Browsing by Author "Perry, Steven"

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    Down-Ballot Decision Making: The Effect of Electoral Level on Individual Cognitive Processing & Information Consumption
    (2021-04-29) Perry, Steven; Stein, Robert
    Of the more than 500,000 elected officials nationwide, more than 96% are elected to positions in local government. As a result, each election cycle the vast majority of races on a voter’s ballot are comprised not of high profile races for well-known positions in state and federal government, but for positions in local government. Local electoral contests provide a large and diverse array of positions that are placed before the electorate; in addition to traditional legislative and executive positions, voters in state and local elections are often tasked with selecting candidates to judicial, administrative, law enforcement, and other specialized positions. Do voters use the same types of cognitive strategies when making decisions for these bottom-of-the-ballot contests that they use when evaluating candidates for more well-known offices? Little work has systematically examined the effect that different institutional electoral levels may play on a voter’s cognitive decision making processes. The implications of this research trend are clear: voters are electing the vast majority of office holders and are making the greatest number of decisions through processes that we, as scholars, know the least about. Through a series of original experiments, I identify the effect of electoral level on voters’ cognitive processing, information acquisition, and decision making. Overall, I find clear evidence of an electoral effect: in spite of significant information asymmetries and higher information costs, voters in local elections desire more information about candidates running for local office.