Expressive Voting and Its Cost: Evidence From Runoffs With Two or Three Candidates
中文摘要
在法国议会和地方选举中，第一轮得票第一和第二的候选人自动获得第二轮资格，而第三位候选人仅在获得超过12.5%的登记选民支持时方能获得资格。利用围绕该门槛的模糊断点回归，我们发现第三位候选人的参选大幅增加了对任意候选人投票的登记选民比例，并降低了前两位候选人的得票份额。这在不成比例上损害了在意识形态上最接近第三位候选人的候选人，并导致其在五分之一的竞选中落败。额外证据表明，这些结果是由以下两类行为者驱动的：一是选民，相较于为确保自己最不讨厌的前两位候选人胜出而对其进行策略性投票，他们更看重表达性投票的价值；二是第三位候选人，在缺乏导致其退选的政党层面协议的情况下，他们相较于影响第二轮选举结果，更看重与参与第二轮竞选相关的收益。
Abstract
In French parliamentary and local elections, candidates ranked first and second in the first round automatically qualify for the second round, while a third candidate qualifies only when selected by more than 12.5 percent of registered citizens. Using a fuzzy RDD around this threshold, we find that the third candidate’s presence substantially increases the share of registered citizens who vote for any candidate and reduces the vote share of the top two candidates. It disproportionately harms the candidate ideologically closest to the third and causes her defeat in one fifth of the races. Additional evidence suggests that these results are driven by voters who value voting expressively over voting strategically for the top-two candidate they dislike the least to ensure her victory; and by third candidates who, absent party-level agreements leading to their dropping out, value the benefits associated with competing in the second round more than influencing its outcome.