#YourVoiceYourVote: Experiment on Social Media GOTV Campaign in South Africa

We conduct a field experiment in the context of the 2024 national elections in South Africa. We randomly assign voters in a township in KwaZulu-Natal to two interventions. First, we encourage voters via text messages to access a GOTV campaign on social media. We partnered with a South African social media influencer with more than 350,000 followers on Facebook to design this campaign. Second, in partnership with the South African NGO Project Isizwe (projectisizwe.org/), we provide households with a home WiFi router and unlimited internet connection for the duration of the study. The two interventions are cross-randomized, forming a full factorial design. We measure our key outcome–voting in the national elections–in a survey that takes place right after the national elections and verifies respondents’ self-reported turnout by leveraging the fact that South African voters have a thumb marked with ink if they turn out. We seek to answer three main research questions. First, can a Facebook GOTV campaign hosted by an influencer affect political participation? Second, how does access to a home-based internet connection shape the effectiveness of such a campaign? Third, what is the effect of internet accessibility on voter turnout?