Elicitation of Voters’ Decision Rules: A Design-Based Solution

• In Event: Understanding Vote Choice

Abstract

Voters' decision rules and how voters respond to the changed voting environments based on their decision rules are empirically a black box. In this study, we develop a design-based solution to elicit voters’ decision rules and use the elicited information to study voting behavior. Our novel and simple method has six major advantages compared to a canonical experimental design in voting studies. We embedded our novel elicitation method in a stylized voting experiment to show how our method extracts richer information than is typically unavailable and how we use such information to explore treatment effects.

Authors

• Kai Ou, Florida State University

• Scott Tyson, University of Rochester