ASSESSING THE SOPHISTICATION OF THE ROMANIAN ELECTORATE: AN OVERVIEW OF STRATEGIC VOTING IN ROMANIA
ASSESSING THE SOPHISTICATION OF THE ROMANIAN ELECTORATE: AN OVERVIEW OF STRATEGIC VOTING IN ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: This paper provides evidence that the Romanian voters have become familiar with the electoral system and they behave in such a manner as to maximize their utilities. For this purpose, it investigates whether strategic voting occurs and whether some electoral formulae provide more incentives for tactical voting than others. Namely, the presidential and parliamentary elections were compared, with encouraging results. The data used to measure voters’ predispositions for sophisticated voting was gathered from the Soros Foundation’s Public Opinion Barometer and was aggregated according to the requirements of the study. Individuals appear to be more conscious about wasting their votes in the more restrictive majoritarian election for president. The second part of the study focuses on identifying patterns of strategic voting by analyzing the effects of individual traits on one’s chances of voting tactically. The method used was binary logistic regression. With some exceptions, Romanian voters conform to expectations drawn from relevant literature.

• Details
• Contents