Null Effects of Social Media Ads on Voter Registration: Three Digital Field Experiments

Abstract

Civic organisations and progressive campaigns regard digital advertising as an essential method to register to vote low-participation groups, such as ethnic minorities, young voters, and frequent home movers like private-sector tenants. Digital strategies appear to be promising because the registration process can be completed online, usually in less than five minutes, using a web link in the advert. But do typical digital campaigns actually work in registering voters? To find out, we provide evidence from three randomised controlled trials: two conducted with advocacy organisations and the third run by the research team, carried out in two types of elections (general and local), and assigned either at the aggregate (studies 1 and 2) or individual (study 3) level. We find no evidence consistent with digital campaigning meaningfully affecting voter registrations. Despite wide reach and relatively high engagement rates, we find no effect of the campaigns on under-registered groups’ voter registrations in the three trials. The findings raise questions about commonly-used digital advertising strategies to register marginalised groups. These findings are consistent with other studies that report either null or minimal effects of digital ads on other types of political behaviour.

Keywords: elections, social media, digital ads, voter registration, youth mobilization