Voting their Conscience: Poverty, Education, Social Pressure and Vote Buying in Indonesia

When citizens are offered cash and gifts by candidates, they can either vote for candidates offering the money, refuse the money, or take the money and vote for whichever candidate they prefer (e.g., “vote their conscience”). Which citizens “vote their conscience” versus the other options available to them? This manuscript examines the effect of poverty, education, and social pressure on how citizens in the Central Java city of Semarang, Indonesia react to offers of cash from politicians. We find that poverty and education interact to create important and interesting patterns of responses. The citizens most likely to “vote their conscience” are those with lower income yet higher levels of formal education whereas higher income, more highly educated citizens are most likely to refuse the money. We also examine factors that create social pressure for citizens to “sell” their votes by supporting the candidates offering cash.