Empowering Local Democracy: Candidate Information and Nonpartisan Election Voting

• In Event: Cutting Edge Community Empowerment through Civically Engaged Research: A Roundtable Discussion and Panel

Abstract

Local elections often fail to draw in voters. Residents cite a lack of candidate information as a reason for nonvoting. They note that local elections often have many candidates, and it takes too much time and effort to independently find information about candidate platforms, especially when the elections are non-partisan. In other words, residents argue that participating in local elections can be costly and burdensome. We ask whether providing residents with information about local candidates increases voter turnout in local elections. We argue that providing candidate information to voters can decrease the costs associated with voting and empower individuals to vote “correctly.” Through a partnership with two Houston area non-profits, BakerRipley and the League of Women Voters of Houston, we test whether supplying candidate information to low-propensity voters stimulates local voter turnout. We send approximately 10,700 non-partisan voter guides to low-propensity voters during the 2020 Houston mayoral election. We find that supplying information to voters does result in greater turnout. When voters can easily access information regarding candidate platforms, they are more likely to vote. Our findings suggest that voter guides may be an effective GOTV technique in elections where candidate information may be difficult or costly to obtain, such as in local elections, non-partisan elections, or in elections with many candidates.

Authors

• Samantha Chapa, University of Houston

• Shana Hardin, University of Houston

• Lucia Lopez, University of Houston

• Jeronimo Cortina, University of Houston