Changing motivations, time of the voting decision, and short-term volatility - The dynamics of voter heterogeneity

The notion of "voter heterogeneity" - that different voters decide according to different sets of choice criteria has become widely accepted. But while in a given election some voters are candidate-oriented and others are issue-oriented, little is known about the temporal dimension of heterogeneity: are candidate voters at t1 also candidate voters at t2? We argue that individual voters' motivations can change over time and expect that the extent of inter- as well as intra-individual heterogeneity impacts the process of individual decision-making. Using panel data collected in the run-up to the German Federal Election 2009 we demonstrate that certain choice motivations and intra-individual changes in these motivations lead to later vote decisions and contribute to the explanation of vote switching. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.