ABSTRACT: Americans fail to meet the democratic ideal of an informed electorate, and the consequences of this political ignorance are a topic of significant scholarly debate. In two independent settings, we experimentally test the effect of political information on citizens’ attitudes toward the major parties in the U.S. When uninformed citizens receive political information, they systematically shift their political preferences away from the Republican Party and toward the Democrats. A lack of knowledge on the policy positions of the parties significantly hinders the ability of low-socioeconomic-status citizens to translate their preferences into partisan opinions and vote choices. As a result, American public opinion-and potentially election results and public policy as a result-is significantly different from the counterfactual world in which all voters are informed.

 

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