Voting Age, Information Experiments, and Political Engagement:  Evidence from a General Election

Abstract

We exploit new experimental and quasi-experimental data to investigate voters’ intrinsic motivation to engage politically. Does the right to vote increase engagement or, given incentives to free ride, do eligible voters remain rationally unengaged? Does knowledge that one’s group is pivotal reduce free riding? And are the politically engaged influenced by election-relevant policy information? To address these questions, we fielded a survey of 5,400 Mexican high school seniors just prior to the 2018 general election. Age-based regression discontinuity results show that the just-eligible exhibit higher measures of low-cost political engagement than the just-ineligible. One survey experiment reveals that information that the youth vote will be pivotal increases eligible respondents’ interest in the presidential debate and the election result. In another, information about current policy outcomes affects future policy priorities in ways consistent with the incentives of eligible respondents to collect relevant information on salient policy issues.

Keywords: political engagement, free riding, pivotal voters, policy information