HOW DO VOTERS DECIDE?| 213These fi ndings demonstrate the importance of mobilization in elections. As dis-
cussed earlier, many candidates for political offi ce spend at least as much time try-
ing to convince their supporters to vote as they do attempting to persuade others to
become suppor ters in the fi rst place. Because many Americans either do not vote or
vote only sporadically, mobilization is vital for winning elections.
How Do People Vote?
Although candidates, parties, and other organizations release a blizzard of
endorsements, reports, and press releases throughout the campaign, much of this
information may be diffi cult to interpret. It is a daunting task, even for the rare,
highly motivated voter. The combination of a lack of interest and a relatively com-
plex task leads most Americans to base their vote decisions on easily interpretable
pieces of in for mation, or voting cues.^39 Voters in A mer ica n nationa l elections use
many kinds of cues, including:
¾ Incumbency: Vote for the incumbent candidate.^40
¾ Partisanship: Vote for the candidate whose party affi liation matches
your own.^41
¾ Personal vote: Vote for the incumbent if he or she has helped you to get
assistance from a government agency or has helped your community to
benefi t from desirable government projects.^42
¾ Personal characteristics: Vote for the candidate whose personal character-
istics (age, race, gender, ethnicity, or religious beliefs) match your own or
suggest that you have common values, ideologies, or policy preferences.^43
¾ Retrospective evaluations: Focus on a small set of votes the incumbent has
cast while in offi ce or other duties of the offi ce that you care about, and
vote for the incumbent if he or she has behaved the way you want in these
circumstances.^44
¾ For (or against) the party in power: Vote for a candidate based on a com-
parison of that candidate’s party with an assessment of the party in power
(the party that controls the presidency and has majorities in the House and
Senate).^45voting cues Pieces of information
about a candidate that are read-
ily available, easy to interpret, and
lead a citizen to decide to vote for a
particular candidate.IN ORDER TO VOTE, CITIZENS MUST BE
registered. Until recently, people
who had either moved or turned 18
just before an election often could
not register in time to vote, but
the 1993 Motor Voter Act lowered
barriers to registration. The act
required states to give citizens
the opportunity to register to vote
when applying for or renewing a
driver’s license.