The Strategic Dis/advantage of Voting Early

Abstract

Under sequential voting, voting late enables conditioning on which candidates are viable, while voting early can influence the field of candidates. But the latter effect can be harmful: shrinking the field increases not only the likelihood that future voters vote for one's favorite candidate, but also that they vote for an opponent. Specifically, if one's favorite candidate is significantly better than all others, then early voting is disadvantageous and all equilibria are equivalent to simultaneous voting. Conversely, when some other candidate is almost as good, then any Markov, symmetric, anonymous equilibrium involves sequential voting (and differs from simultaneous voting). (JEL D72)