Justin Fisher

Research on strategic voting in simple plurality systems has focussed largely on voters faced with three options. This is problematic, first because strategically minded voters may prefer candidates outside of the three leading contenders; second, they may consider voting for third (or worse) placed parties; and third, some voters might have more than one strategic option. We demonstrate that conceptualising strategic voting in terms of strategic voters restricts our ability to accurately answer important questions about strategic voting. We set out a new approach to strategic voting which identifies the strategic options available to voters in multiparty contests. We then examine the number, distribution and character of strategic options and strategic votes in four British general elections using data from the British Election Study. We find that across these four elections 7% of options open to voters could be considered strategic and more than one third of these were voted for, accounting for 11% of all votes cast.

Do party or candidate campaigns boost momentum? Momentum in election campaigns is significant because it indicates a greater perception of the likelihood that a party or candidate will perform well, and also because that brings with it an improvement in credibility as a viable contender. Existing explanations of changes in the perception of popularity of candidates and parties over an election campaign relate largely to the impact of media coverage and opinion polls. What is frequently absent is any discussion of the impact of party and candidate campaigns. This is a curious omission since it effectively ignores the central actors in electoral contests – the parties and the candidates. This article seeks to address this lacuna by assessing whether campaign efforts deliver electoral momentum. Using data from three British general elections, we find strong evidence to indicate that campaign efforts at the constituency-level play a key role in delivering momentum.

The impact of campaigns on electoral performance is conditioned in part by contextual effects. The popularity equilibrium model has proven to be an important guide to how the electoral effects of local campaigns vary by a party’s existing level of popularity. Such an equilibrium can, however be disturbed by an electoral shock—a rare event which fundamentally challenges the foundations that underpin predictability in elections. This article analyses the impact of the electoral shock of the UK’s 2016 referendum on EU membership on campaign effects in the subsequent elections of 2017 and 2019. Using a novel theoretical and methodological approach, it shows that while there were observable effects of the Leave vote already present before the referendum, the geography of the effectiveness of Labour and Conservative local campaigns was altered after the referendum. However, it was not until the 2019 election that the shock of the 2016 Leave vote became a particularly important predictor of the electoral efficacy of both parties’ campaigns.

What makes voters more or less willing to vote online? This article uses a unique survey experiment to assess the effect of information about who delivers the online ballot; and which groups of voters are more likely to take up the option of online voting. Voters are much more favourable if it is associated with a public body than a well-regarded private sector company. We also find a clear relationship between online activity in the personal world and a willingness to vote online. Those that expose themselves to greater potential online risk in their personal lives are likely to favour having the option to cast their ballot online, but those who perceive more risk are only likely to do so if they receive additional information about the purported advantages of online voting. Who delivers, and perception of online risk are key to understanding when voters are more willing to cast their ballot online.

Studies of electoral integrity typically focus on electoral evaluators (expert surveys), electoral consumers (electors) and, occasionally, electoral producers (electoral administrators). Using a unique new data set collected at the British general elections of 2010, 2015 and 2017, this article examines evaluations of electoral integrity among a previously unresearched group of electoral users – the election agents of candidates standing for election. Using measures of both negative and positive electoral integrity, the article models explanations of users’ evaluations, focusing on the agent characteristics, geography and electoral status of the district or constituency. It shows that evaluations of electoral integrity vary significantly and highlights both that questions of electoral integrity are more localised than widespread, and that despite the significant impact of winner/loser effects, issues of electoral integrity are strongly related to the urban characteristics of an electoral district. In so doing, it makes a significant contribution to the literature on electoral integrity.

Parties and candidates target campaign resources where they are most likely to pay electoral dividends. At the individual level it has been shown that some individuals are more likely to be persuaded by campaign contacts than others. In a parallel tradition of measuring campaign effectiveness at the macro level, previous research has demonstrated that local candidate campaign effort measured is significantly related to electoral performance. However, while there is evidence suggestive of macro level effects, there is little systematic evidence about the district level conditions under which campaign efforts are most productive. Drawing on extensive data across six UK general elections between 1992 and 2015, we advance a theory of local campaign efficacy and test a general model of popularity equilibrium. We demonstrate that there is a curvilinear relationship between the underlying level of party support in an electoral district and the intensity of the district-level campaign – there is a ‘sweet-spot’ for maximizing the returns of campaign effort.

Campaigning at the district level can deliver electoral payoffs in a range of countries despite variations in electoral systems. However, effects may not be consistent. Campaigns do not occur in a vacuum, and contextual factors, exogenous to the campaign activity itself, may have a significant effect on the level of their electoral impact. The 2015 General Election in Britain is a particularly interesting case as there was a key contextual factor which could impact significantly on the effectiveness of the parties’ campaigns; the electoral unpopularity of the Liberal Democrats. Using a unique new dataset, this article assesses the contextual impact of party equilibrium at both national and district levels on campaign effectiveness. It represents the first attempt on a large scale to systematically assess the impact of party popularity on campaign effectiveness and demonstrates at both national and district levels the importance of contextual effects on election campaigns.

With an election having taken place only two years beforehand, there may have been an expectation that little would change in terms of party finance. Yet the period between the 2015 and the 2017 elections demonstrated a surprising amount of change. There were new laws and policies related to party finance and much uncertainty about the legitimacy of some election spending. Moreover, as other chapters also show, the two main opposition parties were fundamentally changed—not only in terms of leading personnel—but also in respect of financial prowess, largely due to an influx of new members and supporters. But despite change, there was also continuity. The national campaign continued to be subsumed into playing a supporting role for the battles in the constituencies, and the growth of digital campaigning continued, though it was still far from the dominant mode of campaigning, especially in terms of expenditure. And, by polling day, ‘normal service’ was resumed in terms of party income and expenditure, with the Conservatives able to raise significant sums once the election was called. But all of this should also be contextualised by the sudden calling of the election. As this chapter shows, its unexpected nature impacted significantly on parties’ spending decisions and their ability to use their money effectively.