Candidates in Tokyo ward elections are 6% more likely to win if a random lottery places them on the first page of the voter guide.
April 25, 2026
Original Paper
Unintended Inequality: A Pitfall of Electoral Systems Driven by Information Acquisition Costs
SSRN · 6635100
The Takeaway
Democratic outcomes in major cities can be decided by the random flip of a page rather than the merit of the candidates. Voters are significantly influenced by the order in which they encounter information, a bias that overrides their political preferences. This effect is driven by the high cost of searching for details about dozens of competing candidates. A simple change in document layout can shift the power in a local government. It reveals that the way we present information is just as important as the information itself. We assume voters make choices based on platforms, but often they are just picking from the top of the list.
From the abstract
Using ward assembly elections in Tokyo's 23 special wards (2005-2023), we estimated how the listing order in Japan's Candidate Information Pamphlet-an officially issued voter guide-affects electoral outcomes. Listing positions are assigned by lottery, providing a natural experiment. Candidates on the front page are about 6 percentage points more likely to win than those on inner pages, and even within a page, placement significantly shifts vote shares. To account for strategic competition among