Are elections lists fair or nudging?

It is generally believed that those candidates listed earlier on the ballot paper are likely to receive more votes than those listed later. This assumption was proved to be true on a sample of 100 election results collected from university elections across the whole Czech Republic in the years 2001-2009. These elections have one important feature -- all candidates are listed in alphabetical order. Those candidates with surname initials closer to the beginning of the alphabet tend to receive more votes and, as a past research says, the non-rational voters are to be blamed. No one, however, has yet analyzed the behavior of candidates. Hypothesis that candidates with better fitted surnames are more likely to enter elections, and by that create a ballot paper already with alphabetical bias, has not been proved. Other cue to voters such as the title of a candidate present on the ballot paper proved to be an important signal of quality for female candidates who were hugely advantaged compared to men who were disadvantaged due to this fact. Possible different reasons to alphabetical bias have been tested (e.g. name letter effect), but have not been found to be present.