When Voters are Overloaded with Ballot Measures, Do They Just Vote “No”?

That’s what Dan Schnur, the director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, told Adam Nagourney in a front page article, “In California, Asking Voters to Raise Taxes,” in today’s New York Times.

According to Schnur, “The November 2012 ballot is going to be the political equivalent of bumper car. What we have seen historically is that voters who are overwhelmed or overloaded with things tend to vote ‘no’ on everything.”

While it sounds convincing, Mr. Schnur’s statement is not really backed up by the data.

In California, between 1911 and 2010, voters considered 1180 statewide initiatives, popular referendums, and legislative referendums, passing 666 of them, for a passage rate of 56%.  When it comes to statewide initiatives, popular referendums, and legislative referendums on the ballot in general elections, Californians have approved 491 of the 893 measures.

Here’s a graph of the number of general election statewide ballot measures by year in California, and the accompanying passage rates, over time:

It’s pretty hard to discern a clear relationship over the years that suggests that an increased number of measures on the statewide ballot leads to a decreased percentage of measures adopted by the voters.

Here’s another look at the same data, using a scatterplot:

Again, there’s not a very clear pattern over the last century when looking at the number of statewide ballot measures in a general election and the overall passage rate of those measures. As the linear regression equation indicates, the relationship is quite weak. (And no, that’s not a data entry error: there really were 47 measures on California’s statewide ballot in 1914).

So, what are we to make of Mr. Schnur’s comment, in light of the data?

More measures on the ballot does not lead necessarily to lower overall support for ballot propositions. California voters don’t get “overloaded.”

California voters are not stupid, and are certainly not “dumber than chimps” as Skip Lupia rightly notes. They are able to pick and choose down the ballot, even very long ones, making binary choices that best match their own preferences. It is essential, of course, that voters have informational cues, or heuristics (such as campaign spending on a ballot measure that indicates support or opposition by vested interests) which can help voters with their civic duty when serving as lawmakers for a day.

So bring on the ballot measures in 2012, even those raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for educational and energy programs. Californians are up for the challenge.

Opponent of Referendum Is Arrested

in Equatorial Guinea.

Now this is what “threats, harassment, and reprisals” look like when government regulations “seriously chill speech and association,” as attorney Jim Bopp and the plaintiff’s in Doe v. Reed failed to show when challenging the state of Washington’s public release of signed petitions for Referendum 71,  an effort by social conservatives to repeal the legislature’s bill granting same-sex civil union protections.

In fact, if the politically-motivated arrest of a supporter of Referendum 71 in Washington for suspicion of murder had occurred, U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle likely would have supported an as-applied challenge to Washington’s Public Records Act.  But alas, as Settle noted, “… if a group could succeed in an as-applied challenge to the PRA by simply providing a few isolated incidents of profane or indecent statements, gestures, or other examples of uncomfortable conversations that are not necessarily even related or directly connected to the issue at hand, disclosure would become the exception instead of the rule.”

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote pointedly in his concurring opinion in Doe v. Reed why public disclosure is necessary, and how it can embolden citizens in the U.S.

There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self governance…Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.

Rather than a threat to individual liberty, public disclosure is a bulwark against government oppression, as we’re seeing in Equatorial Guinea.

Don’t Overlook Off-Year Bellwether Ballot Measures

Election Day 2011 is fast approaching. Most eyes will be focused on the the regularly-scheduled off-year gubernatorial elections in Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, as well as a special gubernatorial election in West Virginia. There are also legislative races Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Virginia. Some pundits suggest that the collective results of these off-year races may serve as a bellwether for the 2012 general election.

Equally, if not more important, though, are the results of the referred and initiated statewide measures on the ballot.

Citizens in nine states–Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Washington–will have the opportunity to cast ballots in October on 34 ballot measures, including a dozen measures put on the ballot by citizen.

In terms of ballot bellwethers, topping all other campaigns is “Issue 2” on the ballot in Ohio. The popular referendum is an effort by citizens to repeal the anti-worker Senate Bill 5 that was signed into law by Governor Kasich. If Issue 2 goes down, it should be interpreted not only as a blow against conservatives in Ohio, but also Republicans pushing anti-worker policies in others states, including Florida, Indiana, New Jersey, and especially Wisconsin.

Social conservatives and pro-choice advocates will be turning their attention south, as Mississippi voters will confront an extreme anti-choice “personhood” amendment. Voters in Colorado have defeated a similar measure. Suffice to say, Mississippi is not Colorado.

The Huffington Post has good overviews of both of these issues:

•  Ohio SB 5 Collective Bargaining Law Follows Efforts In Wisconsin and New Jersey
• As Mississippi Debates Extreme ‘Personhood’ Amendment, Advocates Ask Where Are The Dems?

A third measure to watch out for is a popular referendum in Maine that will overturn a Republican-sponsored law ending same-day voter registration in the state. Same day voter registration is a good governance issue, not a partisan issue, though Republicans in the state seem to think otherwise.  The Sun Journal has an update on the campaign, here: People’s veto probably a close to a slam-dunk.

Finally, anti-tax crusader Tim Eyman in Washington has an initiative on the ballot that fiscal conservatives around the country will be taking stock. Fearful of all things public-infrastructure, his pet-project would cut tolls used to pay for new bridges and highways in the state.  As it has done in the past, the business community has spoken up, joining Democrats and organized labor to oppose Eyman’s latest slash and burn measure, as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports:  The Association of Washington Business has come out against the Tim Eyman-sponsored Initiative 1125.

Rather than only reading the tea leaves from the 2011 candidate races, pundits should also consider the results of these ballot measures.  All four measures, as well as several others, will have implications for candidate races in 2012, from state legislative races to campaigns for Congress and the presidency.  As campaign consultants and pundits are increasingly realizing, ballot measures have a range of “educative effects,” as they can ply candidates with salient issues to support or oppose during their campaigns, mobilize turnout, and even prime candidate support.

For more on the scholarship of the “educative effects” of direct democracy, here’s a primer.