SMS reminders resulted in increased turnout

electionOslo.Election.Photo: Vegard Wivestad Grøtt / NTB scanpix

A pilot project in which selected voters in 27 municipalities received two reminders by SMS before the election last year, lead to more young people under 30 voting. An information letter to immigrants also gave a higher turnout.

One of the SMS messages were sent out before the Election Day, whilst the second came on the polling day and had the following text: “Hi! Have you voted? If not, you can still make it. Polling stations are open from kl. XX until. XX today. Participate in the election! Greetings from valg.no. ” Measured against a control group that did not receive these messages, the experiment show that reminders got more young voters to vote, NRK reported.
– Sending out these SMS messages increased turnout among young people under the age of thirty  with five percent, but had far less effect on the elderly, says scientist Johannes Bergh at the Institute for Social Research, who was behind the trial.
They also sent out three versions of an information letter to immigrants with voting rights. They had different effects, but what made the biggest difference was the version that described the low turnout among immigrants and urging the recipient to vote.
– All letters contained some information on how to vote and why one should vote, Bergh explained.

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today

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