Canonical models of bureaucratic politics consider how political principals can effectively oversee bureaucratic agents. However, political principals’ ability to stay in office depends on public electoral support. Because voters may update their beliefs about political principals based on the quality of public service provisioned by bureaucrats, if bureaucrats are unhappy with their elected principals they have an incentive to provide worse public service in order to shift public views against the unfavorable politician. We call this phenomenon bureaucratic resistance shirking. While this political logic has been identified previously, empirical research has not demonstrated how voters use public service quality to update their beliefs about politicians in the face of possible bureaucratic resistance shirking. We study this question in the context of municipal police. In this paper, we propose an experimental design that allows us to identify how voters update their beliefs about politicians based on observed bureaucratic service quality and possible bureaucratic resistance shirking. Results will help scholars understand how withholding service provision can alter the electoral chances of unfavorable politicians.