In recent years, voters’ preferences have become more volatile, between elections as well as in the course of a campaign. I look at possible sources of last-minute party switching, using short-term panel data from Switzerland, where, during the 2011 campaign, almost 40 percent of the voters changed their preferences. One possible incentive to switch to another party’s camp may emerge from the results of pre-election polls. Are, for example, sympathizers of the projected losers more prone to change their preference in order to avoid wasting their votes? Beyond that, I analyze whether the parties’ chances of winning or losing a seat in the subsequent election to the Federal Council – with the newly elected parliament acting as electorate – lead to compensatory voting. Preliminary results provide some evidence for this type of strategic voting, as well as for an anti-loser effect of projected poll results.
