Abstract:
Fence-Sitters, or undecided voters, represent a wildcard that can dramatically change elections. Yet research modelling how Fence-Sitters differ from committed voters in their demographic characteristics, ideological beliefs, and personality remains lacking. We apply Latent Profile Analysis to identify Fence-Sitters (those who expressed moderate/neutral support for all parties) and other Latent Voting Blocs (LVBs) using data from the 2009 wave of the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (N=6,284). Our analysis of this national probability sample of registered voters indicated that Fence-Sitters constituted roughly a third of the sample (32.8%). The other LVBs were National Supporters (24.3%), Right-Wing Supporters (12.5%), Left-Wing Supporters (16.4%) and Labour Supporters (14%). Relative to other LVBs, Fence-Sitters were ideologically moderate, tended to be female, younger, and non-New Zealand European. We then map the geographic distribution of the Fence-Sitter LVB and show that it reliably predicts lower voter turnout across electorates in the 2011 election (R2=.066). This paper advances a novel method for identifying and profiling the Fence-sitters in elections. We discuss how the methods we present here can be extended to uncover differences between types of voters and also model change in the fence-sitter population over time.
