Replication Data for: Getting the Message: Why Mail-Delivered GOTV Interventions Succeed or Fail

Mail-delivered get-out-the-vote (GOTV) field experiments have been found to increase voter turnout in some – but not all – contexts. We hypothesize that GOTV interventions are more successful in low-salience elections, and test this in a systematic way for the first time. Relying on a systematic literature review and a meta-regression framework, we find that primary elections have a strong and significant positive impact on the success of mail-delivered GOTV interventions, but not other commonly used measures of election salience such as voter turnout, margin of victory, and a dummy for local elections. Our results highlight the possibility of fostering voter turnout using GOTV mail messages, especially in primary settings.

邮寄式催投（get-out-the-vote, GOTV）实地实验已被证实可在部分而非全部情境下提升选民投票率。本研究提出“催投干预在低关注度选举中成效更显著”的假说，并首次通过系统方式对该假说开展检验。依托系统文献综述与元回归（meta-regression）分析框架，本研究发现初选对邮寄式催投干预的成功率具有显著正向影响，但未观察到选民投票率、胜选幅度、地方选举虚拟变量等其他常用选举关注度衡量指标存在类似效应。本研究结果凸显了借助邮寄式催投信函提升选民投票率的可行性，尤其在初选选举场景中效果突出。