India's Voter (Re-)Enrollment Exercise and its Consequences on Institutional Trust, Candidate Choice, and Cognition

Last registered on April 29, 2026

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

India's Voter (Re-)Enrollment Exercise and its Consequences on Institutional Trust, Candidate Choice, and Cognition

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0018337

Initial registration date

April 29, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

April 29, 2026, 4:28 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country

India

Region

Rajasthan

Primary Investigator

Name

Sabyasachi Das

Affiliation

Ahmedabad University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name

Sharik Laliwala

PI Affiliation

University of California, Berkeley

Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2026-05-05

End date

2026-05-31

Keywords

Electoral, Governance

Additional Keywords

voter registration, electoral rolls, trust in institutions, cognitive control

JEL code(s)

D72, D91, P16, C93

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This study examines the effects of Rajasthan's election preparation process (for the upcoming local elections) on voter trust, civic participation, and political attitudes. We administer a survey to approximately 4,000 voters drawn from 200 polling stations across 28 Assembly Constituencies in Rajasthan. The study embeds two pre-registered randomized experiments: (1) a priming experiment on whether exposure to the electoral process related module affects respondents' trust in electoral institutions, risk aversion and cognitive control; and (2) a candidate vignette experiment on voter preferences for electoral process related messages as candidate promises, interacted with candidate identity.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Das, Sabyasachi and Sharik Laliwala. 2026. "India's Voter (Re-)Enrollment Exercise and its Consequences on Institutional Trust, Candidate Choice, and Cognition." AEA RCT Registry. April 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18337-1.0

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The study embeds two randomized interventions within a single survey instrument: (1) Priming experiment — randomized ordering of the election process module to measure impact of electoral process priming on trust, risk aversion and cognitive control; (2) Candidate vignette experiment — respondents make candidate choices to reveal demand for electoral process related activities from local politicians.

Intervention Start Date

2026-05-05

Intervention End Date

2026-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Trust in the Election Commission of India (ECI); trust in the EVM process (5-point scale); risk aversion, candidate preference in vignette experiment (forced choice); accuracy and reaction time in incongruent arrow trials relative to congruent arrow trials.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Trust items are drawn from Section 5.1 of the survey instrument (5-point scale: great deal / some trust / neutral / no trust at all / no response). Candidate preference is the forced-choice outcome in Section 6 (Candidate A / Candidate B / no preference). Cognitive outcomes are accuracy (0/1) and reaction time (ms) from the main block of the Section 8 task, comparing congruent and incongruent trials.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Trust in local BLO, Councilor/Sarpanch, MLA, MP, State Government, Central Government, and Judiciary; change in trust in institutions relative to 2024 Lok Sabha elections; perceived fairness of electoral process; worry about roll revision process; strength of candidate preference; awareness and knowledge of SIR process; prior voting behavior.

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Cross-sectional survey with two embedded randomized experiments administered to voters in Rajasthan, India. Respondents are randomly sampled from 400 randomly selected polling stations across 28 randomly selected Assembly Constituencies. The sample of 4,000 respondents are drawn from the list of registered voters.

Experiment 1 (Priming): Between-subjects randomization of module order. The electoral process module (module E) is administered either before or after the trust/risk preference/cognitive control module. Either all three module appear before the module E or all three appear after. The before-after ordering is randomized with 0.67 probability of E first. The ordering of the three modules within a before or after treatment are also randomized.

Experiment 2 (Candidate Vignette): Within-subject design. All respondents complete three forced-choice rounds; the order of the Public Good only, and two electoral process frames is randomized across rounds. Candidate religious identity (Hindu name / Muslim name) is independently randomized per respondent from pre-specified name pools, and kept fixed across the rounds for a given respondent.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

SurveyCTO built-in randomization at the individual respondent level, conducted at survey initiation.

Randomization Unit

Individual respondent

Was the treatment clustered?