In the APSA Public Scholarship Program, graduate students in political science produce summaries of new research in the American Political Science Review. This piece, written by Deborah Saki, covers the new article by Avi Ahuja and Gwyneth McClendon, “The Effects of Exposure to New Electoral Rules: Field Experimental Evidence from Sierra Leone”.
Elections are the foundation of democracy, yet many democracies continue to struggle with a persistent challenge, which is encouraging citizens to participate. For decades, scholars, policymakers, and activists have searched for ways to increase voter turnout. Scholars have long argued that electoral rules shape political participation. Yet we know much less about whether these patterns also emerge in developing democracies, where political competition often revolves around personal ties and local patronage. A new study by Avi Ahuja and Gwyneth McClendon examines how changing electoral rules, combined with informing citizens about those changes, can shape how voters understand political participation and accountability. Using Sierra Leone’s electoral reform as a natural opportunity for study, the authors examine how voters respond when the rules governing political representation fundamentally change. They investigate the consequences of Sierra Leone’s shift from plurality rules to closed-list proportional representation for voter participation, political attitudes, and views of representation.
In 2023, Sierra Leone changed the way citizens elected members of parliament. Instead of choosing individual candidates, voters selected political parties (without knowing which candidates the parties would ultimately put into office should the party win). This change moved the system from single-member districts, where one candidate represented each area, to a proportional representation (PR) system, where parties received seats based on their share of votes. However, the reform occurred only a few months before the election, leaving many citizens with little time to learn about the new rules. In fact, knowledge of the new electoral system remained very low in the lead-up to the election. Could giving these voters more information on Sierra Leone’s new proportional representation (PR) system influence participation?
To examine this question, Ahuja and McClendon conducted a field experiment before Sierra Leone’s 2023 election. This approach allowed them to study voter responses to learning about electoral reform in real time, something that had not been done before. The researchers surveyed over 1,000 urban voters a few weeks before the election and randomly divided them into two groups. One group received information about the new electoral system through text messages and an election information app (for example, that voters would now select a party symbol for their entire district rather than choose an individual candidate in their constituency). The other group did not receive this information before the researchers measured their responses. This allowed the researchers to compare voters who learned about the new rules with voters who had not yet received that information in the run-up to election day.
” (…) Voters may have been responding to the idea of reform and change rather than the electoral system alone.” The researchers found that learning about the new electoral system changed how some voters viewed participation. They did not find that the reform simply increased everyone’s intention to vote. Instead, the strongest effect appeared among women, who face greater barriers than men to participating in elections in Sierra Leone. Women who learned about the new system reported being willing to spend more time waiting to vote, suggesting that the reform increased their commitment to participating in elections. Follow-up analyses suggest that women viewed the new party-centered system more positively than men, as both men and women believed that political parties would place greater emphasis on women’s issues under proportional representation. At the same time, many men appeared less enthusiastic about the reform because it reduced their ability to vote for specific candidates (typically, also, other men) with whom they could build personal political ties.
The study also found that the reform changed how voters viewed political promises. Before the change, Sierra Leone’s electoral system encouraged politicians to build personal relationships with voters and promise benefits targeted toward specific communities. After learning about the new party-based system, voters became less supportive of these local, particularistic promises. The researchers argue that voters understood that individual politicians were no longer directly responsible to a specific constituency in the same way as they were under the old system. Because of this, politicians’ promises to deliver benefits specifically to their neighborhoods and local communities seemed less credible. Follow-up survey evidence suggests that voters correctly understood the implications of the reform. Many recognized that under the new system, parliamentary candidates would become more directly accountable to their political parties than to individual voters and local communities.
At the same time, the researchers found that changing the electoral system did not automatically increase trust in elections. They expected voters might view proportional representation as fairer because votes are more directly connected to seats won by parties. However, trust only increased in certain circumstances, particularly among voters who were reminded of past electoral problems before answering questions about the new election. This suggests that voters may have been responding to the idea of reform and change rather than the electoral system alone.
Overall, the study shows that electoral institutions influence more than how votes are counted. They also shape how citizens understand accountability and their own role in democracy. The findings suggest that voters do not need to fully understand every technical detail of an electoral system to respond to institutional change. Instead, they form judgments based on what those changes mean for their relationship with politicians and parties.
