Ulric B. and Evelyn L. Bray Social Sciences Seminar

I introduce a polling stage to Feddersen and Pesendorfer's (1996) two-candidate election model in which some voters are uncertain about the state of the world. While Feddersen and Pesendorfer find that less informed, indifferent voters strictly prefer abstention, which they refer to as the swing voter's curse, I show that there exists an equilibrium in which everyone truthfully reveals his/her preference in the poll and participates in voting. Moreover, I find that even in the truth-telling equilibrium, the candidate who wins the poll may be defeated in the election. In a large election, however, polls can still help information aggregation.