Skip to Content

Did a txt reminder on election day increase voter turnout? - research report

By Dr Helena Catt and Peter Northcote, New Zealand Electoral Commission, May 2009. 

The Electoral Commission thanks Vodafone New Zealand for its support of this research.

In a controlled experiment on New Zealand’s parliamentary election day in 2008 those who received a txt (SMS) message from the “orange elections guy” reminding them to vote had a 4.7% point higher turnout than those who did not receive the txt message. This level of impact is large for a direct marketing initiative of its type and for a turnout differential between matched cohorts and indicates an effective and cost efficient way of prompting people to vote. Assuming the txt recipients were younger and more likely to be first time voters due to the general profile of txt users, large-scale adoption of this intervention could be particularly effective at motivating a priority audience for the Electoral Commission (and election management bodies (EMBs) internationally).

The full research report is available for download, at right.