Attentiveness in Elections with Impressionable Voters
57 Pages Posted: 30 May 2019
There are 2 versions of this paper
Attentiveness in Elections with Impressionable Voters
Attentiveness in Elections With Impressionable Voters
Date Written: May 6, 2019
Abstract
We propose a model of attentiveness in elections with impressionable voters under various electoral rules. Voters’ behavior is determined by their attentiveness and impressions of candidates. We show that attentiveness is as important as voters’ preferences for the outcome of the election. Specifically, we show that candidates benefit from increased voter attention under all rules other than negative plurality. Second, less attentive voters have a larger impact on the election outcome under plurality and negative plurality rules, but not under approval voting. Third, under limited and endogenous attentiveness, a unanimously first-ranked candidate may not win under plurality and approval voting, but he always wins under negative plurality. We finally consider the case of tonality in news coverage and show that under plurality rule and approval voting candidates may benefit from frequent news coverage even if the news is negative.
Keywords: multi-candidate elections, adaptive behavioral voting, partial attentiveness
JEL Classification: D03, D72, D83
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation