NONE OF THE ABOVE: PROTEST VOTING IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST DEMOCRACY

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ujhelyi, Gergely; Chatterjee, Somdeep; Szabo, Andrea
• 署名单位: University of Houston System; University of Houston; Indian Institute of Management (IIM System); Indian Institute of Management Lucknow
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvaa047
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1936-1979
• 关键词: practitioners guide; signaling model; voter turnout; candidates; INFORMATION; ELECTIONS; BEHAVIOR; IMPACT; BIAS

摘要

Who are protest voters and do they affect elections? We study this question using the introduction of a pure protest option (None Of The Above (NOTA)) on Indian ballots. Using structural estimation, we find that in elections without NOTA, most protest voters simply abstain. Protest voters who turn out scatter their votes among many candidates and consequently have little impact on election results. From a policy perspective, NOTA may be an effective tool to increase political participation, and can attenuate the electoral impact of compulsory voting.