The Perception of Polls and Coalition Signals and their Effect on Strategic Voting.

The paper investigates how poll information and coalition signals affect strategicvoting, defined as casting a vote for a party other than the most preferred party to betterinfluence the election outcome. In particular if the outcome of an election is perceived tobe close, voters in multi-party systems with proportional representation and coalitiongovernments should have an incentive to cast a vote for the party that best influencesthe formation of the next government. The study focuses in particular on voters'attention to and perception of polls and coalition signals sent by parties before elections.The study used an innovative design that embedded a laboratory experiment in two realelection campaigns, allowing the manipulation of poll results and coalition signals in arealistic environment. The findings suggest that political sophistication plays a crucialrole for the accurate perception of polls and strategic voting. Coalition signals are foundto have a surprisingly strong effect on (apparently) strategic voting. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]