With Europe's ageing population looming over modern politics, governments have started increasing the retirement age in hopes of slowing down the demand for labour replacement. The overall consensus in liberal democracies is that such decisions should be communicated timely and explicitly to those affected. This paper focuses on the electoral ramifications of multiple administrations in the United Kingdom failing to inform affected voters about changes in their State Pension Age. How does the electorate react attitudinally to information obstruction? Can political attitudes build on knowledge and assessments of a single policy dimension? Using Understanding Society data, a large panel study, I exploit the effect of receiving delayed notification letters on political preferences of those affected by the 1995 and 2011 Pension Acts. Employing a Donut-Hole Regression Discontinuity Design, I compare self-reported partisan support of affected individuals interviewed right before the letters were sent, to those of treated individuals interviewed right after receiving the letters. I find that the lack of transparency had mixed effects. On the one hand, voters became less supportive of the incumbent at the time of policy enactment. However, instead of turning to the opposition, the results indicate an increase in support for a smaller, centrist party - the Liberal Democratic Party. The findings in this article contribute to our understanding of the relationship between transparency and accountability, while simultaneously providing evidence on how distributing information changes political preferences.
