We study voter behavior in a setting characterized by majority rule and mandatory voting, where voters choose from three options. Because of the possibility of Arrow’s cycle, strategic behavior may emerge.  In particular, we focus on how information contained in election poll results affects voter’s choices. By normalizing the payoffs of the best and worst options, each voter’s preferences across the three options are characterized by the relative value attributed to the intermediate option. We also test how this relative importance impacts voting behavior and how this interacts with information. Quantal response equilibrium analysis is used to analyze the game and proves to be a good predictor for the experimental data. The main results are: (i) sincere voting increases as the importance of the intermediate option decreases; (ii) information yields coordination in favor of the candidate with the highest level of support (i.e., the ‘majoritarian’ candidate); (iii) voters who have the `majoritarian’ candidate as the second preferred option vote strategically for this candidate if the relative benefit is high enough.
 
Joint work with Arthur Schram (University of Amsterdam).