We report on a large-scale (randomized) field experiment we designed and conducted to assess ATMs’ (automatic teller machines) capacity to “get out the vote”. This is a heretofore unexploited method of voter mobilization. Our experimental design used the full universe of functioning ATMs in Portugal, which benefits from a sophisticated world class system, with wide national coverage. We randomly selected a set of treatment civil parishes, where a civic message took over the totality of ad time in ATMs, which we compare with a set of control civil parishes where advertisements ran as usual. The ATM campaign we follow was active for three days immediately before and during the 2017 local elections in Portugal. When we consider the intensity of treatment, for both the entire campaign period and the weekend, results show a statistically significant increase in the likelihood of voting. All three proxies for treatment intensity we employ deliver robust positive coefficients. Placebo tests using turnout rates in previous elections do not show significant coefficients, strengthening our interpretation of the experimental results.

我们报告了我们设计和进行的一项大规模（随机）现场实验，以评估ATM（自动柜员机）“摆脱投票”的能力。这是迄今为止尚未动员的选民动员方法。我们的实验设计充分利用了葡萄牙运行的ATM机的全部功能，这得益于完善的世界一流系统，业务覆盖全国。我们随机选择了一组经过处理的民事教区，其中公民信息占了ATM中广告时间的总和，我们将其与一组常规投放广告的对照民事教区进行了比较。我们关注的ATM活动在葡萄牙2017年地方选举之前和之中进行了三天。当我们考虑整个治疗期间和整个周末的治疗强度时，结果表明，投票的可能性在统计上有显着增加。我们采用的所有三个关于治疗强度的代理均能提供可靠的正系数。在以前的选举中使用投票率进行的安慰剂测试并未显示出显着的系数，从而加强了我们对实验结果的解释。