Citizens’ preferences about voting rules: self-interest, ideology, and sincerity

International audienceThis paper studies the determinants of citizens’ preferences for different electoral systems. We use data collected through a large internet-based quasi-experiment carried out during the 2012 French presidential election where we invited subjects to cast a vote for real candidates according to four voting rules: two-round (the official system), one-round, the alternative vote, and approval voting. After voting with each of the four voting rules, subjects were also asked to report which system they liked the most. We find that voters prefer systems that are beneficial to the candidate they prefer, that their preference for the official two-round system (weakly) depends on how they actually vote under this system, and that right-wing voters are more supportive of voting rules under which one can vote for only one candidate (one-round and two-round)