Multiplayer Voting

This experiment studies voting in an election with a top-two primary and multiple candidates. You will be paid for your participation on the basis of the decisions you make. If you are careful and make good decisions, you can make a substantial amount of money

In this experiment, there are multiple candidates (between 2 and 10), and you are a voter. You will participate in a number of periods, each consisting of an information buying phase, a straw vote, a primary election, a second information buying phase, and a general election.

In each period the candidates will take positions on a number line that goes from 0 to 100. Before each primary election all voters will have the opportunity to buy information about the candidates. Voters will then vote. Then, the top two primary outcomes will be announced to the group, where only the two candidates who receive the most votes advance. Voters will then have another opportunity to buy information about the candidates. Then, all voters will vote for a single candidate in the election and the candidate who gets the most votes will be considered the winner. At this point the candidates may move to new locations on the number line and the process will repeat.

Voters are paid for their participation on the basis of their payoff chart. Please look at the page that displays the payoff chart. The line is simply the set of all numbers between 0 and 100. The experimenters will select candidate positions on the line for each period. Candidates are equally likely to be at the end of the line as they are to be at the middle of the line. Each voter will be paid based on the position of the winning candidate on her payoff chart. For example, suppose candidate A is located at position 20, candidate B is located at position 25, and candidate B wins the election. Then you would earn 400 francs for that period. Note that on the sample payoff the maximum payoff is at position 45.