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How to Survey About Electoral Turnout? The Efficacy of the Face-Saving Response Items in 19 Different Contexts*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2016

Alexandre Morin-Chassé ,
Damien Bol ,
Laura B. Stephenson  and
Simon Labbé St-Vincent
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Abstract

Researchers studying electoral participation often rely on post-election surveys. However, the reported turnout rate is usually much higher in survey samples than in reality. Survey methodology research has shown that offering abstainers the opportunity to use face-saving response options succeeds at reducing overreporting by a range of 4–8 percentage points. This finding rests on survey experiments conducted in the United States after national elections. We offer a test of the efficacy of the face-saving response items through a series of wording experiments embedded in 19 post-election surveys in Europe and Canada, at four different levels of government. With greater variation in contexts, our analyses reveal a distribution of effect sizes ranging from null to minus 18 percentage points.

Type
Research Notes
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 5 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 575 - 584
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2016 

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Footnotes

*

Alexandre Morin-Chassé, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx, 3150, rue Jean-Brillant, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3T 1N8 (alexandre.morin.chasse@umontreal.ca). Damien Bol, Lecturer in Political Behavior, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London, Strand Building, London, United Kingdom, WC2R 2LS (damien.bol@kcl.ac.uk). Laura B. Stephenson, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, The University of Western Ontario, Social Science Centre Rm 4154, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 5C2 (laura.stephenson@uwo.ca). Simon Labbé St-Vincent, Research and Planning Analyst, Université de Montréal, 2900 Boulevard Edouard-Montpetit, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H3T 1J4 (simon.labbe.st-vincent@umontreal.ca). To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2016.31

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