Voters Use Campaign Finance Transparency and Compliance Information

82 Pages Posted: 31 Aug 2017 Last revised: 19 Jan 2022

See all articles by Abby K. Wood

Abby K. Wood

University of Southern California Gould School of Law

Date Written: January 18, 2022

Abstract

Campaign finance compliance and transparency reveal important non-policy attributes that voters care about. Using vignette and conjoint survey experiments, I show that voters in primary elections incorporate transparency and compliance considerations into candidate selection. This effect persists even where the candidate shares the respondents’ preferred policy positions. The findings bring campaign finance transparency and compliance into the scholarly conversation about candidate valence. They also have implications for our campaign finance jurisprudence and suggest that courts should expand their understanding of the informational benefits of campaign finance disclosures and compliance information.

Keywords: transparency, campaign finance, valence, elections, voting, compliance

Suggested Citation

Wood, Abby K., Voters Use Campaign Finance Transparency and Compliance Information (January 18, 2022). USC CLASS Research Paper No. CLASS17-24, USC Law Legal Studies Paper No. 17-23, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3029095 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3029095

Abby K. Wood (Contact Author)

University of Southern California Gould School of Law ( email )

699 Exposition Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90089
United States

HOME PAGE: http://weblaw.usc.edu/contact/contactInfo.cfm?detailID=71046

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
374
Abstract Views
2,547
Rank
133,754
PlumX Metrics