Gambling with the Vote: A Formal Theory of the Influence of Material and Immaterial Incentives and the Electoral Environment over Voting Behavior
Keywords:
comportamiento electoral, incentivos de voto, influencia social, Edad Dorada de Estados Unidos, voto religiosoAbstract
Why would an individual yield to exogenous incentives and vote against their intrinsic preferences? I aim at answering this question by presenting a game that models the choices of voters who believe that they might receive an incentive associated with their behavior. This game considers the size of the incentive offered, the voter’s choice as a strategic best-response to other voters’ behavior, and the competitiveness of the election. I find equilibria that show that yielding to exogenous incentives is a best strategy under not very stringent conditions. Finally, I illustrate the predictions from the model using three cases where it has been observed that material or immaterial incentives affected —or still affect— the behavior of voters: vote-buying and voter coercion during the United States Gilded Age, the electoral behavior of African-Americans, and religious voting.
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