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Research shows that most citizens are shockingly uninformed about public affairs, liberal-conservative ideologies, and the issues of the day. This has led most scholars to condemn typical American voters as politically brainless and to conclude that policy voting lies beyond their reach. 'On Voter Competence' breaks sharply from this view. According to Paul Goren, people vote based on abstract policy principles, a practice that has escaped scholars because they have searched for evidence of policy voting in the wrong places

ObjectiveThis article evaluates the voting experience in the first election using cumulative voting for the Board of Trustees in Port Chester, New York. A growing number of local jurisdictions in the United States are using cumulative voting for multimember elections. While the Port Chester election included some other new features in addition to cumulative voting, the village implemented an extensive voter education program to prepare voters and candidates for the election.MethodsWe conducted an exit poll of 1,946 Port Chester voters in June 2010, more than half of the voters in the local election. We used a variety of survey questions to measure voting experience and voting behavior. We also examined election returns for Port Chester, including the 2010 and 2013 elections using cumulative voting.ResultsWe find that the voter education program helped inform residents about casting a ballot with cumulative voting. Port Chester voters, and Hispanic voters in particular, reported a positive experience in the 2010 election. A large majority of voters also indicated that they understood cumulative voting and cast all of the votes allotted to them. Finally, we find evidence of strategic use of cumulative voting in order to help elect a candidate of one's choice.ConclusionsOur results indicate that voters are capable of effectively participating in elections with cumulative voting. Communities that are weighing the adoption of cumulative voting for local elections should also be prepared to implement a parallel voter education effort.

The article discusses the issues of political competence, political activity and political communication in Lithuania. The concept of political competence is operationalized and measured in terms of threefold sub-levels: the level of political information, the congruence between the perception of left-right wing politics, and self-placement on the left-right wing political scale together with the actual voting preferences. Analysis revealed the dependence of the level of political competence upon demographic criteria and personal values. The main problem is incompatibility between the level of political competence and political activity. The most active citizens do not necessarily have substantial political knowledge while the most competent citizens often abstain from active civic and political involvement.

The article discusses the issues of political competence, political activity and political communication in Lithuania. The concept of political competence is operationalized and measured in terms of threefold sub-levels: the level of political information, the congruence between the perception of left-right wing politics, and self-placement on the left-right wing political scale together with the actual voting preferences. Analysis revealed the dependence of the level of political competence upon demographic criteria and personal values. The main problem is incompatibility between the level of political competence and political activity. The most active citizens do not necessarily have substantial political knowledge while the most competent citizens often abstain from active civic and political involvement.

The article discusses the issues of political competence, political activity and political communication in Lithuania. The concept of political competence is operationalized and measured in terms of threefold sub-levels: the level of political information, the congruence between the perception of left-right wing politics, and self-placement on the left-right wing political scale together with the actual voting preferences. Analysis revealed the dependence of the level of political competence upon demographic criteria and personal values. The main problem is incompatibility between the level of political competence and political activity. The most active citizens do not necessarily have substantial political knowledge while the most competent citizens often abstain from active civic and political involvement.

A long research tradition in behavioral political science evaluates the performance of democracy by examining voter competence. This literature got its start arguing that voters' lack of information undermines a defense of democracy rooted in electoral accountability. A more recent literature deepens the debate, with some authors claiming that voters effectively use cues to substitute for information about candidates and policies, and other authors claiming that voters are insufficiently rational to do so. We argue that, regardless of its conclusions about voter competence, this literature's single-minded focus on voter behavior is misguided. We use a sequence of formal models to show that traditional intuitions are incomplete because they ignore the effect that changes in voter behavior have on the equilibrium behavior of politicians. When this strategic interaction is taken into account, increases in voter information or voter rationality sometimes make democratic performance better and sometimes make democratic performance worse. One simply cannot assess the implications of voter characteristics for democratic performance without also studying how those characteristics affect the behavior of politicians.

This study, based on the two-wave questionnaire data collected from legislative candidates in Iowa, attempts to test the "congratulation-rationalization effect," a highly provocative hypothesis that John Kingdon formulated regarding politicians' beliefs about voters. The hypothesis asserts that winning candidates tend to develop complimentary beliefs about voters while losing candidates tend to develop beliefs deprecating to voters. The results of analysis indicate, however, no significant difference between winners and losers in terms of the direction and magnitude of changes in their beliefs about voters, suggesting that the hypothesis is invalid. When the hypothesis is reformulated in terms of "dissonance states" rather than "election outcomes," the evidence is strongly supportive. Among winners, those who perceive a high degree of dissonance more than those who perceive little dissonance tend to change their beliefs about voters in a favorable direction. Conversely, among losers, those who perceive a high degree of dissonance more than those who perceive little dissonance tend to change their beliefs in an unfavorable direction. Therefore, the "congratulation-rationalization" hypothesis can be sustained only if cast in direct dissonance terms.

Abstract.  One of the criticisms often levelled against direct democracy is that citizens lack sufficient knowledge to vote directly on policy issues. The 'No' votes in the French and Dutch referendums on the Constitutional Treaty have highlighted the importance of examining voter competence in referendums. This article proposes a theoretical framework for evaluating competence in EU referendums. It suggests that competent voting in EU referendums is based on issue‐specific preferences and requires political information. Since most voters have little detailed knowledge of European integration, they rely on heuristics and cues when deciding how to vote. The important question is how much and which type of information voters require to make competent choices. This article examines whether and under what conditions the use of party endorsements as information cues can enhance competent voting in EU referendums. These theoretical questions are examined in an analysis of the 1994 Norwegian referendum on EU membership.