According to Samuel Popkin:

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Popkin argues that Americans vote more intelligently than their political knowledge might indicate through what he calls "gut reasoning." The idea is that people take shortcuts in determining how to vote, such as always voting with the same party, listening to politically engaged friends, or observing how people who are like them vote. Among the studies Popkin performed, he interviewed under-informed citizens about how they would vote, then provided a lot of information about the candidates (where they didn't know which candidate was which) and found they would still vote the same way.