WEBVTT - Do 'I Voted' Stickers Do Anything? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.480 Welcome to brain Stuff, production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.959 brain Stuff, Lauren voge Obam here. Our podcast headquarters are 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.720 in Atlanta, Georgia. Where as of this publication, we recently 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.959 had a Senate runoff election, which got us thinking once 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:21.639 again about the power of the democratic process and of 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:26.800 the now ubiquitous I Voted sticker. Voting sticker selfies started 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.680 going viral on Twitter and Instagram during the election and 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.800 are now so popular that people who vote absentee feel 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.760 like they're missing out. Artists around the country have been 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.600 offering I Voted designs for printing at home during this 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.040 election season. There's even a guy in New Jersey determined 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:45.760 to send a sticker to every person who voted by mail. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:52.000 But as inconsequential as stickers might seem, our obsession with 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.480 them makes perfect sense to social science researchers who study 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.880 voter turnout and what motivates people to go to the polls. 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:03.639 Old scivic duty is definitely a strong incentive, but so 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:08.880 is social status. We spoke with Stefano Della Vigna, an 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:12.319 economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.920 of the study voting to tell others one of many 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.720 fascinating studies proving that we vote in part because we 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.200 want our friends and neighbors to know that we voted. 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.760 His study notes that it's a long established fact that 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.600 of non voters lie to pollsters when asked if they 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:34.720 voted in the last election. He said, on its face, 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.200 this indicates that people hate to admit to being non voters. 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.480 They face this trade off between telling the truth and 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:44.840 looking bad or lying. Most people prefer others to see 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.200 them as voters. It's one thing to lie to a 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.000 stranger with a clipboard, but how much harder is it 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:54.280 to lie to a friend or family member who asks 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.080 if you voted. It's that expectation of being asked and 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.040 the cost of lying to someone you know that could 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:03.360 motivate and on the fence voter to go out and 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:07.840 cast a ballot. Della Vignia calculates that the potential public 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.320 shame of not voting is enough to boost voter participation 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.720 by two to three percentage points in a tile election 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.760 such as the runoffs here in Georgia. That can be huge. 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.160 So how do those stickers play into all of this? 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.480 When you slap a voting sticker on your chest, you're 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.359 sending two clear messages to the other members of your 0:02:28.360 --> 0:02:32.440 social network. The first message, obviously, is that I voted. 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.360 You're essentially answering the question before it's even asked. The 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:41.160 second message is implied, but just as strong. Della Vignia said, 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.040 if you see people wearing the sticker on election day, 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.600 you might think, oh, geez, my grandma is going to 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:49.040 ask me whether I voted. If you're on the fence, 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:52.840 that might be enough to push you over. Delavignia study 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.440 is not the only research that backs up the sneaky 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.120 power of the I voted sticker. A landmark Swiss study 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.480 back in two thousand five studied voter participation before and 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.280 after a new law allowing voting by mail. This was 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.919 government expected voter turnout to increase if voters were given 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.840 the easier option of voting from home. Instead, voter turnout 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.400 actually dropped, especially in smaller towns. Patricia Funk, an author 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.400 of the Swiss study, wrote, as long as poll voting 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.280 was the only option, there was an incentive or pressure 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:26.760 to go to the polls only to be seen handing 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.880 in the vote. Since in small communities people know each 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:32.640 other better and gossip about who fulfills civic duties and 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:36.520 who doesn't. The benefits of norm adherents were particularly high 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.760 in this type of community, but when vote by mail 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.880 became an option, the pressure to publicly vote decreased. People 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.240 could just as easily lie and say that they voted 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:52.840 from home. Voting stickers have been around since, but started 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.720 to gain popularity during the tight year two thousand Bush 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.760 Gore race with its disputed outcome. Social media has taken 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.520 this colorful representation of voting to another level. Not every 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.720 jurisdiction does offer stickers, though at fifteen cents a pop, 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.760 the cost can add up when ordering for thousands or millions, 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.640 but it might be worth it if voter participation increases. 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.159 Facebook experimented with a clickable I Voted button with somewhat 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:23.239 amazing results. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.760 tested different versions of the button on sixty one million 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.960 Facebook users. When those Facebook users were shown six profile 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.840 pictures of friends who had already voted, they were two 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:36.800 point zero eight percent more likely to click the I 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:41.000 Voted button themselves versus those users who only received the 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:46.560 information encouraging voting but no pictures of friends. Of course, 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.320 stickers aren't going to solve wider issues of voter suppression, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.240 but hopefully they can be part of convincing people to 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.880 get out to the polls every time there's a local vote, 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:05.040 and that every vote really does count. Yeah. Today's episode 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.240 was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Klang. 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.560 For more on this lots of other topics, visit house 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.599 stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of iHeart Radio. 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.039 For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.640 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 0:05:17.640 --> 0:05:18.360 favorite shows.