We study the effect of public tallies on online elections, in a setting where voting is costly and voters are allowed to strategically time their votes. The strategic importance of choosing \emph{when} to vote arises when votes are public, such as in online event scheduling polls (e.\,g., Doodle), or in blockchain governance mechanisms. In particular, there is a tension between voting early to influence future votes and waiting to observe interim results and avoid voting costs if the outcome has already been decided. Our study draws on empirical findings showing that ``temporal'' bandwagon effects occur when interim results are revealed to the electorate: late voters are more likely to vote for leading candidates. To capture this phenomenon, we analyze a novel model where the electorate consists of informed voters who have a preferred candidate, and uninformed swing voters who can be swayed according to the interim outcome at the time of voting. In our main results, we prove the existence of equilibria where both early and late voting occur with a positive probability, and we characterize conditions that lead to the appearance of ``last minute'' voting behavior, where all informed voters vote late.

翻译：我们研究公开计票结果对在线选举的影响，背景是投票存在成本且选民可以策略性地选择投票时机。当投票结果公开时（例如在线日程安排投票如Doodle，或区块链治理机制中），选择“何时”投票具有战略重要性。特别是，早期投票以影响后续投票与等待观察中期结果并在结果已定时避免投票成本之间存在张力。我们的研究借鉴了实证发现，即当向选民揭示中期结果时会出现“时间性”跟风效应：晚期投票者更倾向于投票给领先的候选人。为捕捉这一现象，我们分析了一个新颖模型，其中选民包括有首选候选人的知情选民和可根据投票时的中期结果被左右的无知摇摆选民。在我们的主要结果中，我们证明了早期和晚期投票均以正概率发生的均衡的存在性，并刻画了导致“最后一刻”投票行为（即所有知情选民均延迟投票）出现的条件。