03 and p=0.01). Additional analysis suggests that FDC and NRM may both benefit from
party cues but the estimated effect is greater for FDC, which is expected given that FDC is the
most popular party in Soroti. 22 Hypothesis 2b is not supported by the evidence. Party cues have
no significant effect on votes for minor parties. This null result may be due to the dearth of
viable minor-party candidates in the down-ballot races. 23 Given the low level of voting for
minor-party candidates, there was little room for loss of votes due to the inclusion of party
symbols. Finally, Hypothesis 2c is consistent with the evidence. Independent candidates lost
support when party symbols were included (p=0.00 and p=0.01). Figure 1 shows the estimated
effects for Hypothesis 2.
22
59.3% of respondents who marked the presidential ballot selected the FDC candidate for president, whereas
39.2% selected the NRM candidate.
23
Only 3.2% of correct votes in the women MP race were for a minor party, 8.8% in the MP race, and 5.9% in the
chairperson race.
25
Figure 1: Effect of party cues (name and symbol together) on vote for party candidates
26
The substantive size of the effects are similar in magnitude to those found in
experimental studies of party cues conducted in established party systems, and considerably
larger than other new party systems (Bullock 2011). Approximately one in ten respondents is
estimated to vote differently in the presence of party cues. In sum, the evidence suggests that the
inclusion of party cues on the ballot pulled respondents away from voting for independent
candidates and towards voting for major-party candidates. The strong partisan results of party
cues are striking given the newness and instability of the party system in Uganda.
Additional analysis in Online Appendix A provides further insights into the relationship
between party cues and vote choice. The most salient race, the presidential race, was not
affected by the party cues. With only four races, we cannot provide a systematic test of the race
level characteristics. Nonetheless, the pattern of results is consistent with the argument that party
cues are most influential in low-salience races. We also find evidence that party-cues are
associated with a 50 percent increase in straight-ticket voting. If we look at each race
individually, it seems that respondents with party cues shifted their votes for less salient races
(MP, women MP and chairperson) to match the party of their choice in the more salient
presidential race. Respondents who saw party cues were more than ten percent more likely to
match the party of their presidential vote and their down-ballot votes for each race. Finally, we
found that self-identified partisans were significantly more likely to vote for co-partisans in the
presence of party cues. 24
24
The effect seems to be primarily due to partisans abandoning independents in the face of party cues. Nonetheless,
if we analyze only major -party partisans who voted for major-party candidates, party cues were associated with
partisans “coming home”. We lack much confidence in this finding, perhaps due to the small sample. If we
combine comparisons of treatments 1 versus 3 and 4 versus 5, the results are only significant at the 90 percent level.
Results for analyses with party identification are available from authors.
27
Hypothesis 3 is not supported by the data. With respect to Hypothesis 3a, there was no
estimated significant positive effect of party cues on knowledge of partisanship for all the
candidates in either comparison. In fact the effect of party cues is negative for the comparison of
treatments 1 and 3, suggesting a decrease in knowledge from exposure to the party cues. 25 With
respect to Hypothesis 3b, there was no statistically significant effect of party cues on
respondents’ knowledge of their preferred candidates’ partisan affiliations. Surprisingly, the
party cues did not help respondents identify the candidates’ partisan affiliations even when they
had the ballot in front of them. Many respondents knew the party affiliations of the candidates
already. For those that did not, they were also unable to make use of the additional help
provided on the ballot. To ensure that non-responses were not biasing the results, we conducted
the same analysis for mislabeled partisan affiliations. The ballot cues did not significantly
reduce mistakes for the all the candidates or for those chosen by the respondents.
25
There is some indication that party cues confused lower-educated respondents but the evidence is somewhat weak.
28
Table 3: Effect of party name, versus effect of party symbol given name, for literates
Dependent Variables
Party Names
H3c
Party Symbols
H3d
Major Parties
-0.00
p=0.99
n=174
0.34
p=0.05
n=142
Minor Parties
0.11
p=0.14
n=174
0.00
p=0.98
n=142
Independents
-0.11
p=0.37
n=174
-0.31
p=0.02
n=142
Notes: Cell entries are the effect of the inclusion of party name (i.e. Treatment 2 means minus Treatment 1 means)
and party symbol (Treatment 3 means minus Treatment 2 means). P-values are for two-tailed tests
29
Finally, the results for Hypotheses 3c and 3d are in Table 3. The results are exactly
opposite of what was hypothesized. Providing information on partisanship in the form of the
party name had no effect on voting, even though we feel confident that the sample of only
literate respondents could read the party acronyms if not the names. However there was a
significant effect of providing the party symbol even when both treatments also had the party
names as reference. For literate respondents, the presence of the party symbol was associated
with more than a 10 percent increase in votes for major-party candidates (p=0.05) and about the
same size decrease in votes for independent candidates (p=0.02). It seems that even in the
presence of complete information about candidates’ partisanship, the party symbols altered vote
choice. Furthermore, the changes are of nearly identical magnitude to those found in the tests of
Hypothesis 2a and 2c, suggesting that the full effect of the party cues comes from the symbols.
Figure 2 displays the results for Hypotheses 3c and 3d for major party candidates and
independents. Together, the four tests for Hypothesis 3 provide strong evidence that the effect of
party cues is due to a causal process other than learning. 26
26
The purpose of limiting this analysis to literate respondents is to ensure that the party name treatment does convey
information on partisanship to the respondents. We want to be sure that the respondents in the analysis can read the
party name, so that we can separate the effect of information from other attributes of the symbols. Our objective is
not to draw conclusions about the differential effect of cues on educated and uneducated individuals.
30
Figure 2: Effect of party name, versus effect of party symbol given name, for literates
31
How are we to understand the discovery of a significant effect of party symbols on voting
without changes in knowledge of candidate partisan affiliation? Priming is the most likely
alternative causal mechanism to learning. We posit that exposure to the party symbol increased
the salience of partisanship, and thus party affiliation was a more important consideration when
respondents selected candidates for the down-ballot races.
There are several possible scenarios that would explain the hypothesized priming effect.
Party symbols might increase the salience of: 1) national issues over local issues; 2) party
patronage over alternative sources of assistance; 3) party characteristics over candidate
characteristics; and 4) prospective party affiliation over retrospective party affiliations. First, it
may be that parties have meaningful reputations for national-level issues (such as democracy,
human rights, security, economic performance, and executive authority), which are already
considered relevant for presidential elections. Normally, local-level issues (such as service
delivery, constituency needs, native-son status, social identity, personal connections, and past
performance in office) are weighted more heavily in parliamentary and local government
elections. 27 Respondents might be more likely to consider how the outcomes of down-ballot
races might affect the relative power distributions at the national level when party symbols
appear next to down-ballot candidates. In a second possible scenario, respondents might care
about access to patronage when voting for officials, but not consider the party-based patronage
system as the most salient dimension affecting resource access (as opposed to social identity,
personal wealth, and political connections) until partisanship is highlighted by the party symbol.
27
In a review of six African countries, Barkan et al. (2010) find that citizens “place a much higher emphasis on
representation and constituency service than on legislating and oversight” (p. ii) when asked about the most
important responsibility of Members of Parliament.
32
Third, the presence of the party symbol might shift voter focus from individual traits, such as
candidate ethnicity, to party traits such as the ethnic composition of the party as a whole or the
ethnicity of party leaders. Fourth, party symbols might shift attention from past party affiliation
to party affiliation once in office. Many of the independent candidates were party candidates in
the past and are popularly known as party stalwarts even if they were ousted from the party or
did not win the nomination in the current election. The party symbol may shift attention from
how independent candidates performed in the past, to expectations of how they will perform in
the future now that they are independents. All of these scenarios can explain why party symbols
might induce voters to abandon independent candidates in favor of major-party candidates.
Unfortunately, we are not able to test our thesis about priming as a causal mechanism,
nor are we able to adjudicate between the various scenarios that might motivate priming. We did
not hypothesize that priming would be a causal mechanism a priori and thus did not include
measures of priming – only learning. 28 The only thing we can say with confidence is that
something other than information is responsible for the effect of the party symbol on vote choice.
28
We do have a question about party identification later in the survey that asks respondents which party they feel
closest to, if any. Unfortunately this is an inadequate measure of party priming. First, there is very little variation in
the measure given that most respondents identify. Second, we did not include a question about the intensity of party
identification. Third, the existing evidence suggests that we need a measure of party salience for each race
separately rather than globally. We think that party is already a very salient issue for presidential elections, given
that we saw no effects of party cues on presidential vote choice. Party identification may be strong but not
necessarily the most salient issue for local-level elections. Therefore, a single measure of party identification is not
well suited to test this hypothesis and indeed, party cues (together and separately) are not significantly related to our
measure.
33
Conclusion
The proliferation of elections across the world means that millions more voters can now
render meaningful choices at the ballot box. Yet observers worry that a large proportion of
voters in the developing world are not up to the task, due to deficits in formal education, political
information, and electoral experience. Party identifiers, among other cues, are included on
ballots in many countries to help voters overcome these deficits and select their preferred
candidates.
In this article we test the effects of including party names and party symbols on voting
behavior in Soroti County, Uganda. Our preliminary findings suggest that there are, in fact,
significant consequences of including party identifiers on ballots. Namely, we find that
respondents who received ballots that contained party identifiers were more likely to: 1) vote for
major parties—in this case, the NRM and FDC; 2) avoid voting for independents; 3) cast
straight-ticket ballots; 4) align, along partisan lines, their votes for down-ballot races with their
votes for president; and 5) vote based on partisan identification when already partisans. We find
no evidence that party cues make ballot marking more likely, and party cues did not affect voting
in the presidential contest. Perhaps most surprisingly, there is no evidence that these party-cue
effects are due to learning. The presence of party cues did not help respondents accurately
identify the partisanship of candidates, and providing written information about party affiliation
did not affect voting among literate respondents. However, the addition of party symbols did
alter voting, even when respondents were fully informed about candidate party affiliation
through party names.
34
The research shows that party cues are consequential but likely not in the way intended
by policymakers or anticipated by scholars. Party cues did not alter voting by facilitating
informed choice. In the week before the election, when the experiment was conducted, most
citizens had preexisting knowledge of candidate partisanship, and those who were ignorant of
this basic information were also unable to make use of partisan information when this was
provided on the ballot. Instead, party symbols seemed to affect voting through a mechanism
other than learning.
What are the theoretical implications of this research? In many ways our findings are
consistent with other research on partisan cues in elections, much of which have been conducted
in older party systems. The inclusion of partisan identifiers on ballots tends to increase support
for major parties (Katz et al. 2011; Schaffner et al. 2007) and reduce incidence of split-ticket
voting (Calvo et al. 2009). The finding that partisan identifiers did not seem matter for the
presidential vote, yet did for down-ballot races, appears to be consistent with others’ findings
that such cues are more consequential in low-information settings (Kam 2005; Katz et al. 2011;
Lau and Redlawsk 2001; Schaffner and Streb 2002). 29 One possible interpretation of this finding
is that respondents did not have as well-defined preferences about politicians contesting for
member of Parliament, women member of Parliament, and district chairperson, while the
presidential race was more salient, better-covered in the media, and included combatants who
had faced off in two previous elections. Thus, respondents were more easily swayed by cues in
these down-ballot races when such cues were available. However, if one considers the priming
hypothesis, then another interpretation is equally valid. Perhaps criteria other than partisan
29
Again we note our inability to draw firm conclusions from only four contests. The results should be seen as
suggestive evidence rather than as a strong test of the hypothesis.
35
identity are more salient to voters for these down-ballot races. Respondents might actually have
had more contact with and a more diversified perspective on constituency-level candidates than
they did for the presidential candidates. Party cues may have been more influential in these
down-ballot races because partisan considerations were not the only game in town and thus there
was room for party symbols to make partisan considerations more salient for the selection of MP,
women’s MP and district chairperson. Some respondents would have selected independent
candidates based on alternative criteria, but the party cues primed partisanship and induced
partisan-voting for the down-ballot races. This interpretation implies that there was a ceiling
effect on the salience of party with respect to the presidential contest. Respondents were already
inclined to choose their president based on party lines so the presence of party cues had no
effect. 30
While our findings are generally consistent with results from other experiments on party
cues, they also contradict prevailing wisdom about the contexts and mechanisms that generate
party-cue effects. Party cues are thought to be consequential because they provide new
information to citizens or activate longstanding psychological attachments to parties. Thus, the
effects of party cues are expected to be greater in established party systems, where party
reputations are clear and party identities are longstanding (Brader and Tucker 2009; Brader et al.
2010; Bullock 2011; Merolla et al. 2008). That partisan identifiers significantly impacted vote
outcomes is surprising in a country like Uganda, which had only allowed parties to campaign
openly and affiliations to appear on ballots for five years at the time of the experiment. Even
more striking is the fact that the largest effect we found was for the newest major party, the FDC,
30
Gottfried (2011) makes a similar argument about why party cues had no priming effect in Judicial elections in the
United States, but gender cues did have a priming effect (p. 20).
36
which was only founded in 2004, while the oldest parties—the DP and UPC—saw no significant
benefit or loss from the inclusion of their identifiers. Although Uganda has the youngest party
system of countries studied to date in this literature, we found stronger party-cue effects than
those recorded in Russia, Hungary, Poland, Mexico and Canada (Bullock 2011). Existing theory
on party cues does not provide an explanation for the sizeable influence of party cues in Uganda.
The evidence from our test of the hypothesized causal mechanism also contradicts
conventional wisdom. The dominant assumption is that party-cue effects are mediated by
learning, but we found no evidence of information effects or knowledge gain. In addition, we
found cue effects from party symbols while holding information (from party names) constant,
suggesting that another mechanism such as priming was at work. Direct tests of learning are
actually quite rare in the literature. 31 While one study found learning effects (Gottfried 2011),
another, similar to ours, found party-cue effects even when the information content of the cues
was held constant (Berinsky et al. 2011). It could be that much of what is assumed to be learning
may be due to psychological influences such as priming and framing. 32
31
One might be tempted to infer learning from evidence that cue effects are moderated by cognitive sophistication,
information environment and complexity of issue; scholars have found larger cue effects among less cognitively
sophisticated individuals, in low-information environments, and for complex issues (Boudreau 2009; Bullock 2011;
Coan et al. 2008; Kam 2005; Levendusky 2010). However these characteristics are also thought to make priming
more likely (Lenz 2009) and so cannot be taken as evidence of learning as opposed to priming.
32
Whereas the literature on party cues tends to assume learning processes, the literature on media effects tends to
assume priming processes from very similar types of evidence. Lenz (2009) discusses the error in interpretation
with respect to media effects, but a similar analysis has not been done for party effects. Bullock (2011) mentions an
additional source confusion: between of cues and framing effects. He queries whether Lenz’s analysis is also
subject to misspecification.
37
We do not intend to argue based on the Ugandan case that learning is never a cause of
party-cue effects. Instead we hope to encourage scholars to reconsider their assumptions about
causal mechanisms underlying cue effects and include tests of learning and other mechanisms
from party cues. 33 The policy and normative implications are quite different if the behavioral
and attitude changes from party cues are the result of what people know as opposed to how they
decide (Lenz 2009).
In addition to informing the study of party cues, our research also offers lessons for
scholars of parties and elections in Africa. First, our respondents in rural Uganda were better
informed about candidates than expected. We should not assume that voters in Africa are
equally ignorant about candidates for parliament and local government as voters in advanced
industrial democracies are about candidates for school boards, neighborhood councils and
judges, which are the kinds of elections that scholars of partisan ballots have studied to date. 34
Televisions and secondary schools may be few and far between, but our respondents have other
ways of obtaining information about candidates and seem motivated to become informed.
33
Some scholars acknowledge the potential of priming effects in theoretical discussions of party cues. However,
priming is rarely featured in explanations, and to the extent mechanisms are discussed, learning and priming
processes are often conflated. In addition, scholars typically fall back on learning mechanisms exclusively when
interpreting results due to party cues. For example, Klein and Baum (2001) initially hypothesize about learning and
priming mechanisms: “ it is reasonable to suppose that ballot information relevant to these considerations can have
an impact, either because it tells voters something they did not know or because it highlights the importance of
something they already knew” (711). However, their analysis and interpretation of the evidence allows only
learning: “Ballot information should have little effect on voters or respondents who enter the voting booth or survey
already aware of the information provided.” (715)
34
Research in the United States has focused on these types of races because these are non-partisan races in some US
locations but not others.
38
Second, parties are meaningful to respondents even though party politics and the parties
themselves are very new. A total of 87 percent of respondents who answered the question said
they felt close to a party, 35 and the presence of party symbols on ballots had consequences.
Third, it seems that party affiliation is not the only or the most important criterion in elections, at
least not with respect to parliamentary and local government elections. When not shown party
cues, respondents seemed to consider different criteria for the down-ballot races than for the
presidential race. Fourth, when voters employ several criteria for evaluating leaders none of
which are dominant, small influences can have sizable effects on voting by increasing the
salience of one criterion over others.
What are the policy implications of our findings? First, we found no support for the
stated justifications for including party cues on the ballot. There is no evidence that party cues
helped respondents to cast their vote; respondents who saw the cues were no more likely to mark
the four races on the ballot. Additionally, there is no evidence that party cues facilitated betterinformed voting, as respondents who saw the cues were no more knowledgeable about candidate
partisanship.
Second, we did find what we presume to be unintended (though not necessarily
unwelcome) effects of including party cues on the ballot. Party cues privileged major parties
over independent candidate and made voting in down-ballot races more dependent on vote
choice in the presidential race. These changes accrued not because of better-informed decisionmaking, but most probably due to psychological processes. Changes in vote percentages will not
35
In response to the question “I am going to read you a list of parties. Please tell me to which one you feel closest,
or don’t you feel close to any?” 81 percent reported a party they felt close to, 12 percent reported not feeling close to
any, and 7 percent did not answer the question. The "don’t know" responses could be from non-partisans but they
could also be from partisans who did not feel comfortable reporting their partisan affiliation.
39
necessarily translate into changes in election outcomes, but the size of the differences in voter
choice indicate that, at times, party cues could have consequences for election winners and
losers, party discipline, and the behavior of politicians.
40
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