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：我们研究了公开计票对在线选举的影响，其中投票具有成本且选民可以战略性选择投票时机。当投票公开时（例如在线活动日程投票如Doodle，或区块链治理机制），选择"何时"投票具有战略重要性。特别地，早期投票影响后续投票与等待观察中间结果以避免在结果已定时付出投票成本之间存在张力。我们的研究基于实证发现：当中间结果向选民公开时会出现"时间性"从众效应——晚期投票者更倾向支持领先候选人。为捕捉这一现象，我们分析了一个新模型，其中选民由具有偏好候选人的知情选民和可被投票时中间结果动摇的无知情摇摆选民构成。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存在性，并刻画了导致"最后一刻"投票行为（所有知情选民均延迟投票）出现的条件。