Mobilizing Voters with SMS in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Can text messages raise voter turnout outside rich democracies? In partnership with Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission (NEC), we designed and evaluated a low-cost SMS campaign to increase turnout before the 2018 general election. Registered voters at 1,293 polling stations received one message on each of the two days before the first round, either a simple reminder to vote or a reminder paired with a development-oriented appeal. In one of the first randomized evaluations of a get-out-the-vote campaign in sub-Saharan Africa, we find no effect on turnout. The result cautions against exporting policy lessons from rich democracies to the Global South.