Replication Data for: Open/Closed List and Party Choice: Experimental Evidence from the U.K.

Replication Data for: Blumenau, Eggers, Hangartner and Hix: Open/Closed List and Party Choice: Experimental Evidence from the U.K. Abstract: Which parties benefit from open-list (as opposed to closed-list) PR elections? We show that a move from closed-list to open-list competition is likely to be more favorable to parties with more internal disagreement on salient issues; this is because voters who might have voted for a unified party under closed lists may be drawn to specific candidates within internally divided parties under open lists. We provide experimental evidence of this phenomenon in a hypo- thetical European Parliament election in the UK, in which using an open-list ballot would shift support from UKIP (the Eurosceptic party) to Eurosceptic candidates of the Conservative Party. Our findings suggest that open-list ballots could restrict support for parties that primarily mobilize on a single issue.