How social norms increased voting intentions by 7%

The 2020 United States presidential election had the highest voter turnout rate in recent American history, with 66.7% of the voting-eligible population casting a vote, up by approximately 8% from the 2016 presidential election.^1,2 It’s common to constantly hear about voter turnout in the days leading up to an election. To figure out how the social norms associated with news of high or low voter turnout affects people’s voting intentions, researchers conducted two get-out-to-vote field experiments.³ Participants were selected and contacted at random from the registered voters list prior to the 2005 New Jersey and 2006 California gubernatorial elections. One of either high turnout or low turnout scripts were presented to participants on the phone and a post-message survey asked the participant’s intention to vote based on the turnout. The results found that participants that received the high turnout scripts were 7% more likely to report a 100% probability of voting compared to participants that received a low turnout script.