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Despite the billions spent on elections, there's little research on how effective commercials, phone calls, or door-to-door efforts are at producing votes. Professor Donald Green, who's conducted hundreds of studies over the past decade, found that advertising and robo-calls do very little but that a novel, if slightly disturbing, approach actually does increase turnout.
I have always found it very ironic that Professor Green is so interested in increasing turnout, but doubts that voters make rational choices. Targeted social mobilization with out rational choices does not hold the health of the Republic in very high esteem. A question along those lines would have really gotten to the heart of the issue.
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