Suchergebnisse

AbstractCorrect voting in elections has been extensively analysed in the recent past. However, thus far, correct voting in direct legislation has hardly been investigated. This is all the more surprising since direct legislation is a more demanding form of democracy and, thus, to vote one's true preferences in direct legislation represents a greater challenge than picking the "right" party or the "right" candidate at elections. Moreover, the few researches on the correctness of individual referendum votes used a measurement method that we think has some methodological shortfalls. Instead, we want to propose another better‐suited method of measuring correct voting in direct legislation settings. This method makes use of voters' stances on the issue at stake. Besides, we will scrutinize the share of correct voting as well as its determinants on the Swiss popular vote of November 2009, which included three rather different propositions. The study shows that a majority of Swiss voters are indeed able to vote their true preferences. The ability to vote correctly depends primarily on the individual voter's project‐specific knowledge, but also, under certain circumstances, on the use of heuristics.

"Darüber, wie viele und welche BürgerInnen bei österreichischen Nationalratswahlen 'richtig', (d.h. ihren Einstellungen und Präferenzen entsprechend) gewählt haben, ist wenig bekannt. Der vorliegende Artikel möchte diese Lücke schließen. Untersucht wird, wie es um 'richtiges Wählen' bei der Nationalratswahl 2008 bestellt war und welche Einflussfaktoren 'richtiges Wahlverhalten' bedingten. Besonderes Augenmerk liegt dabei auf der Frage, welche Rolle das individuelle Mediennutzungsverhalten bzw. die rezipierte Medienberichterstattung für 'richtige Wahlentscheidungen' spielten. Es zeigt sich, dass bei der Nationalratswahl 2008 lediglich ein geringer Anteil der WählerInnen 'richtig' wählte. In Bezug auf die Einflussfaktoren ist hervorzuheben, dass sich der Konsum bestimmter Medien hemmend auf 'richtige Wahlentscheidungen' auszuwirken scheint, wobei die Ergebnisse darauf hindeuten, dass dieser negative Effekt vor allem auf eine vergleichsweise eindimensionale Berichterstattung dieser Medien zurückgeführt werden kann." (Autorenreferat)

Criticisms of the system by which the American political parties select their candidates focus on issues of representativeness-how choices are dominated by relatively small numbers of ideologically extreme primary voters, or how residents of small states voting early in the process have disproportionate influence. This paper adds a different concern, albeit one that still addresses representativeness. How well do primary and caucus voters represent their own values and interests with their vote choices? Lau and Redlawsk's notion of "correct voting" is applied to the 2008 U.S. nominating contests. Four reasons to expect levels of correct voting to be lower in caucus and primary elections than in general election campaigns are discussed. Results suggest that voters in U.S. nominating contests do much worse than voters in general election campaigns, often barely doing better than chance in selecting the candidate who best represents their own values and priorities. Discussion focuses on institutional reforms that should improve citizens' ability to make correct voting choices in caucuses and primaries. Adapted from the source document.

To date, little is known about how many and which citizens in Austrian general elections vote 'correctly' (that is, in a way that is congruent with their attitudes and preferences). This article investigates this matter, primarily focusing on whether and to what extent media consumption and coverage affected the likelihood of a 'correct' voting decision at the 2008 Austrian general election. The analyses demonstrate that only a small proportion of voters voted 'correctly'. Regarding the effects of media consumption and coverage it is shown that the consumption of specific media hinders 'correct voting', and this effect appears to be due to the 'one-dimensionality' of that media coverage. Adapted from the source document.

The extent to which citizens vote in accordance with their own principles and priorities has been proposed as an important measure of a democracy's health. This article introduces a new method of evaluating the ability of individuals to vote for the political party with policy positions closest to their own -- to vote "correctly". Following Lau and Redlawsk (1997), a "correct vote" is defined as the vote choice individuals would make under conditions of perfect information. In other words, a vote is "correct" if it is cast for the party that a voter should vote for, based upon a fully informed comparison of his or her policy positions with those of the parties contesting an election. Voters' policy preferences are estimated here using election study data, and the positions of parties are derived through data from the Comparative Manifestos Project. For illustrative purposes, this new method is applied to the 2004 Canadian federal election. Correct voting rates are calculated by comparing voter and party positions in seven dimensions of political competition, accounting for the relative importance of each dimension. While this study's data are exclusively Canadian, the approach introduced is applicable to other settings. Adapted from the source document.

This article reports on a small group experiment studying how the preferences of an individual's social network affect her ability to vote for the candidate who will provide her with the greater benefit on both valence issues and position issues. The research diverges from traditional formal models and experimental studies of social communication by expanding the communication network beyond the dyad. The results suggest that social communication is a useful information shortcut for uninformed independents, but not uninformed partisans. Informed individuals incorporate biased social messages into their candidate evaluations, which results in higher levels of incorrect voting in certain types of networks.

This article extends Lau and Redlawsk's notion ofcorrect voting– whether voters, under conditions of uncertainty, choose the alternative they would have chosen had they been fully informed about the issues and candidates in that election – to sixty-nine elections in thirty-three established and emerging democracies around the world. At the individual level, political sophistication, political experience and motivation all significantly predict the probability of casting a correct vote. However several institutional factors proved to be even more important. In particular, elections with more parties running – and settings that encourage candidate-centred voting – decrease the probability of correct voting, while more ideologically distinctive alternatives, clearer lines of responsibility and greater media access to information are associated with higher rates of correct voting.