Seminar 4

Date:            18 March, 2014

Time:           4 - 5.15pm

Venue:       Building 24, Copland, Room 1171, LJ Hume Centre

Speaker:  Ignacio Lago is Associate Professor of Political Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain). His research interests include electoral systems, political behaviour and party politics. His recent publications have appeared in Economics and Politics, Electoral Studies, European Journal of Political Economy, European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics and Social Science Quarterly.

Paper Title:  Regulating Disinformation: Poll Embargo and Electoral Coordination

Paper Abstract:  This paper examines the political consequences of pre-Election Day poll restriction. Our argument is that laws outlawing the publication of polling results hamper electoral coordination the more complex the information environment is. We rely on aggregated data from the most recent Lower House elections in 46 democracies to show that the amount of wasted votes increases in countries with highly fragmented party systems when pre-Election Day polls are restricted. This evidence is supported with individual data from Internet panel surveys conducted by the Electoral Democracy Work Project during election campaigns in Canada and Spain.