Getting out the vote in different electoral contexts: the effect of impersonal voter mobilization techniques in middle and high salience Norwegian elections

Abstract

This article reports on two sets of field experiments testing text messaging (SMS) among native Norwegian voters and live phone calls among young voters eligible to vote in their first election. The two sets of experiments are done in both local and national elections. Most previous studies of election salience and voter mobilization use data from countries with generally lower levels of turnout than in Northern Europe (including Norway). This article addresses how the effectiveness of voter mobilization varies by election salience, in a generally high-salience political context. We find the two experiments to be more effective in low/middle salience elections, with turnout around 60 percent, than in high salience elections with turnout higher than 75 percent.