Voters frequently misjudge the positions of parties in European Parliament elections on the basis of non-political factors

Voters are generally assumed to support parties in elections on the basis of their policy positions, but what factors affect how accurately voters can judge these positions? Peter Grand and Guido Tiemann assess the influence of so called ‘projection effects’ in European Parliament elections, whereby voters who like a particular party for non-political reasons are more likely to assume that the party is closer to their political views than may be the case in reality (and vice versa). Using data from the 2009 European Parliament elections, they illustrate that this phenomenon can play a significant role in voters’ judgement of parties.