Electoral Studies 28 (2009) 1–7

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Electoral Studies
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/electstud

The comparative study of split-ticket voting

Barry C. Burden a,1, Gretchen Helmke b, *
a
Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin, 1050 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706, USA
b
Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, 323 Harkness Hall, Rochester, NY 14627, USA

a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This article provides a novel explanation for ticket splitting rooted in the literature on voter
Ticket-splitting uncertainty. The argument is that in contexts marked by asymmetrical competition, such
Uncertainty as single party autocracies, ticket splitting can provide voters with a kind of electoral
Risk aversion
insurance policy. By simultaneously voting for challengers in one race and incumbents
Democratization
in another, voters act to minimize the risks associated with electing a relatively unknown
Mexico
Electoral insurance opposition party. Drawing on survey data for one of Latin America’s most important elec-
tions, the 2000 Mexican presidential race, I evaluate empirically whether voters behave in
ways consistent with the logic of ticket splitting as electoral insurance.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In modern democracy, voting is the primary means by
which citizens participate in politics. However, despite
the enormous increase in the number of democracies
around the world, sophisticated analyses of voting behavior
have remained largely confined to politics in the United
States and a limited number of other advanced industrial-
ized nations. While much is known about voters in stable,
two-party, presidential systems, we are only just beginning
to understand how citizens express their preferences
through the ballot box across a variety of institutional con-
texts. This Special Symposium issue of Electoral Studies
seeks to increase our knowledge of voting by bringing to-
gether political scientists from American and comparative
politics whose work centers specifically on understanding
why, when, and how often voters in different regions of
the world engage in split-ticket voting.
Why concentrate on ticket splitting? Our premise is that
a complete theory of voting must take into account the fact
that elections frequently call upon voters to make multiple
decisions. While voters can, and often do, simply vote for
the same party each and every chance they get, the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ1 585 275 5236; fax: þ1 585 271 1616.
E-mail addresses: bcburden@wisc.edu (B.C. Burden), hlmk@mail.ro-
chester.edu (G. Helmke).
1
Tel.: þ1 608 263 6351; fax: þ1 608 265 2663.
volatility of elections and incidence of divided govern-
ments around the world suggests that this is not always
the case. Whereas explanations of this intriguing form of
voting behavior in the United States are well developedd
albeit still much debateddto date, we know very little
about whether such theories travel to other parts of the
world. At the same time, the enormous institutional diver-
sity posed by ‘going comparative’ affords exciting opportu-
nities for generating new theories of how voters cast their
ballots to fill different offices of government.
The essays in this volume cover a range of countries
and institutional contexts. They include the wealthy
(the United States, Japan, New Zealand, Germany, Italy)
and the poor (India, Brazil, Mexico, Bolivia); some of
the largest countries (India, Brazil, Russia, and the United
States) and the smallest (Latvia); and some of the oldest
and most established democracies (United States and
New Zealand) and some of the very newest (Russia,
Ukraine, Latvia, and Mexico). Collectively, the essays
cover parliamentary (Japan, Germany, Italy, New Zealand,
India) and presidential systems (United States, Brazil,
Mexico, Bolivia, Russia, Latvia, Ukraine); electoral sys-
tems based on single-member districts (United States),
proportional representation (Brazil), and mixed member
districts (Japan, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Latvia,
Ukraine, Mexico, Bolivia); federal (United States, Mexico,
India, Brazil, Germany, Russia) and unitary systems (Italy,

0261-3794/$ – see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2008.06.004
2 B.C. Burden, G. Helmke / Electoral Studies 28 (2009) 1–7
Japan, New Zealand); and two-party (United States) and
multi-party systems (Brazil, Mexico, India, Germany, Italy,
New Zealand).
Taken together, the contributions underscore the
important point that there is no single master variable un-
derlying ticket splitting. Whereas the authors’ search for
explanation often converges on many of the same mecha-
nismsdstrategic voting, policy balancing, necessary voting,
and candidate-centered votingdthey sometimes come to
divergent conclusions both from each other and from the
existing literature.
To set the stage for these contributions, the remainder of
our essay is divided into four main parts. First, we provide
an overarching definition of ticket splitting. Second, we ex-
amine the state of existing theory. Third, we consider the
various methodological challenges that the study of ticket
splitting pose to analysts. And fourth, we underscore the
larger substantive issues that ticket splitting entails for
the quality and stability of democracy. We conclude with
a brief overview of the essays that comprise the rest of
this Symposium.
1. A definition
A main premise of this Symposium is that ticket
splitting can and should be studied at various levels: across
voters, across constituencies, across parties, across offices,
across levels of government, across time, across ballot
formats, and across electoral rules. Taking ticket splitting
in a comparative direction will necessarily expand the
definition of ticket splitting commonly used in the Ameri-
can politics literature. Whereas the vast bulk of studies fo-
cus on simultaneous ticket splitting between presidential
and legislative elections on a single ballot,2 we seek to
accommodate the diversity introduced in comparative
analysis by employing a working definition that is cross-
nationally applicable to a variety of settings: a ticket is split
if voter i votes for party j in contest r and votes for party wj
in some other contest. In addition to enabling us to con-
sider ticket splitting in a variety of settings, using a mini-
malist definition also allows us to avoid privileging
a priori any single theoretical framework.
Starting with this general definition, ticket splitting may
vary along two key dimensions. The first dimension has to
do with direction. Taking institutional structures into
account, ticket splitting occurs either horizontally or verti-
cally (Campbell and Miller, 1957). Horizontal ticket splitting
is only possible when multiple, equivalent offices are con-
tested. By contrast, vertical ticket splitting occurs where
elections are held to fill offices at different levels of govern-
ment.3 The second dimension focuses on timing; and,
2 version of the policy balancing argument to explain the so-
It should be noted that the balancing theory of divided government,
which we discuss more fully below, explores ticket splitting in
non-concurrent elections whereby voters seek to moderate the effects of
their choice in the presidential election by choosing another party in the
midterm legislative elections (Alesina and Rosenthal, 1995; Fiorina, 1996).
3 4
A special case occurs when voters choose candidates at the same level
of government but with differing powers. An example of this is the elec-
tion of several statewide officials such as governor, attorney general, and
secretary of state (Beck et al., 1992).
specifically, on how concurrent versus non-concurrent
elections affects ticket splitting. Table 1 situates the articles
in this volume along these two dimensions.
As Table 1 shows, most of the cases of ticket splitting
explored in this Symposium are examples of concurrent
splitting. The difference among the articles lies in whether
the patterns being examined are primarily vertical or hori-
zontal. In terms of horizontal ticket splitting, for example,
the ‘limited vote’ system used in many American localities
and for many years in Japan gives citizens several votes in
each multi-member district. Although not included as
a case in this volume, it should be noted that Switzerland,
which holds simultaneous elections for the lower and up-
per houses under different voting rules, provides another
opportunity for citizens to engage in horizontal splitting.4
Much more common today is the possibility of ticket
splitting in mixed member systems. In such systems a voter
may simultaneously choose a party under proportional
representation and a party candidate to represent her dis-
trict. The popularity of mixed member systems in the
1990s produced many more cases to analyze in nations as
disparate as Japan, New Zealand, and Mexico (Shugart
and Wattenberg, 2001). The variety among them in terms
of thresholds, proportionality, and sheer novelty offers sub-
stantial variation to help researchers understand the im-
pact of institutional features on ticket splitting
(Massicotte and Blais, 1999). Important comparative work
on horizontal ticket splitting in mixed systems already
exists (Bawn, 1999; Jesse, 1988; Johnston and Pattie,
2002; Karp et al., 2002; Moser and Scheiner, 2005; Reed,
1999; Schoen, 1999); in this volume both Burden’s and
Karp’s single country articles on Japan and New Zealand,
and Moser and Scheiner’s cross-national study on MMM/
MMP systems advance further this line of analysis.
Vertical splitting is perhaps most studied in the U.S.
where presidential and congressional elections are held si-
multaneously every four years (Burden and Kimball, 2002;
Fiorina, 1996; Jacobson 1990; also see Brunell and Grofman,
this issue).5 But as the essays on Mexico (Helmke) and Bra-
zil (Ames, Baker, and Renno) in this Symposium suggest, it
is of increasing interest in Latin America and elsewhere
where presidentialism has taken hold (Shugart and Carey,
1992; Shugart, 1995). Moreover, while the focus of the arti-
cles in this volume on America and Latin America are on
concurrent vertical splitting, it should be noted that such
systems also permit non-concurrent splitting.
The Americanist literature contributes to filling in both
non-concurrent cells in the Table. Scholarship on ticket
splitting in Senate elections, for example, considers the
sources of ticket splitting in non-concurrent horizontal
elections (Fiorina, 1996; Frances et al., 1994; Burden and
Kimball, 2002). Turning to non-concurrent vertical
elections, Alesina and Rosenthal (1995) use a sophisticated
called midterm effect in which the president’s party loses.
We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the Swiss
example.
5
For non-federal examples of ticket splitting across different levels of
government, see Elklit and Kjær (2005) and Rallings and Thrasher (2003).
 B.C. Burden, G. Helmke / Electoral Studies 28 (2009) 1–7
Table 1
Ticket splitting across offices and time.
Concurrent Non-concurrent
Horizontal Mixed member systems Staggered multi-member
elections (Karp; Burden; elections
Moser and Scheiner)
Vertical Presidential-legislative Midterm and by-elections
elections (Ames and (Chandra)
Baker; Brunell and
Grofman; Helmke)
Time separates U.S. Senate elections (which are staggered)
and U.S. House midterm elections (Alesina and Rosenthal,
1995; Burden and Kimball, 2002; Erikson, 1988). Likewise,
in many Latin American countries, legislative elections
may take place separately from the executive election
(Samuels, 2004; Shugart and Carey, 1992). Variation in
the timing and structure of these elections can naturally af-
fect the degree of ticket splitting (Shugart, 1995). In federal
systems offices at different levels of government, such as
provinces or states versus the national level, are frequently
held at different times, as in the cases of Canada and India
(see Chandra, this issue).6 Recent research also examines
vote switching between national elections and European
Parliament elections, thus introducing a vertical compari-
son between national and supernational (Carrubba and
Timpone, 2005).
2. Explaining ticket splitting
Just as our hypotheses about ticket splitting should aim
toward generalizability, they also can and should be mod-
eled as part of a broader theory of voter choice, one that
provides us with a baseline model of voting in each of the
contests being examined. Researchers ought to be as ex-
plicit as possible about which model guides their inquiries.
For example, one of the theories tested extensively in this
Symposium is ‘strategic balancing’ (Fiorina, 1996; Kedar,
2005, 2006). Such a model is derived from a simple proxim-
ity spatial model in which voters prefer policies nearest
their ideal points (Downs, 1957). The balancing model
adds a number of assumptions about voter sophistication
such as the notion that voters can reason about how insti-
tutions interact to produce policy outcomes.
If policy is a convex combination of policy inputs of two
institutions, it may be natural to apply a balancing frame-
work. This could be a situation in which the two institu-
tions (e.g., federal and regional governments) simply
compromise, or one in which one institution sets general
policy framework and the other fills in the details, or one
legislates and the other implements. If, however, the au-
thorities of the two institutions are divided along
6
When local elections are considered, some natural experiments can
be exploited when the timing of the race varies (Elklit and Kjær, 2005).
In theorizing about the timing of elections, a simple hypothesis suggests
that ticket splitting is greater when offices are separated in time. Inter-
vening events make it less likely that a voter will choose the same party
in both contests. But the degree of ticket splitting will surely depend on
other factors including the degree to which parties and voters treat the
election as a referendum on the government in power.
3
jurisdiction lines, it should be incorporated differently
into voter motivation. Extensions of the theory add factors
such as policy discounting (Lacy and Paolino, 1998) and co-
ordination (Mebane, 2000) and thus have more general im-
plications for our understandings of voter decision-making.
As Brunell and Grofman’s article in this Symposium under-
scores, we must also realize that the basic spatial model can
explain ticket splitting without requiring strategic
balancing (Grofman et al., 2000).
At the broadest level, several of the authors in this
volume grapple with the basic question of whether split-
ticket voting is strategic or sincere. For example, studies
of ticket splitting in mixed member systems have been
cast both as the result of rational, strategic action (Bawn,
1999; Karp et al., 2002) or irrational confusion on the
part of voters (Jesse, 1988; Schoen, 1999). There is also ev-
idence that some voters simply prefer parties sharing
power regardless of the ideological positions of those
parties (Gschwend and Leuffen, 2005; cf. Burden and
Kimball, 2002; Sigelman et al., 1997). Knowing which of
these accounts is correctdor more appropriately under
what conditions each story appliesdis obviously of critical
importance to students of electoral behavior.
The impression that comes out of the handful of
previous comparative accounts has been that split-ticket
voting emerges largely as a function of voters voting
sincerely in the PR race, but voting strategically in the sin-
gle-member race to avoid wasting their vote. A variant of
this logic also appears in some of the work on hybrid pres-
idential-PR systems: voters may vote strategically for the
president (effectively an SMD) but sincerely for the PR
list. Several of the articles in this Symposium provide inter-
esting twists to this classic formulation. Many authors try to
adjudicate among competing explanations such as whether
voters split their tickets due largely to the personal traits of
candidates, or because they want to avoid wasting their
votes on losing candidates. Some flag the possibility that
voters choices may well be constrained or conditioned by
other factors as well: for example, there are several variants
of the so-called ‘necessary split-ticket’ hypothesis that have
to do with how the supply and relatively qualities of candi-
dates coerces voters into casting split tickets.
Other factors that enter into the articles in this
Symposium include voter uncertainty and risk aversion,
incumbency advantage, party and candidate campaign ef-
fects, and the distribution of ideological preferences of
the candidates, parties, and voters. All of these variables
and others should continue to be investigated because
they allow the study of ticket splitting to become a valuable
window into larger theoretical concerns.
While the overarching lesson of the essays in that no
one mechanism accounts for ticket splitting, some general-
izations about voting behavior do emerge. First, we should
expect higher levels of ticket splitting when either a presi-
dent or lower level race deviates from the ‘normal vote’. In
the U.S. context, the normal vote is the default: the
expected outcome if only long-term party affiliation were
to affect votes (Converse, 1966; Petrocik, 1989). Although
developed in the U.S., it appears to be portable to other
nations (Gaines and Crombez, 2004). The normal vote is
disturbed when factors such as campaign effects,
4 B.C. Burden, G. Helmke / Electoral Studies 28 (2009) 1–7
incumbency, candidate popularity, voter uncertainty, or
other short-term forces intervene. The normal vote frame-
work thus allows for many factors to be fed into a common
theoretical framework.
One problem with this approach, however, is that it is
difficult to evaluate what the baseline normal vote should
be for a particular race. For example, there may be spillover
from one race affects another as the literatures on ‘contam-
ination’ in mixed member systems (Ferrara et al., 2005) and
‘coattails’ in presidential systems have suggested (Ferejohn
and Calvert, 1984; Samuels, 2000). It might also be difficult
to determine in immature or fragmented party systems
such as those in Brazil or Russia. The inability of a party
to field enough candidates is an obvious constraint that
might encourage ticket splitting. But that issue is not
merely a nuisance; knowing that the menu of candidates
causes deviations from the normal vote and thus split
ballots is an important substantive insight.
Second, ticket splitting is more likely to occur when
there are visible cleavages within parties. For example,
Grofman et al. (2000) point out that ticket splitting in the
U.S. can be the result of a diversity of positions taken by
candidates of the same party in different districts. Party
systems at different levels of government might not be
strictly comparable. This has been argued in the Canadian
and Indian cases (Chhibber and Kollman, 2004). In the
U.S. state party systems often revolve around different
issues than do the national parties, which could result in
sincere vertical split-ticket voting (Gimpel, 1996). Vertical
ticket splitting may be analyzed in more rational terms if
party alignments at the national and provincial levels are
similar. Put another way, the party systems at the different
levels (e.g., regional and national) need to be integrated for
policy balancing to apply. The electoral maps for the two
elections should look similar. In some nations this assump-
tion does not hold (India), in others it does (Germany), and
it others the correspondence has varied over time (U.S.). To
evaluate balancing, researchers should first evaluate
whether voters will be able to identify and relate parties
on the regional ballot to those on the national ballot in
a given election.
3. Thinking about data
A particularly intriguing aspect of ticket splitting is the
range of methodological issues that the topic raises. The
articles in this Symposium begin to make substantial prog-
ress towards answering the simple but heretofore vexing
question about just how frequently ticket splitting actually
occurs outside of the U.S. For example, the non-American
articles reveal that there is considerable variation in the
frequency of ticket splitting across countries, but even in
places where ticket splitting seems to be comparatively
rare, it may still carry a large substantive impact. In close
elections, such as Mexico’s 2000 presidential race, even
a few percentage points can make a difference in whether
government is unified or divided.
Because the secret ballot generally prohibits researchers
from knowing the votes of individuals as these articles also
reveal, even basic measurement of the frequency of ticket
splitting remains a fundamental challenge for this
literature. As a result, there are three basic approaches
that scholars have taken to gauge the level of ticket split-
ting: survey data, aggregate level data results, and more so-
phisticated aggregate data analyzed using various
ecological inference methods.
As the articles in this Special Symposium demonstrate,
triangulation is often necessary since none of these ap-
proaches is entirely satisfactory on its own. Survey data
provide a rich set of individual level variables but also
have limitations. For example, there is evidence from at
least two articles here that survey respondents under-
report ticket splitting. Moreover, survey data are not always
comparable across nations. In contrast, analysis of aggre-
gate election data permits greater historical and cross-
national breadth, allowing researchers to see more clearly
how party systems and electoral rules contribute to ticket
splitting. Unfortunately, using aggregate election results is
a cruder approach because it neglects individual level var-
iation. Moreover, it can lead to mistaken conclusions if
one infers individual level relationships inappropriately
from the ‘ecological’ statistics, a fallacy known as the eco-
logical inference problem. To remedy these shortcomings,
researchers have turned to ecological inference techniques.
These techniques permit a researcher to use aggregate data
to estimate individual level relationships among a small
number of variables. Although the use of ecological infer-
ence techniques to study ticket splitting goes back at least
to Johnston and Hay (1984), interest in the approach has
grown substantially since the introduction of King’s solu-
tion (King, 1997) and its application in the U.S. setting by
Burden and Kimball (1998, 2002). Since that time many
studies have emerged using versions of these approaches
(Benoit et al., 2006; Elff et al., 2008; Johnston and Pattie,
2002). These models are still developing and do not always
work well in systems with many parties, but they hold out
the promise that aggregate models may have greater infer-
ential value than is commonly assumed.
Without a doubt, one of the key stumbling blocks to
progression in studying this topic comparatively is the gen-
eral lack of data availability. Outside of the U.S. and perhaps
Western Europe appropriate surveys are rare. District level
aggregate results are often difficult to come by, particularly
in developing parts of the world, such as Latin America and
India. Aside from practical issues of sheer availability, how
do we think about evaluating the relatively desirability of
survey versus aggregate data? Even if ecological inference
issues can be overcome satisfactorily in terms of indepen-
dent variables there seem to be certain types of theories
about voter information, voter beliefs, or voter preferences
that are still going to be difficult to assess without survey
data. There is much theoretical ground to cover, but it
seems that appropriate data are an even more immediate
need. Still, the articles in this Symposium demonstrate
just how much can be learned by collecting new data or
re-examining existing data in new ways.
4. Concern about outcomes
Finally, there is a relationship between ticket splitting
and divided government that deserves further scrutiny.
While none of the papers examine divided government
 B.C. Burden, G. Helmke / Electoral Studies 28 (2009) 1–7
per se, let alone its effects, there is an implicit assumption
in most of the articles that either divided government is
consequential or at least that voters, candidates, and parties
believe it to be so. Indeed, the debate over balancing theory
essentially hinges on whether voters think instrumentally
about policy outcomes that emerge from unified and
divided governments. While a thorough examination of
this connection and its implications for policy making is
beyond the scope of this Symposium, we encourage re-
searchers to think more precisely about how elections
and outcomes are related.
Because both are situations in which parties must share
power, some have argued that divided government in
a presidential system is equivalent to a coalition parliamen-
tary government (Elgie, 2001; Laver, 1999; Laver and
Shepsle, 1991; Shugart, 1995). Others have gone further in
arguing that the underlying logic of voting is the same in
three-party parliamentary systems and in the U.S. with
the House, Senate, and presidency (Fiorina, 1996). Whether
further research will support these early views remains an
open question.
Because of the potential consequences that divided
government carries for governability, accountability, and
democratic stability, understanding when and why di-
vided government emerges is also matter of considerable
practical and normative importance. Although the articles
in this Symposium are largely devoted to exploring the
frequency and causes of ticket splitting (an arguably
harder task for various reasons), it is worth briefly men-
tioning the various ways, both negative and positive, in
which divided government affects the quality and stability
of democracy.
On the negative side divided government has been
associated with the breakdown of party discipline and
often requires coalitions to be formed around specific
policies to ensure passage (Elgie, 2001). Divided govern-
ment in the U.S. has long been seen as a source of gridlock,
inter-branch conflict, large budget deficits, and weakened
accountability. From the voter’s perspective, the lack of
clarity of responsibility can weaken accountability (Manin
et al., 1999; Powell and Whitten, 1993). In Powell’s formu-
lation, ‘‘If citizens in a democracy cannot identify respon-
sibility for policy, they cannot use elections precisely to
hold policymakers retrospectively accountable for their
actions’’ (Powell, 2000: 51). In Latin America, the
perception of divided government has been even worse.
Non-majority governments are frequently blamed for
the usurpation of presidential powers and the breakdown
of democracy (Linz, 1990; cf. Mainwaring and Shugart,
1997).
In addition to exploring these kinds of direct
consequences, there are number of indirect negative effects
as well. In the U.S. case divided government is associated
with lower voter turnout (Franklin and Hirczy, 1998) but
higher presidential approval ratings (Nicholson et al.,
2002). In addition, it seems that divided control does not
hinder the public’s ability to reward or punish the presi-
dent for economic performance (Nadeau and Lewis-Beck,
2001; Norpoth, 2001). These findings point to interactive
effects between voter behavior and outcomes that deserve
additional research consideration.
5
Negative impressions of divided government are
obviously not universal. For example, in the trade policy
realm, Putnam’s ‘two level game’ argument (Putnam,
1988) suggests that presidents with opposition legislatures
come to the bargaining table with more leverage than sin-
gle party presidents or autocratic counterparts; he or she
can credibly claim constraints that may improve the coun-
try’s bargaining position. In terms of general concerns
about the lack of accountability associated with divided
government, recent work by Persson et al. (1997) counter
that divided government may instead have the positive
consequence of giving parties incentives to reveal informa-
tion about each other to voters that would otherwise be
absent under unified government.
Traditionally, most of these debates about the conse-
quences ofdand, most relevant for our purposes hered
the causes of ticket splitting and divided government
have, of course, tended to be played out primarily in the
realm of American politics. As several of the articles in
this Symposium suggest, this is no longer necessarily
the case.
5. Articles in the Special Symposium
The Symposium features seven articles by prominent
scholars of electoral politics in different regions of the
world. The nations studied and the hypotheses considered
vary tremendously, depending on the nature of the political
system being studied and the researcher’s interests. The
simple matter of how much ticket splitting occurs would
seem to prevent generalization as it ranges from less than
10% in India to over 70% in Brazil. And yet there are com-
monalities, such as the finding in several of the articles
that ticket splitting is much more common among sup-
porters of small parties. This seemingly universal pattern
immediately leads the authors to consider whether strate-
gic voting, candidate competition, or other factors may be
at work. The variation across settings also permits for
more convincing tests of standard theories. For example,
the classic policy balancing theory appears not to get
much support in the U.S. and in other nations as diverse
as Brazil, Japan, and Mexico. We also learn something about
the power of the ‘personal vote’ (Cain et al., 1987) and local
forces to shape vote choice in different electoral environ-
ments. Several of the articles turn up evidence that ticket
splitting is at least partly facilitated by support for individ-
ual candidates over party labels, whether it be in the U.S. or
a wide range of mixed member systems in the former com-
munist bloc, Germany, New Zealand, and elsewhere.
This variation is an asset to researchers who want to
gain leverage on particular cross-national hypotheses but
it can also be a challenge to those who wish to build general
theory that holds across many different electoral environ-
ments. Despite these challenges, the articles nonetheless
manage to point toward some common understandings.
For example, at a rather specific level at least four of the
articles reject balancing theory. At a more general level
most of the articles reveal voting behavior that is strategic
in the sense that the Downsian approach to the voting
calculus would expect. We hope that this Special Sympo-
sium is a stepping stone on the path toward more
6 B.C. Burden, G. Helmke / Electoral Studies 28 (2009) 1–7
comprehensive understandings of ticket splitting particu-
larly but also voter decision making generally.
The articles unfold as follows. Ames, Baker, and Renno
analyze voting patterns in the 2002 Brazilian presidential
and legislative elections using an original panel survey.
They find that a majority of voters split their tickets and
that most did so for local rather than national reasons.
Parochial, clientelistic politics produces divided govern-
ment essentially by accident not by voter intention.
Chandra’s article continues the focus on patronage as
a source of ticket splitting in India. She finds that strategic
voting is more frequent and better understood when ethnic
identities are considered in tandem with clientelistic poli-
tics. These results are followed by three articles focused
on horizontal ticket splitting in mixed member systems,
from which we learn about electoral systems more broadly.
In the Japanese setting Burden shows that ticket splitting
between the party list and district ballots is driven most
by the availability of candidates, confirming in part Ames
et al.’s findings about the importance of local candidates.
Moving to the New Zealand context, Karp uncovers remark-
ably similar levels of ticket splitting as in Japan and also
some evidence for the importance of candidates. In con-
trast, neither attitudes toward party leaders nor ‘contami-
nation’ of the list vote by popular candidates play much
role. Moser and Scheiner’s article takes a slightly different
approach, analyzing ticket splitting across many mixed
member systems. Their work helps integrate the others in
that they find more strategic ticket splitting in older
democracies but more influence of the personal vote in
new democracies, thus situating both Japan and New
Zealand in the larger context. Turning back to presidential
systems, Brunell and Grofman use aggregate election data
from the U.S. to argue for a ‘neo-Downsian’ account of
vertical ticket splitting between presidential and congres-
sional elections. Their evidence runs counter to balancing
theory but does suggest something unique in the ideologi-
cal diversity of American political parties as a contributor to
ticket splitting. Finally, Helmke explores the motivations
for ticket splitting in Mexico where the risks associated
with a transition to more competitive party politics are
a factor. She too finds no evidence for policy balancing, in-
stead showing that voters often view ticket splitting as
a way to provide electoral insurance in new democracies.
Acknowledgements
For helpful comments and material for this introductory
essay we thank Jørgen Elklit, Bernie Grofman, Will Heller,
Orit Kedar, Sunshine Hillygus, and participants in the con-
ference on Democracy, Divided Government, and Split-
Ticket Voting held at Harvard University, May 26–27,
2006. We are also grateful to Elinor Scarbrough and Harold
Clarke for their generous support of this Special
Symposium.
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