The Machine Works: Why Turnout Buying Is More Effective Than It Appears

• In Event: Voting and Elections in the Global South

Abstract

Turnout buying is a mainstay of machine politics. Despite strong theory that selective incentives should spur electoral participation, meta-analyses of empirical studies show no effect, thus making machine politics seem irrational and unsustainable. I argue that the apparent failure of turnout buying is an artefact of common measurement decisions in both experimental and observational research that lump together turnout buying, abstention buying, and vote-choice buying. Data generated by these compound measures include countervailing and null effects that drive estimates of the effects of each strategy toward zero. I show that machines have incentives to diversify their strategies enough to substantially underestimate the effects of turnout buying when using such compound measures. I suggest simple alternative measurement approaches and show how they perform in new survey data and a constituency-level analysis of machine strategy in Mexico. Findings indicate that turnout buying is significantly more effective than current studies suggest, thus closing the gap between theory and facts and reaffirming the rationality of machine politics.

Author

• Kenneth F. Greene, University of Texas at Austin