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A Crucial Test of Alphabetic Voting: The Elections at the University of Leiden, 1973–1978

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Eric A. Barker  and
Areno Lijphart
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Extract

Politicians and political scientists have long known that there is a slight tendency among voters to prefer candidates whose names appear at the top of the ballot compared with lower-placed candidates, and hence that ceteris paribus the former have a somewhat better chance of being elected than the latter. When the candidates' names appear on the ballot in alphabetical order, this positional voting bias is usually called ‘alphabetic voting’. It is of special importance and interest in preferential voting systems where the voters may indicate their first, second, third, etc., preferences among a list of candidates, as in the single-transferable vote elections to the Irish Dáil, or where they must do so, as in the alternative-vote elections to the Australian House of Representatives.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , October 1980 , pp. 521 - 525
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 The major studies of alphabetic voting in Australia and Ireland are Mackerras, Malcolm, The ‘Donkey Vote’ for the House of Representatives (Sydney: Australian Political Studies Association, 1963)Google Scholar, and Robson, Christopher and Walsh, Brendan M., Alphabetical Voting: A Study of the 1973 General Election in the Republic of Ireland (Dublin: Economic and Social Research Institute, 1973)Google Scholar. Alphabetic voting may also occur in non-preferential systems; see Upton, G. J. G. and Brook, D., ‘The Importance of Positional Voting Bias in British Elections’, Political Studies, XXII (1974), 178–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bain, Henry M. Jr., and Hecock, Donald S., Ballot Position and Voter's Choice: The Arrangement of Names on the Ballot and Its Effect on the Voter (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1957).Google Scholar

2 The University Governance Reorganization Act of 1970 requires that the rule-making bodies at all levels consist of elected faculty, staff, and student representatives. Our data are limited to the three highest levels: the University Council, the Faculty Councils (in the Faculties of Letters, Social Sciences, Law, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Medicine, etc.), and the Subfaculty Councils (for instance, in the Subfaculties of Political Science or Sociology within the Social Sciences Faculty, and the Subfaculty of History within the Faculty of Letters).

3 We examined all districts in which contested elections took place with the exception of the very small districts (those with fewer than ten voters casting valid ballots and/or fewer than three candidates).

4 Wallis, W. Allen and Roberts, Harry V., Statistics: A New Approach (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1956), pp. 282–4Google Scholar; Blalock, Hubert M., Social Statistics, 2nd edn (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972), pp. 424–6.Google Scholar

5 Mackerras, Malcolm, ‘The “Donkey Vote”’, Australian Quarterly, XL (1968), 91Google Scholar; Upton, and Brook, , ‘The Importance of Positional Voting Bias’, pp. 178, 189Google Scholar; Taebel, Delbert A., ‘The Effect of Ballot Position on Electoral Success’, American Journal of Political Science, XIX (1975), 520–5:Google Scholar

6 Hughes, Colin A., ‘Alphabetic Advantage in the House of Representatives’, Australian Quarterly, XLII (1970), 27Google Scholar; Upton, and Brook, , ‘The Importance of Positional Voting Bias’, p. 179Google Scholar; Taebel, , ‘The Effect of Ballot Position’, pp. 520, 525.Google Scholar

7 Mackerras, , ‘The “Donkey Vote”’, p. 91Google Scholar; Solomon, Gillian, ‘Donkeys and Quasi-Donkeys’, Politics, V (1970), 230–1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar