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Abstract
Numerous studies investigate how personality traits and individual characteristics influence vote choice. However, the effect of risk attitudes on the proclivity to cast a strategic vote has not been tested yet. This article tests whether the likelihood of defecting from one's preferred party is influenced by attitudes towards risk. I argue that the utility stemming from expressing a preference by opting for the favored party is a sure thing, whereas the utility stemming from an instrumental choice depends on some probabilities, and consequently that strategic voting is riskier than sincere voting. Using survey data from the United Kingdom and Canada, I find that risk-averse voters are less likely to vote strategically than risk-acceptant ones.

AbstractObjectiveThis article explores whether voters evaluate candidates' ideology, partisanship, and quality independently or exhibit behavior consistent with motivating reasoning, rating co‐partisans and candidates ideologically similar to themselves as more competent.MethodsUsing a survey of voters and experts from 2010 U.S. House elections, I estimate a model predicting an individual's rating of incumbent candidate competence for office and challenger candidate competence for office.ResultsIndividuals ideologically distant from a candidate rate the candidate as less competent, yet rate co‐partisan candidates as more competent. For incumbents, opposing partisanship amplifies the negative effect of ideological distance on candidate quality ratings, and shared partisanship mitigates the negative effect of ideological distance.ConclusionOnly incumbents rated as the most competent can overcome the ideological and partisan biases of voters. Consistent with theories of affective polarization, these results imply that polarization runs deeper than partisan or ideological differences–it is personal.

When presented the choice between a male and female candidate, it is commonly assumed that women prefer a female candidate. But as more policy and ideologically diverse women run for office, this assumption may not hold true. Using an experimental design embedded in a nationally representative survey, I test how voters respond to female candidates with ideologies and abortion positions similar and contrary to their own preferences. I find that women, generally, prefer a female candidate, but support for a female candidate among women decreases significantly when she has a contrary ideology or policy position. Whether women prefer descriptive or substantive representation also is conditioned on individual-level characteristics. This study advances our understanding of voters' responses to female candidates' varying ideological and issue positions, which is increasingly important as more women run for office. Although women are more likely than men to give female candidates the benefit of the doubt, not just any female candidate will do—she needs to appeal to women on issue and ideological grounds too.

The question how voter preferences relate to preferences of representatives under different electoral rules has attracted scholarly attention for some time. Although theoretical work suggests that proportional rule leads to more dispersion of representatives than plurality rule, empirical studies of this nexus have not yet reached a consensus. We argue that this is because they are plagued by serious problems as they rely on measures that differ for both sets of actors. We use behavioral data to estimate ideal points of voters and representatives on a common scale by taking advantage of the high frequency of referendums in Switzerland. We find that members of parliament elected in proportional representation systems are more widely dispersed around the median voter. Probing at what stage this difference in dispersion occurs, we also demonstrate this is the voters' doing, as it only applies to candidates who are elected.

The question how different electoral systems affect the representation of voters in parliaments has been a thorny issue for a considerable time. While some research suggests that first-past-the-posts systems should lead to a closer correspondence between the preferences of the electoral district's median voter and of its representative, other work concludes that in proportional representation (PR) systems, especially with open lists, candidates have an incentive to cultivate a strong personal vote. To study this question we take advantage of two peculiarities of the Swiss political system, namely that in the same chamber of the parliament some members are elected in PR and some in plurality elections and that direct democratic instruments play an important role. The second element, given that for a series of votes in parliament voters have to decide on the same issue, allows us to estimate the policy positions of members of parliament (MPs) and the median voter of each electoral district in the same policy space. We find that MPs elected in plurality elections are on average closer to their respective median voter. In PR districts MPs are much more widely spread around the median voters' preferences. [Copyright Elsevier Ltd.]