More Candidates and Fewer Voters: How an Abundance of Choice Demobilizes the Electorate

Abstract

Voters, like consumers, experience choice overload when presented with too many similar options. The literature on consumer behavior finds overwhelmed consumers often opt out of making a decision altogether. Yet, how large candidate fields affect American voter behavior remains unexplored. I use an aggregate-level analysis leveraging exogenous changes to Louisiana’s electoral institutions and an individual-level analysis to investigate the effect of varying quantities of choice on ballot rolloff in U.S. House elections. Ballot rolloff is the phenomenon where voters turn out to vote, yet abstain in a given election. I find that an electoral institution that incentivizes candidate entry causes 5.7–7.1 percent more ballot rolloff, and also that individuals are more likely to rolloff when there are more candidates running in their House election. Louisiana is simply the best case to explore a phenomenon that is likely occurring in party primaries throughout the U.S.—choice overload at the ballot box.