Do voters care if politicians lie?

… citizens are prepared to trust those governments whose leading representatives have demonstrated their reliability and so have won their confidence - which literally means “faith”, particularly faith in the reliability of representatives to do what the community requires. (Uhr 2007)

The conclusion is that the "conviction politician" is a politician whom the public respects (Kelly 2003(b); Shanahan 2002). But attempting to ascertain why some politicians are perceived so, and why others are not, is difficult to establish with certainty. For example, John Howard was consistently described in the terms of a conviction politician but so were state Labor leaders Peter Beattie, Steve Bracks and Bob Carr. Beattie and Bracks were completely different in personality and leadership style from Howard; and Carr a different personality again, so it is difficult to conclude that conviction politics can be identified in terms of behavioural traits.

Conviction, for all its reported benefits and attributes, nevertheless remains a nebulous concept, difficult to describe and difficult to ascribe. Some don’t believe in it at all, just an “empty accolade showered by excitable commentators” according to Peter Brent.

But I’m not so sure. My suspicion is that voters prefer ends over means when it comes to politics. They will not go on voting for a corrupt or incompetent government but are not too fussed about “the truth” providing the job gets done. They expect their politicians to lie and are much less surprised than the commentators when it inevitably happens.