This paper provides the first estimate of the effect of door-to-door canvassing on actual electoral outcomes, via a countrywide experiment embedded in François Hollande's campaign in the 2012 French presidential election. While existing experiments randomized door-to-door visits at the individual level, the scale of this campaign (five million doors knocked) enabled randomization by precinct, the level at which vote shares are recorded administratively. Visits did not affect turnout, but increased Hollande's vote share in the first round and accounted for one-fourth of his victory margin in the second. Visits' impact persisted in later elections, suggesting a lasting persuasion effect. (JEL C93, D7, D83)

We use two-round survey data from 62 elections in 10 countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the consistency between vote intention and vote choice of respondents surveyed at different points before, and then again after, the election, and show that 17% to 29% of voters make up their mind during the final two months of campaigns. Changes in vote choice are concomitant to shifts in issues voters find most important and in beliefs about candidates, and they generate sizable swings in vote shares. In contrast, policy preferences remain remarkably stable throughout the campaign. Finally, we use an event study to estimate the impact of TV debates, in which candidates themselves communicate with voters, and of shocks such as natural and technological disasters which, by contrast, occur independently from the campaign. We do not find any effect of either type of event on vote choice formation, suggesting that information received throughout the campaign from other sources such as the media, political activists, and other citizens is more impactful.

U.S. states increasingly require identification to vote—an ostensible attempt to deter fraud that prompts complaints of selective disenfranchisement. Using a difference-in-differences design on a panel data set with 1.6 billion observations, 2008–2018, we find that the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation. These results hold through a large number of specifications. Our most demanding specification controls for state, year, and voter fixed effects, along with state and voter time-varying controls. Based on this specification, we obtain point estimates of −0.1 percentage points for effects both on overall registration and turnout (with 95% confidence intervals of [−2.3; 2.1 percentage points] and [−3.0; 2.8 percentage points], respectively), and +1.4 percentage points for the effect on the turnout of nonwhite voters relative to whites (with a 95% confidence interval of [−0.5; 3.2 percentage points]). The lack of negative impact on voter turnout cannot be attributed to voters’ reaction against the laws, measured by campaign contributions and self-reported political engagement. However, the likelihood that nonwhite voters were contacted by a campaign increases by 4.7 percentage points, suggesting that parties’ mobilization might have offset modest effects of the laws on the participation of ethnic minorities. Finally, strict ID requirements have no effect on fraud, actual or perceived. Overall, our findings suggest that efforts to improve elections may be better directed at other reforms.

We measure the overall influence of contextual versus individual factors (e.g., voting rules and media as opposed to race and education) on voter behavior, and explore underlying mechanisms. Using a US-wide voter-level panel, 2008–2018, we examine voters who relocate across state and county lines, tracking changes in registration, turnout, and party affiliation to estimate location and individual fixed effects in a value-added model. Location explains 37 percent of the cross-state variation in turnout (to 63 percent for individual characteristics) and an only slightly smaller share of variation in party affiliation. Place effects are larger for young and White voters. (JEL D12, D72, I20, J15, L82, R23)