Why Knowledge is Not Good Enough: Examining Individual Preconditions for Strategic Voting

Voters in single-member districts with multiple candidates have to consider their preferred candidates' likelihood to win the plurality of the votes to make informed decisions. Insufficient electoral support for a voter's first choice creates incentives to support a more viable but less preferred candidate instead. This is one of the most unambiguous examples for strategic voting and a large body of research examined when and how people deviate from their first preference to achieve better electoral outcomes in this context (e.g., Eggers & Vivyan 2020). However, surprisingly little is known about the underlying mechanisms that enable citizens to vote strategically in the first place. In this article, we present results from an experimental design that independently manipulates three preconditions for strategic voting: motivation, information, and cognitive load. Subjects participate in a mock election where their most preferred candidate has the lowest chance to win the election. While the overall share of respondents who vote strategically is strikingly low, the share increases if participants receive more precise information about the candidates' support and if decisions are made in the absence of cognitive distractions. Interestingly, participant's level of motivation does not have a direct effect on the accuracy of strategic voting decisions, but rather moderates the beneficial effect of available information and cognitive resources. Overall, our findings have important implications for the study of strategic voting since we are able to experimentally isolate and test different underlying mechanisms for the first time.