Voting in the Dark: How Vietnamese Voters Negotiate Low Information Elections

• In Event: Electoral Malpractice in East and Southeast Asia Mini-Conference

Abstract

Information on candidate attributes is critical in elections. Information helps ensure that voters select candidates that match their policy preferences. Information is also critical for strategic voting. Polls, previous elections, and party labels provide information voters need to ensure votes are not wasted on hopeless candidates. Contrary to most democratic and quasi-democratic polities, Vietnamese voters have extremely little information in National Assembly elections. Pre-election polls are not allowed; candidates may not campaign; only one party may compete; and few incumbents are allowed to run. What, then, drives voting behavior in Vietnam? I argue that in low information environments such as Vietnam, two outcomes are possible. First, where local officials apply subtle pressure, elections may tightly match the preferences of the local party. However, where such pressure is either not applied or fails, vote returns may be chaotic and almost random. To support this theory, I show that compared to democracies with electoral systems similar to Vietnam, voters do not behave strategically in accordance with Cox’s M+1 rule. Namely, voters either coordinate too tightly and overwhelmingly support the regime-preferred candidates, or they do not coordinate at all and spread their votes in a non-strategic manner. These findings highlight an under-appreciated, subtle form of electoral manipulation in single-party regimes – information deprivation.

Author

• Paul J. Schuler, University of Arizona