Acceso usuarios
Sarah Cameron, Ian Mcallister
During general election and referendum campaigns, many voters will know how they are going to vote far in advance, while a smaller group of undecided voters will make up their minds closer to polling day. These undecided voters emerge as important actors in democratic politics. Their choices can be swayed during the campaign, and their behaviour can explain how election and referendum outcomes differ from polling results. In this paper, we address two questions concerning undecided voters: (1) are there differences in the proportions of undecided voters in referendums and elections; and (2) how do the vote choices of these undecided voters vary between referendums and elections? To investigate these questions, we compare voting in two contiguous pairs of Australian referendums and general elections using national surveys. We find that the degree of indecision is similar across elections and referendums, although the behaviour of undecided voters varies across the different electoral contexts. In referendums, undecided voters are more likely to vote no, while in general elections, these voters are more likely to vote for minor parties.
