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Members of the same household share similar voting behaviors on average, but how much of this correlation can be attributed to the behavior of the other person in the household? Disentangling and isolating the unique effects of peer behavior, selection processes, and congruent interests is a challenge for all studies of interpersonal influence. This study proposes and utilizes a carefully designed placebo-controlled experimental protocol to overcome this identification problem. During a face-to-face canvassing experiment targeting households with two registered voters, residents who answered the door were exposed to either a Get Out the Vote message (treatment) or a recycling pitch (placebo). The turnout of the person in the household not answering the door allows for contagion to be measured. Both experiments find that 60% of the propensity to vote is passed onto the other member of the household. This finding suggests a mechanism by which civic participation norms are adopted and couples grow more similar over time.

Campaigns rely upon both paid and volunteer phone calls to mobilize voters. Past field experiments show calls from volunteers to increase turnout and paid calls to be wholly ineffective. This article argues that the quality of phone calls rather than the presence or absence of a payroll explains this regularity. Three aspects of quality are considered: monitoring pace and interactivity, timing, and message. A fully randomized field experiment with over 100,000 subjects comparing professional and volunteer phone banks simultaneously was conducted during the 2002 congressional elections to test this hypothesis. The experiment discovers precisely the opposite relationship of prior research: effective professional phone banks and inefficient volunteer phone calls. The experiment also finds substantial temporal decay. The specific messages appear less important than tone or timing. The implications for the role of campaign consultants, replacing social capital, voter psychology, and the capacities of civic organizations are discussed.

Political campaigns are just now learning how to put the Internet to best use. Low transaction costs and huge economies of scale tempt campaigns to move traditional activities online, but the effectiveness of virtual campaigns is unknown. This paper conducts 13 field experiments on 232,716 subjects to test whether email campaigns are effective for voter registration and mobilization. Both registration and turnout were unaffected, suggesting that email, while inexpensive, is not cost-effective. Adapted from the source document.

Gerber and Green argue that get-out-the-vote phone calls do not increase turnout based upon field experiments testing nonpartisan professional phone banks. This article argues that the quality of the phone calls matter and that brief, nonpartisan phone calls can raise voter turnout if they are sufficiently personal. To test this hypothesis, a series of eight volunteer nonpartisan phone campaigns to mobilize voters were studied using randomized, controlled experiments. The campaigns targeted voters across six different cities in 2000 and 2001. Contra Gerber and Green, the phone calls are found to boost turnout 3.8 percentage points. Based on these estimates, volunteer phone calls produce one vote for every $26 per vote, which is cost competitive with door-to-door canvassing. Differences between the professional phone banks previously studied by Gerber and Green and the volunteer phone banks herein are also discussed.

This article presents the results from a statewide partisan voter mobilization experiment in Michigan during the 2002 gubernatorial election. The tactics studied are volunteer phone calls and door hangers. With regard to turnout, the conclusion reached is that volunteer phone calls boost turnout by 3.2 percentage points and door hangers boost turnout by 1.2 percentage points. This effect size implies that both mobilization technologies are cost-competitive with door knocking and that partisan and nonpartisan campaigns are equally effective at increasing turnout. A postelection survey was used to determine whether the partisan blandishments to vote changed candidate preference. No evidence of persuasion from campaign contact was detected by the survey. However, the survey did indicate that the campaign failed in targeting likely Democratic voters and excluding likely Republican voters, emphasizing the need for detailed party databases.

This article presents the results from a statewide partisan voter mobilization experiment in Michigan during the 2002 gubernatorial election. The tactics studied are volunteer phone calls & door hangers. With regard to turnout, the conclusion reached is that volunteer phone calls boost turnout by 3.2 percentage points & door hangers boost turnout by 1.2 percentage points. This effect size implies that both mobilization technologies are cost-competitive with door knocking & that partisan & nonpartisan campaigns are equally effective at increasing turnout. A postelection survey was used to determine whether the partisan blandishments to vote changed candidate preference. No evidence of persuasion from campaign contact was detected by the survey. However, the survey did indicate that the campaign failed in targeting likely Democratic voters & excluding likely Republican voters, emphasizing the need for detailed party databases. 6 Tables, 1 Figure, 1 Appendix, 7 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright 2005 The American Academy of Political and Social Science.]

Experiments conducted in the field allay concerns over external validity but are subject to the pitfalls of fieldwork. This article proves that scalable protocols conserve statistical efficiency in the face of problems implementing the treatment regime. Three designs are considered: randomly ordering the application of the treatment; matching subjects into groups prior to assignment; and placebo-controlled experiments. Three examples taken from voter mobilization field experiments demonstrate the utility of the design principles discussed.