Can Parties Recruit Postal Voters? Experimental Evidence from Britain

While easily-accessible postal voting is on the rise in many countries, the implications for electoral campaigns

for them to turn out. But how effective are these efforts to recruit supporters on to postal votes? We present an

during the May 2018 UK elections. We test the effect of a common recruitment tactic – letters and application

recruiting and mobilising supporters. While the rewards of successfully signing supporters up to postal voting are

potentially substantial, our results suggest that parties should consider the most effective ways of doing so.