caa a22 4500 388080957 CHVBK 20180307125215.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199906 xx s 000 0 eng 10.2307/2585402 doi S0003055400217395 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.2307/2585402 Abstention in Elections with Asymmetric Information and Diverse Preferences [Elektronische Daten] We analyze a model of a two-candidate election with costless voting in which voters have asymmetric information and diverse preferences. We demonstrate that a strictly positive fraction of the electorate will abstain and that, nevertheless, elections effectively aggregate voters' private information. Using examples, we show that more informed voters are more likely to vote than their less informed counterparts. Increasing the fraction of the electorate that is informed, however, may lead to higher levels of abstention. We conclude by showing that a biased distribution of information can lead to a biased voting population but does not lead to biased outcomes. Copyright © American Political Science Association 1999 Feddersen Timothy J. Northwestern University Pesendorfer Wolfgang Princeton University American Political Science Review Cambridge University Press 93/2(1999-06), 381-398 0003-0554 93:2<381 1999 93 PSR https://doi.org/10.2307/2585402 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.2307/2585402 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Feddersen Timothy J. Northwestern University NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Pesendorfer Wolfgang Princeton University NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- American Political Science Review Cambridge University Press 93/2(1999-06), 381-398 0003-0554 93:2<381 1999 93 PSR CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge