TDL Brief: The Real Drivers of Voter Behavior
As I’m writing this on October 30, 2020, all eyes are on the US election next week.
This is already shaping up to be a historic election, at least in terms of voter turnout. Even five days out from the election, Texas’ early voting surpassed 2016’s total turnout, and nationally, more than 80 million early votes have been cast. This record-breaking early voting pace, accounting for more than 58 percent of the total 2016 turnout, points to the substantial success of numerous “get out the vote” initiatives.
And this is something that should be celebrated. Historically, the US hasn’t been very impressive when it comes to voter turnout. In 2016, only 55.7% of the voting-age population voted. In fact, of all developed countries, US voter turnout ranks 31 out of 35.
But, behind any seemingly successful policy or intervention lurks potentially unforeseen and unintended consequences. As the high turnout of this election is rightly celebrated, it is our job as behavioral scientists to dig deeper in an effort to better understand how these “get out the vote” campaigns may unintentionally bias voter behavior.
For example, in his article “Is a Biased Vote Better Than No Vote?” TDL contributor Sanketh Andhavarapu highlighted that only encouraging citizens to vote, without also educating them on how to become more politically aware, may lead to voters to rely too heavily on cognitive shortcuts such as the status quo bias or the bandwagon effect.
Understanding the real drivers of voter behavior is clearly critical. So, with the 2020 US presidential election around the corner, TDL gathers some outside perspectives on what drives voter beliefs, turnout, and behavior at the ballot box.
Tom Spiegler, TDL Managing Director
About the Authors
Dan Pilat
Dan is a Co-Founder and Managing Director at The Decision Lab. He is a bestselling author of Intention - a book he wrote with Wiley on the mindful application of behavioral science in organizations. Dan has a background in organizational decision making, with a BComm in Decision & Information Systems from McGill University. He has worked on enterprise-level behavioral architecture at TD Securities and BMO Capital Markets, where he advised management on the implementation of systems processing billions of dollars per week. Driven by an appetite for the latest in technology, Dan created a course on business intelligence and lectured at McGill University, and has applied behavioral science to topics such as augmented and virtual reality.
Dr. Sekoul Krastev
Dr. Sekoul Krastev is a decision scientist and Co-Founder of The Decision Lab, one of the world's leading behavioral science consultancies. His team works with large organizations—Fortune 500 companies, governments, foundations and supernationals—to apply behavioral science and decision theory for social good. He holds a PhD in neuroscience from McGill University and is currently a visiting scholar at NYU. His work has been featured in academic journals as well as in The New York Times, Forbes, and Bloomberg. He is also the author of Intention (Wiley, 2024), a bestselling book on the science of human agency. Before founding The Decision Lab, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and Google.
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