Get out the Vote - Eksperimenter i velgermobilisering ved stortingsvalget 2017 i Oslo

Abstract

Voter turnout in Oslo amongst immigrants and young voters under 30 years old are lower than for the population in general. Behavioral economics and Get-out-the-Vote literature help us predict how to increase turnout in these groups by sending letters and text messages to voters encouraging them to vote in the upcoming election. These field experiments aim to replicate experiments completed during the local election in 2015 but in a new context for the 2017 parliamentary election in Oslo. The parliamentary election is a high salience election where citizenship is a requirement for the right to vote and has a turnout of around 80 per cent, almost 20 per cent higher than a local election. This study aims to test the effectiveness of nudges sent by text and mail to voters with lower turnout than rest of the electorate. This is done by analyzing the turnout in our control and experimental groups in a randomized experimental setting. We find that the most effective nudge is sending letters to immigrants that can vote in a parliamentary election for the first time. While there are no significant results for immigrants that have previously voted nor young voters under 30. This is the first time Get-out-the-Vote field experiments are conducted in a Norwegian parliamentary election, thus providing important results for further research into GOTV campaigns and how to increase turnout in high salience elections.