Partisanship, Polling and Strategic Voting in East Asia: Evidence From an Experimental Web Survey

Abstract

How does polling information, the polling source, and how it is presented influence strategic voting? Few studies capture at what point individuals become strategic voters or how polling information affects this behavior. Furthermore, strategic voting research in mixed member systems remains largely confined to aggregate district level analyses. This analysis employs an experimental survey implemented in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. The results suggest that reminding respondents of the margin of error encourages strategic behavior, while polls originating from partisan sources discourage defection.