Reducing vote overreporting in surveys : Social desirability, memory failure, and source monitoring

One of the most frequently observed survey measurement errors is theoverreporting of voting behavior. Almost since the series of AmericanNational Election Studies (NES) began, the level of survey reported turn-out has been higher than estimates of turnout based on aggregate votetotals and census counts of the population (Clausen 1968). In addition,validation studies have confirmed that respondents will tend to overreportvoting (Abelson, Loftus, and Greenwald 1992; Parry and Crossley 1950;Presser, Traugott, and Traugott 1990; Silver, Anderson, and Abramson1986; Traugott and Katosh 1979).Two different explanations of overreporting have been tendered. Oneexplanation considers overreporting the result of social desirability, in

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