Large elections and interim turnout

Abstract

We examine the effect of the interim release of turnout information on elections in a model of a large electorate with a common voting cost, private values, and two alternatives. We consider that (i) one group of citizens votes before the rest and that (ii) the individuals of the second group know the first group's turnout¿but not the vote tally¿before they vote. The alternative with more votes in total is implemented. Our main result is that there is an equilibrium in which the ex-ante probability that each alternative is implemented is one half and, hence, the same as when no information about turnout is released. We also show several equilibrium properties of our political game which both broaden our theoretical understanding of the costly-voting paradigm and provide testable hypotheses about elections. Our insights remain valid for some extensions of our baseline setup.