MEASURING VOTER TURNOUT BY USING THE RANDOMIZED RESPONSE TECHNIQUE EVIDENCE CALLING INTO QUESTION THE METHOD'S VALIDITY

Surveys usually yield reported rates of voting in elections that are higher than official turnout figures, a phenomenon often attributed to intentional misrepresentation by respondents who did not vote and would be embarrassed to admit that. The experiments reported here tested a procedure for reducing social desirability response bias by allowing respondents to report secretly whether they voted: the "randomized response technique." In a national telephone survey of a sample of American adults and eight national surveys of American adults conducted via the Internet, respondents were either unable or unwilling to implement the randomized response technique properly, raising questions about whether this technique has ever worked properly to achieve its goals.