42 results
Search Results
2. A Sea Change in California RacialPolitics? The Curious Case of the 2003 Racial Data Initiative,Proposition 54.
- Author
-
Wei HoSang, Daniel
- Subjects
- *
GUBERNATORIAL elections , *BALLOTS , *VOTING , *PRACTICAL politics - Abstract
In the shadows of the recent gubernatorial recall election, California voters also deliberated a controversial ballot measure that would have banned the state from collecting most race and ethnicity data about its residents. As recently as four months before the election, polls suggested Proposition 54 was favored by more than a 20 point margin among likely voters. Like earlier controversial ballot initiatives that barred services to certain immigrants, outlawed public affirmative action programs, and eliminated bilingual education in public schools, Proposition 54 and its sponsor, Ward Connerly, seemed poised to realign the racial politics of the state once again. As the initiative won the endorsement of the state Republican Party and leading conservative commentators across the nation, civil rights groups scrambled to devise an opposition strategy that might prevent another ignominious defeat. But as public and media interest in the gubernatorial recall campaign ignited, polls showed support for Proposition 54 dropped precipitously. On Election Day, the initiative was defeated by nearly 30 points and exit polls indicated that nearly every major demographic and geographic subgroup, save conservative Republicans, opposed the measure by large margins. How can we account for this dramatic reversal in the fortunes of Proposition 54? Does its overwhelming rejection by the electorate signal a more inclusive, and less polarized approach towards racialized politics in the state? Is Connerly likely to bring his call for a ‘colorblind’ government back to voters in the future? This paper examines the findings of nearly a dozen polls, several focus groups, interviews with leading figures in the campaigns, and two years of media coverage around the initiative to answer these questions. In addition, I draw on theories of issue framing to understand how different segments of the electorate interpreted the meaning of Proposition 54 and its potential impact. I conclude with a discussion of future possibilities and trajectories for political discourse about race in the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
3. Popular ‘Medicine’? Drug Policy Reformers Take the Initiative in the 1990s.
- Author
-
Ferraiolo, Kathleen
- Subjects
- *
MEDICAL marijuana , *MARIJUANA laws , *BALLOTS , *VOTING , *POLICY sciences - Abstract
I examine the features, functions, and implications of the ballot initiative as a policymaking institution by investigating the electoral success of the medical marijuana movement of the 1990s. Drawing on case studies of initiative campaigns in California and Maine, interviews with key actors, and document analysis, I explore how medical marijuana advocates successfully negotiated the demands of the initiative process and why opponents' attempts to defeat medical marijuana measures failed. By approaching the institutions of direct democracy from the perspective of ballot petitioners, I demonstrate how the features of the initiative process, including the lack of voter cues typical in candidate campaigns, the public nature of initiative battles, and the absence of compromise and amendability, benefit interests with particular skills and resources. While traditional policymaking institutions emphasize expertise, coalition-building, and deliberation that takes place among an elite audience, initiative policymaking places tremendous importance on organization, fundraising, advertising, and in particular framing and public marketing of a policy idea. In the case of medical marijuana, the initiative process allowed supporters to use their political skills and resources to expand the scope of conflict beyond what they saw as fainthearted legislators and powerful opponent law enforcement organizations in order to harness the public's support for medical marijuana as a policymaking resource. Contrary to the claims of many direct democracy opponents, I argue that money and organization are not responsible for manufacturing support for medical marijuana, but rather amplified the effects of existing grassroots and public support. Finally, the paper shows that the initiative process and the implementation of successful initiatives can allow different, even contradictory policy images and approaches to flourish at the state and federal levels. Venue-shopping on the part of... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Mobilizing Latinos for a Ballot Proposition.
- Author
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Michelson, Melissa R.
- Subjects
- *
HISPANIC Americans , *VOTING registers , *BALLOTS , *VOTING , *NONPARTISAN elections - Abstract
Several recent experiments have demonstrated that door-to-door mobilization efforts can significantly increase Latino turnout. However, these experiments have been limited to non-partisan efforts in Central California. This paper describes the result of a recent effort to increase the Latino vote in Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona, that urged citizens to vote in a particular way. Rather than simply encouraging participation, canvassers worked to convince Latino voters to support Proposition 414, a ballot initiative designed to prevent the closing of a local hospital. The results were dramatic; voters targeted by the mobilization effort were significantly more likely to vote. This demonstrates not only that personal mobilization efforts can increase Latino turnout in a variety of geographical locations, but also that such efforts can be particularly successful when voters are asked to vote in a way which is beneficial to their community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2004
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
5. Why Direct Democracy? The Incidence of Local Voter Initiatives in California.
- Author
-
Hajnal, Zoltan L. and Lewis, Paul G.
- Subjects
- *
DEMOCRACY , *ELECTIONS , *BALLOTS , *POLITICAL science - Abstract
Despite widespread concern that direct democracy is growing out of control, we know little about the frequency or content of local direct democracy. In this paper we examine the incidence of initiatives on municipal ballots over a six-year period (1995-2000) in California to see if, in fact, Americans are relying heavily on direct democracy at the local level and also to uncover what types of issues are being addressed. We find that direct democracy usage is limited at the local level. Most cities do not place initiatives on the ballot. When cities do turn to direct democracy, growth-related issues, institutional reforms, and taxation are the most common subjects. We also use the large number and wide variety of local jurisdictions to address the question of why citizens turn to direct democracy in the first place. Multivariate analysis indicates that local needs and conditions, along with the responsiveness of municipal institutions, play a major role in determining the frequency with which cities resort to initiatives. There is little evidence that wealthy special interests play a primary role in bring initiatives to the ballot at the local level. Nor is their evidence of a widespread white backlash against growing racial and ethnic minority populations in local direct democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2002
6. THE VEXATIONS OF VOTING MACHINES.
- Author
-
Novak, Viveca, Locke, Laura A., Hylton, Hilary, Land, Greg, Morrissey, Siobhan, Thigpen, David, and Underwood, Jill
- Subjects
UNITED States politics & government, 2001-2009 ,ELECTRONIC voting ,CORRUPT practices in elections ,PUNCHED card systems ,UNITED States elections ,BALLOTS - Abstract
Reports on growing concerns surrounding the use of electronic voting machines in the wake of problems experienced in a number of districts that have used them during the primary season. Report that the campaign of Sen. Barbara Mikulski has collected complaints among Maryland voters that her race did not appear on primary ballots in at least three counties; Background on the movement to roll out e-voting following the 2000 Florida recount; Report that California is considering banning the machines; Criticisms of electronic voting, including the lack of a paper trail and the potential for tampering or breakdowns; Advantages of electronic voting; Details of the problems that arose during testing in Maryland of a system made by Diebold; Details of other problems with e-voting in Ohio and California; Details of efforts to create machines that produce receipts; Failure of Congress to provide guidance for selecting new voting machines.
- Published
- 2004
7. Ballot order effects in direct democracy elections.
- Author
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Matsusaka, John
- Subjects
DIRECT democracy ,REFERENDUM ,BALLOTS ,VOTING research ,ATTRIBUTION (Social psychology) ,PSYCHOLOGY - Abstract
Many political practitioners believe that voters are more likely to approve propositions listed at the top than the bottom of the ballot, potentially distorting democratic decision making, and this belief influences election laws across the United States. Numerous studies have investigated ballot order effects in candidate elections, but there is little evidence for direct democracy elections, and identification of causal effects is challenging. This paper offers two strategies for identifying the effect of ballot order in proposition elections, using data from California during 1958-2014 and Texas during 1986-2015. The evidence suggests that propositions are not advantaged by being listed at the top compared to the bottom of the ballot. Approval rates are lower with more propositions on the ballot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2016
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. News.
- Subjects
BALLOTS ,TUITION - Abstract
Tuition drops due to COVID‐19White paper offers COVID‐19 guidance for FERPAUniversity system announces spring classes to continue onlinePoll shows California unlikely to approve admissions ballot issue [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2020
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Ranked-Choice Voting in San Francisco: The Ease of Electoral Reform to an Alternative Voting System.
- Author
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Neely, Francis and Cook, Corey
- Subjects
- *
VOTING , *BALLOTS , *ELECTIONS - Abstract
In 2004 San Francisco will use alternative voting. Concerns about voters understanding the new ballot are examined through an exit poll and mail-in survey of absentee voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2005
10. Voting Technology, Vote-by-Mail, and Residual Votes in California, 1990–2010.
- Author
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Alvarez, R. Michael, Beckett, Dustin, and Stewart, Charles
- Subjects
VOTING research ,VOTING ,BALLOTS ,VOTING machines ,ELECTIONS ,UNITED States presidential elections ,ELECTION equipment ,POSTAL voting ,VOTING laws - Abstract
We examine how the growth in vote-by-mail and changes in voting technologies led to changes in the residual vote rate in California from 1990 to 2010. In California’s presidential elections, counties that abandoned punch cards in favor of optical scanning enjoyed a significant improvement in the residual vote rate. We also conduct the first analysis of the effects of the rise of vote-by-mail on residual votes. Regardless of the election, increased use of the mail to cast ballots is robustly associated with a significant rise in the residual vote rate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
11. PROCESS PREFERENCES AND VOTING IN DIRECT DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS.
- Author
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DYCK, JOSHUA J. and BALDASSARE, MARK
- Subjects
DIRECT democracy ,POPULAR vote ,VOTING ,VOTING research ,BALLOTS ,ELECTIONS - Abstract
Direct democracy is extraordinarily popular and has become a pervasive policymaking tool at the state and local level. Repeated surveys have demonstrated that Americans strongly approve of allowing people to vote on citizen-proposed laws, a method currently allowed in about half of all states and in many municipalities across the country. This paper examines both the extent of this support and its implications. Using a battery of questions about the institution as an independent variable, we model the extent to which institutional evaluations of direct democracy influence voting behavior in ballot measure elections. Using data from California in 2005 and 2006, as well as Washington in 2006, we find support for the notion that process evaluations influence choice in ballot initiative elections, regardless of policy content. Those who favor direct democracy are more likely to vote yes, while those who are apprehensive about voting on ballot measures are more likely to vote no. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
12. Election closeness and voter turnout: Evidence from California ballot propositions.
- Author
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Matsusaka, John G.
- Subjects
ELECTIONS ,VOTING ,REFERENDUM ,BALLOTS - Abstract
This paper uses a new data set of 885 California ballot propositions from 1912 through 1990 to test the hypothesis that voter turnout increases as an election becomes closer. Various measures of voter participation are regressed on various measures of election closeness. The main finding is that there is not a systematic relation between closeness and turnout. Two conclusions are drawn: (1) voters are not sensitive to the probability their votes are decisive, and (2) other studies which found higher turnout for close elections probably detected an increased mobilization of party elites in tight races. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 1993
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
13. Latinos, group identity, and equal opportunity on the 2020 California ballot.
- Author
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Lopez, Jennifer, Alvarez, R. Michael, and Kim, Seo‐young Silvia
- Subjects
GROUP identity ,HISPANIC Americans ,REFERENDUM ,ELECTIONS ,BALLOTS ,VOTING ,MINORITIES - Abstract
Objective: Racial minority groups are often assumed to support equal opportunity policies, with most research focused on biracial contexts between Whites and Blacks. With a unique opportunity to study richer contexts from California's 2020 elections, we test whether Latino voters supported ballot measures associated with equal opportunity. Methods: Using data on vote choice for Propositions 15 (raising commercial property taxes) and 16 (repealing prohibition of affirmative action) from a post‐election survey of California registrants, we use logistic regression to test whether Latino support for equal opportunity policies is higher than that of Whites. Results: For both propositions, while Latino support was higher than White support, it was not statistically different when controlled for partisanship. Conclusion: There is little evidence to suggest that California Latinos support equal opportunity policies more strongly than White voters. This lukewarm support may explain the fates of both propositions in the election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
14. Another brick in the wall. Immigration and electoral preferences: Direct evidence from state ballots.
- Author
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Bargain, Olivier, Stephane, Victor, and Valette, Jérôme
- Subjects
REFERENDUM ,ELECTIONS ,BRICK walls ,BALLOTS ,EMIGRATION & immigration ,VOTE buying ,SUFFRAGE - Abstract
We study the impact of immigration on electoral outcomes at the census tract level in California between 2010 and 2018. Information on actual ballot propositions is used to investigate immigrant‐related motives underlying a shift in political preferences. A rise in immigration is associated with a decrease in the support for Democratic candidates and measures. This effect is driven by policies pertaining to redistribution, public good provision, and justice/crime. It is stronger when immigrants are less assimilated and originate from poor and culturally distant countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
15. Religious Affiliation and Two California Propositions: A Natural Experiment Assessing the Impact of Religious Values on Controversial Ballot Questions.
- Author
-
Owings, Matthew
- Subjects
- *
CHURCH membership , *REFERENDUM , *BALLOTS , *RELIGIOUS leaders - Abstract
California has placed two controversial social issues on its ballot in recent years. First, in 2004, Californians were asked to approve the issuance of bonds to fund embryonic stem cell research. Second, the 2008 ballot contained a question that would define marriage in the state as solely between one man and one woman. The subject matter of both of these ballot questions are focused on issues that are of great importance for many Evangelical Christian denominations and Catholics. However, does the subject matter of a ballot question alone result in voting based on religious values? Or are religious values activated by religious leaders through the use of framing? This paper uses both individual exit poll data and analysis of the vote of each county compared with its denominational demography to construct regression models to shed light on these questions. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
16. Same-Sex Marriage as Contested Political Terrain: Media Coverage of California's Proposition 8.
- Author
-
Reis, Raul
- Subjects
SAME-sex marriage ,HUMAN rights ,BALLOTS - Abstract
On May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court made the unexpected and historical decision to allow same-sex marriages in the state. By using the universal concept of human rights to justify their decision, the California Supreme Court moved the issue into more protected and harder-to-argue-with legal territory. On that same day, as gays and lesbians rejoiced in California and around the world, opponents of same-sex marriage announced their efforts to submit for popular referendum a ballot measure (Proposition 8), which would make same-sex marriage illegal in the state. Both the Supreme Court decision and the fight to enact a same-sex marriage ban in the state have received wide media coverage in the U.S. and abroad. This paper uses media framing theory to examine how the five largest circulation daily newspapers in the U.S. have covered Proposition 8 in the six weeks before the elections. By identifying the main media frames used in the coverage, the paper intends to shed light on the way this issue was presented for discussion in the public arena. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
17. Causes and Consequences of Ballot Order-Effects.
- Author
-
Meredith, Marc and Salant, Yuval
- Subjects
- *
DECISION making , *BALLOTS , *ELECTIONS , *VOTING , *POLITICAL candidates - Abstract
To better understand the effects of list ordering on decision making, we explore how the ordering of candidates on ballots influences election outcomes. We find that a candidate listed first on a ballot is 9.8 percent more likely to win office than expected absent order-effects in our dataset of California multi-winner local elections. This first candidate advantage comes at the expense of candidates listed in the middle of the ballot. Using multi-winner elections allows us to isolate the mechanisms leading to order-effects in a way unavailable in single-winner elections. Even when voters still have votes to cast, the performance of a candidate is both position-dependent and history-dependent: candidates perform better in certain positions and when listed immediately after lower quality candidates. Our results suggest that policy makers should use more sophisticated rotation schemes to mitigate order-effects in elections. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
18. Who is Mobilized by Direct Democracy? Context, Partisanship, and Turnout in Ballot Initiative Elections.
- Author
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Dyck, Joshua J. and Seabrook, Nicholas R.
- Subjects
- *
DEMOCRACY , *VOTER turnout , *POLITICAL campaigns , *MASS mobilization , *BALLOTS , *ELECTIONS , *VOTING registers - Abstract
A number of recent studies find that direct democracy increases voter turnout. In this article, we ask: whom does direct democracy mobilize to vote? From one perspective, voters mobilized by ballot initiative campaigns may reflect the partisan tenor of many ballot initiative elections. Alternatively, ballot initiatives might allow disaffected voters to fully express their policy preferences. Using a unique research design that incorporates neighborhood contextual variables with the California registered voter list, we demonstrate the strong partisan effects that social context exerts on participation in ballot initiative elections. Additionally, we clarify the way in which citizens are educated by initiatives to turn out through exposure to the institution at formative years. The findings demonstrate how partisan context mitigates the potential for direct democracy to mobilize from the middle. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
19. Asian American Mobilization: The Effect of Candidates and Districts on Asian American Voting Behavior.
- Author
-
Sadhwani, Sara
- Subjects
ASIAN Americans ,VOTING ,AFRICAN Americans ,HISPANIC Americans ,BALLOTS - Abstract
While numerous studies have examined the effect of a co-ethnic candidate on the ballot for African Americans and Latinos, Asian Americans remain understudied in this regard. With the growth of Asian American voters nationwide, empirical questions prevail: Does the presence of an Asian American candidate on the ballot spur Asian American turnout or like other minority communities, is the demographic composition of a district the central mobilizing mechanism? Can we expect country of origin subgroups of Asian Americans such as Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Japanese, and Korean Americans voters to mobilize or does such cohesion not exist? Using surname-matched vote returns from the California state assembly across four election years, I examine the constraints and opportunities for pan-ethnic and national origin Asian American turnout in the presence of a co-ethnic candidate. I find that Asian American candidates have a measurable increase on pan-ethnic turnout, but conditional on the percentage of Asian Americans in the district. Across national origin groups, the effect of a co-ethnic candidate varies. The findings suggest Asian American voting behavior is highly nuanced and markedly distinct from other minority voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
20. A Real-Life Data Project for an Interdisciplinary Math and Politics Course.
- Author
-
Weyhaupt, Adam G.
- Subjects
INTERDISCIPLINARY education ,MATHEMATICS education (Higher) ,POLITICAL science education (Higher) ,ACTIVITY programs in higher education ,BALLOTS ,ALGORITHMS - Abstract
We describe a non-statistics, data-based activity developed by the author for an interdisciplinary course on mathematics and politics that uses actual ballot data from the City of San Francisco, California. The assignment is appropriate for a general education audience and develops students’ ability to work with data, improves their understanding of functions and algorithms, and requires them to make (and support) choices grounded in logic and mathematics. We also provide aMathematicanotebook that makes it easy to take data from San Francisco to create such an assignment.Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of PRIMUS to view the supplemental file. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
21. Are Simultaneously Decided Referenda Substitutable? Evidence from Municipal Land Use Ballot Measures.
- Author
-
Gammans, Matthew, Sanchirico, James N., Kroetz, Kailin, Armsworth, Paul R., and Swiedler, Elaine W.
- Subjects
REFERENDUM ,LAND use planning ,LAND use ,BALLOTS - Abstract
The results of ballot referenda have often been used to infer the preferences of voters for various types of policy. However, voters may be influenced by the appearance of competing ballot referenda. We propose a simple theoretical framework for considering the substitutability or complementarity of various land use policies and apply this framework to a novel dataset of 603 land-related municipal ballot measures in California. We find that the appearance of a competing anti-growth measure decreases support for other anti-growth measures, while the appearance of pro-growth measures do not affect the likelihood of passage for anti-growth or pro-growth measures. (JEL R52, D72) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
22. Policy feedback at the ballot box: News from the search for a popular tax.
- Author
-
Martin, Isaac William and Harper, Heather
- Subjects
TAXATION ,PUBLIC officers ,SUFFRAGE ,BALLOTS ,REFERENDUM ,CORPORA ,METADATA - Abstract
What kinds of taxation are least objectionable to voters? The question is a classic preoccupation of public officials and political sociologists alike. We exploit two advances that make it possible to shed new light on this question. The first is a large, new corpus of digitized documents describing municipal tax policies of heterogeneous design that have been directly subjected to popular referendum in the state of California. The second is a suite of new computational methods for the analysis of large corpora of texts and their associated quantitative metadata. By applying these new methods to those new data, we show that tax policies of different description vary systematically in their popularity. We find that official descriptions of tax policy differ along two interpretable dimensions that are associated with voters' willingness to approve the tax. We interpret these dimensions as risk pooling and community orientation, and we show that measuring these dimensions can modestly improve our ability to predict the popularity of a tax, relative to a conventional regression specification that omits information about qualitative policy design. We discuss implications of our findings for the research on policy feedback effects, which has hitherto relied mostly on small-N comparisons with limited power, and on analytical descriptions of policy that are so far abstracted from the details of policy that they are difficult to operationalize. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019
23. Initiatives, State Mandates, and the Persistence of Local Politics.
- Author
-
Neiman, Max
- Subjects
- *
COUNTIES , *BALLOTS , *PLEBISCITE , *POLITICAL science - Abstract
Based on measuring county policies, the study examines the implementation of California counties' implementation of three policies enacted by statewide ballot initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2005
24. How Much is Enough? The "Ballot Order Effect" and the Use of Social Science Research in Election Law Disputes.
- Author
-
Sinclair, Betsy
- Subjects
- *
BALLOTS , *ELECTIONS , *POLITICAL candidates , *SOCIAL science research - Abstract
Previous empirical research holds that candidates listed first on an election ballot gain additional votes. We examine whether or not California's randomization and rotation system should equalize the effects of order across candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2005
25. A VOTE FOR SIMPLICITY.
- Author
-
Abrams, Michael M.
- Subjects
- *
VOTING machines , *BALLOTS - Abstract
Reports on the launching of the Voting Technology Project by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology. Flaws of other voting systems; Reliance of paper ballots and optical scanners; Security of voting in machines.
- Published
- 2002
26. Prevalence and Moderators of the Candidate Name-Order Effect.
- Author
-
Pasek, Josh, Schneider, Daniel, Krosnick, Jon A., Tahk, Alexander, Ophir, Eyal, and Milligan, Claire
- Subjects
ELECTIONS ,BALLOTS ,VOTING research ,VOTING ,VOTERS ,POLITICAL candidates ,POLITICAL parties - Abstract
Although some past studies suggest that candidates may receive more votes when their names are listed first among their competitors than when they are listed later, two recent studies challenged this conclusion with regard to major-party candidates running in statewide races and raised questions about the impact of analytic methods on the conclusions of name-order research. Using the largest data set to date—a set of quasi-randomized natural experiments involving 402 candidates running in 76 statewide California elections—this study tests a series of hypotheses about the conditions under which name-order effects are most likely. Regardless of the analytic method used, a small primacy effect appeared consistently that could have a substantive impact on some contests. This effect was larger in races for lower-visibility offices, in years with higher turnout, and in races that were not close. All of this is consistent with the claim that name-order effects occur among voters who have little or no information about the candidates or among voters who feel ambivalence about the candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2014
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
27. IS THE PARTY OVER? EXAMINING THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF PROPOSITION 14 AS IT RELATES TO BALLOT ACCESS FOR MINOR PARTIES.
- Author
-
Levinson, Jessica A.
- Subjects
ELECTION law ,VOTING ,THIRD parties (Politics) ,BALLOTS ,POLITICAL parties - Abstract
The U.S. Supreme Court must reexamine its deeply flawed ballot access jurisprudence. California voters passed Proposition 14 on June 8, 2010. This law reduces ballot access for minor parties. This Article argues that the Court has historically overestimated the government interests at stake in restricting ballot access, while derogating the important role that minor parties can play in elections. This must stop. This Article further argues that the Court should apply strict scrutiny to ballot access restrictions and use a holistic approach when examining such restrictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
28. ESTIMATING CAUSAL EFFECTS OF BALLOT ORDER FROM A RANDOMIZED NATURAL EXPERIMENT.
- Author
-
Ho, Daniel E. and Imai, Kosuke
- Subjects
BALLOTS ,ELECTION statistics ,VOTING research ,PSEPHOLOGY ,PRACTICAL politics ,POLITICAL science research ,REPRESENTATIVE government ,PSYCHOLOGY - Abstract
Randomized natural experiments provide social scientists with rare opportunities to draw credible causal inferences in real-world settings. We capitalize on such a unique experiment to examine how the name order of candidates on ballots affects election outcomes. Since 1975, California has randomized the ballot order for statewide offices with a complex alphabet lottery. Adapting statistical techniques to this lottery and addressing methodological problems of conventional approaches, our analysis of statewide elections from 1978 to 2002 reveals that, in general elections, ballot order significantly impacts only minor party candidates, with no detectable effects on major party candidates. These results contradict previous research, finding large effects in general elections for major party candidates. In primaries, however, we show that being listed first benefits everyone. Major party candidates generally gain one to three percentage points, while minor party candidates may double their vote shares. In all elections, the largest effects are for nonpartisan races, where candidates in first position gain three percentage points. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
29. TECHNOLOGY AND VOTER INTENT: EVIDENCE FROM THE CALIFORNIA RECALL ELECTION.
- Author
-
Dee, Thomas S.
- Subjects
PUNCHED card systems ,VOTING research ,RECALL elections ,BALLOTS ,ELECTIONS ,CALIFORNIA state politics & government, 1951- - Abstract
Conventional evaluations of voting systems focus on ballots for which no vote can be recorded (that is, "residual" votes). However, recorded votes that misrepresent voter intent are another potentially important, but less easily measured, source of error. I present evidence that a nontrivial number of voters in the recent California recall election mistakenly voted for one of the four candidates positioned next to the two major candidates on the ballot. I also find that punch-card systems significantly increased the frequency of these errors. These results indicate that future assessments of voting technologies should consider their effects on both recorded and residual votes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
30. 'The People of California are Suffering': The Ideology of White Injury in Discourses of Immigration.
- Author
-
Cacho, Lisa Marie
- Subjects
RACIAL identity of white people ,INTERPERSONAL relations & culture ,CAPITALISM ,BALLOTS ,IMMIGRANTS - Abstract
This article examines how the ideology of white injury both conceals and sustains inequitable social relations in turn-of-the-millenium California. Understanding the political and economic context of California in the early 1990s in relation to media, law, and culture helps explain why Californian citizens passed the unconstitutional initiative, Proposition 187, in 1994. Targeting undocumented Mexican immigrants, this 'color-blind' Proposition functioned to conflate economic insecurities with racial anxieties. An analysis of culture, law, and media discloses how racial anxieties limit our understandings of exploitative capitalist relations, serving to artificially augment the white middle-class' wealth, opportunities, and power, while making vulnerable populations in the United States even more open to exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2000
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
31. Coronado: Land-Use Vote In Photo Finish.
- Author
-
Graves, Brad
- Subjects
LAND use ,ENVIRONMENTAL protection ,BALLOTS - Abstract
The article reports on the fate of the Coronado, California land-use measure in the November 7, 2006 ballot. Proposition J, which prohibited certain residential lot splits has won unofficially by three votes. Coronado residents objected to the trend of tearing down one house to build two. The official tally is being finished by county officials.
- Published
- 2006
32. Surfer chick makes waves.
- Subjects
- *
MAYORAL elections , *WOMEN political candidates , *BALLOTS , *VOTING , *ELECTIONS , *POLITICAL parties , *REPRESENTATIVE government , *POLITICAL candidates , *POLITICAL campaigns , *POLITICAL corruption - Abstract
The article focuses on the mayor's race in San Diego, California. Republican Dick Murphy, seeking re-election as mayor had expected a repeat of the 2000 election, a two-man run-off on November 2nd with county supervisor Ron Roberts. Instead he lost the headlines in a three-way fight to the Democrats' Donna Frye, a 52-year-old sun-bleached blonde surfer-turned-activist councilwoman and open-government campaigner. Frye had spurned the non-partisan March primary and declared her candidacy at the end of September. That was too late for her name to be on the ballot paper. So Frye invited her supporters to write her name in. More than 155,000 voters obliged. San Diego's reputation as a Republican stronghold is now more myth than reality. Though Republicans rule San Diego County, the city itself has a Democratic majority who, in the presidential election, gave John Kerry a 12-percentage-point victory over George W. Bush. Most of the nine-member city council are Democrats. One explanation for Frye's backing is that the political establishment is being punished for its own incompetence and perceived corruption.
- Published
- 2004
33. Oscar Pitches to Voters on Vacation.
- Author
-
MICHAEL CIEPLY
- Subjects
- *
ACADEMY Awards , *MOTION pictures , *VOTERS , *BALLOTS - Abstract
Oscar nominating ballots were mailed to 5,810 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Friday. They are due back 17 days later, on Jan. 12. Meanwhile, everybody in Hollywood is off for the holidays. So what's an awards publicist to do? The annual scramble to impress academy voters while the ballots are in hand, but the voters are not, is now in full swing. Expensive trade paper ads don't mean much if nobody's in the office. But that doesn't mean Hollywood's wilier players are without stratagems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2008
34. Treatment community not of one mind on Calif. ballot measure.
- Subjects
COMPULSIVE behavior ,BALLOTS ,THERAPEUTICS - Abstract
Comments on the reason why addiction treatment center president John Schwarzlose voted against a ballot measure that would finance addictive behavior treatment programs in California. Reasons why the ballot is counterproductive in spite of the promised funding; Need for more accountability according to observers.
- Published
- 2000
35. California Voters Approved a Variety Of Measures on Super Tuesday Ballot.
- Author
-
Saskal, Rich
- Subjects
BALLOTS ,BONDS (Finance) ,SECURITIES industry laws ,SCHOOL district finance ,TERM limits (Public office) - Abstract
The article reports on the approval of a variety of measures by California voters on the February 5, 2008 ballot. Aside from voting for their presidential preferences, voters approved more than $4 billion in bond measures, all but one of them for school districts. However, it voted down nine bond measures totaling $279 million, including the $178 million request from the Napa Valley Community College District. They also rejected revisions to legislative term-limits law of the state.
- Published
- 2008
36. How the City of Fullerton navigated adding candidates to ballots remotely.
- Author
-
Axelrod, Jason
- Subjects
BALLOTS ,COVID-19 pandemic ,ELECTIONS ,POLITICAL campaigns - Published
- 2021
37. Ballot Initiative Laws and Constitutional Amendments: The Case of Same-Sex Marriage in the United States.
- Author
-
Coulter, Kristine and Cialeo, Christopher
- Subjects
- *
SAME-sex marriage , *MARRIAGE licenses , *BALLOTS , *MARRIAGE law , *STATE laws , *CONSTITUTIONAL amendments - Abstract
In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and California followed suit in 2008. Yet, ballot initiative efforts to amend the Constitution to repeal same-sex marriage have failed in Massachusetts and succeeded in California. This research examines the causal mechanisms contributing to variation in ballot initiatives among states that have played an active role in same-sex marriage deliberation. We argue that institutional barriers play a large role in the initiative process by inhibiting a majority from imposing its will upon a minority. Understanding how ballot initiatives to amend the Constitution are successfully placed on the ballot and under what conditions they fail to do so is crucial in understanding the extent to which competing factions may have power to infringe upon the rights of a minority. The ease or difficulty of achieving ballot access for proposed initiatives can help us understand the nature of other contemporary social issues such as reproductive rights, affirmative action, and immigration as well as provide an analytical tool with which we can study previous social movements in the United States that have taken form at the state level. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2009
38. State's Preschool Plan Flies on a Wing and a Prayer.
- Author
-
Hemphill, Allen Polk
- Subjects
PRESCHOOL education ,BALLOTS ,PRESCHOOL children ,TAXATION ,EARLY childhood education - Abstract
The article focuses on a preschool initiative in California. The initiative will be put forward before the people for ballot in June 2006. The initiative provides part-day preschool for every 4-year-old California child. The program is likely to begin in 2010-11. However, some preschool expansion will take place in 2007. The taxes will be raised on single-filing adults who make $400,000 or more and couples earning $800,000 or more for the initiative. However, it has been viewed imposing tax on only one segment of society would not be a wise decision.
- Published
- 2006
39. Mean 'ol Prop 9 now propelling rally.
- Author
-
M.D.
- Subjects
PUBLIC utilities ,BALLOTS ,BONDS (Finance) - Abstract
Reports on the failure of a utility ballot in California, Proposition 9, which is about rate reduction bonds. Securitizations from Illinois Power and Commonwealth Edison; Asset-backed security market.
- Published
- 1998
40. Winning propositions.
- Subjects
BALLOTS ,PRACTICAL politics ,UNITED States elections ,BILINGUAL education ,EDUCATION policy - Abstract
The article presents information on two ballot initiatives, Proposition 226 and 227, introduced in 1998 ballot in California. Proposition 226 would require unions to obtain annual written permission from members before spending dues on politics while Proposition 227 would pull down the state's disastrous billion-dollar bilingual-education system. Proposition 226 is sparking fierce opposition from organized labor, which in a typical election cycle gives around $81 million to California campaigns, with 96 percent going to Democrats. Proposition 227 would provide one year of intensive English training.
- Published
- 1998
41. Online Balloting Holds Promise for Increasing Voter Tournout.
- Author
-
Randolph, Ned
- Subjects
VOTER turnout ,VOTING ,BALLOTS ,ELECTIONS ,POLITICAL participation - Abstract
The article focuses on the benefits associated with online balloting in California. It is considered that the state's special election in May 19, 2009 can attract more people by allowing them to vote online or by touch-tone telephone. Offering digital voting channels provides access to participation for any eligible voters. In this way, votes are sent to a digital ballot box where they are secured and encrypted.
- Published
- 2009
42. CALIFORNIA: S.F. Eyes Library Bond Boost.
- Author
-
Saskal, Rich
- Subjects
BALLOTS ,BOND funds ,REVENUE ,FINANCING of public libraries - Abstract
The article reports on the additional bond fund to be gained by the San Francisco public library system in California. The fund will be under Proposition D, a ballot measure which voters will decide to authorize the renewal of the city's library Preservation Fund and for the issuance of revenue bonds backed by a portion of the fund to finance construction and improvement of library facilities.
- Published
- 2007
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