Networked nudging: Designing a voter registration nudge in urban India

Abstract

This paper explores the potential of a behavioral intervention to improve voter registration (and turnout) among urban youth in India. Electoral bodies at the national and sub-national levels regularly conduct communication campaigns but have been unable to spur meaningful change in registration rates. We document policy lessons from a pilot behavioral intervention aimed at nudging voter registration among college-going youth in Mumbai. We adapted a plan-making intervention to make the process of registering to vote more salient and randomized at the level of educational institutions. Colleges that received the plan-making intervention had a higher registration on average than those that did not receive the intervention. Implications for intervention design, implementation challenges, and suggestions for scaling up are proposed, specific to the Indian context.