Voter Mobilization and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya

By: Benjamin Marx, Vincent Pons and Tavneet Suri

Format:Print
| Language:English

Abstract

Voter mobilization campaigns face trade-offs in young democracies. In a large-scale experiment implemented in 2013 with the Kenyan Electoral Commission (IEBC), text messages intended to mobilize voters boosted participation but also decreased trust in electoral institutions after the election, a decrease that was stronger in areas that experienced election-related violence as well as with individuals on the losing side of the election. The mobilization backfired because the IEBC promised an electronic voting system that failed, resulting in manual voting and tallying delays. Using a simple model, we show signaling high institutional capacity via a mobilization campaign can negatively affect beliefs about the fairness of the election.

Keywords

Political Participation; Electoral Institutions; Field Experiment; Voting; Political Elections; Behavior; Trust; Kenya

Citation

Marx, Benjamin, Vincent Pons, and Tavneet Suri. "Voter Mobilization and Trust in Electoral Institutions: Evidence from Kenya." Working Paper. (Economic Journal 131, no. 638 (August 2021): 2585-2612.)