Eat Widely, Vote Wisely? Lessons from a Campaign Against Vote Buying in Uganda

We study a large-scale intervention designed by civil society organizations to reduce vote buying in Uganda’s 2016 elections. We study this intervention in light of a model where incumbents benefit from a first-mover and campaigning advantage, vote buying and on-the-ground canvassing are complementary, and voter reciprocity increases the effectiveness of vote buying. The intervention undermined reciprocity as well as the drivers of the campaigning advantage of incumbents. As a result, challengers not only canvassed more intensively but also bought more votes in treated locations. Consistent with incumbents being first movers in markets for votes and facing more frictions to adjust their tactics than challengers, their response to the intervention was limited. The intervention ultimately failed to reduce vote buying, but led to short-run electoral gains for challengers and increased service delivery in treated locations.