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Author(s)
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Rüdiger
Schmitt-Beck
schmitt-beck@uni-mannheim.de
MANNHEIM, Universität
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Abstract
Over the past decades the share of voters who took their decision only rather shortly before elections, sometimes even only on election day itself, has been rising slowly but steadily in Germany. The 2005 parliamentary election, however, saw a sudden increase, raising the number of late-deciders to unprecedented heights. As late-deciders make up their minds under the impression of election campaigns, and are available for campaign influences until directly before the election, they are a category of voters that is crucial for election outcomes. Against this background the papers analyses the phenomenon of late-deciding at the 2005 German election. Who were the late-deciders? How did they differ from those voters who cast their decisions long before the elections? Did they use a different voting calculus than early deciders?
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