Abstract
A century ago, Progressive reformers in the U.S. introduced the institutional innovations of direct democracy, claiming these reforms would cultivate better citizens. Two decades of high-profile research have supported and challenged the relationship between direct democracy, increased attention to politics, and a higher turnout rate. We propose, however, that a necessary condition of the “educative effects” model is voter familiarity with initiatives and referendums. While some research has examined ballot measure awareness, we suspect that that the standard measurements—e.g., “Have you heard of Proposition X?”—overestimate actual knowledge. Specifically, we measure ballot measure knowledge in a manner requiring voters to demonstrate familiarity with specific measures rather than merely asserting broad familiarity. Our approach reveals that the public’s awareness of statewide ballot measures, both in the abstract and with respect to particular measures, is far lower than past research suggests. Importantly, it also reveals that people with high levels of education, political interest, and knowledge of national politics are the most likely to misrepresent their ballot measure awareness.
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Notes
Political parties and other operatives have applied the educative effects of ballot measures to their own ends in recent election cycles, banking on the hope that specific ballot initiatives would improve the prospects of their preferred candidates. It has. See, for example, Nicholson (2005), Donovan et al. (2009), Smith and Tolbert (2010), and Kousser and McCubbins (2005).
For an illuminating critique of the relationship between social scientists’ understanding of voter competence and the ways in which we measure it, see Lupia (2006).
It is worth highlighting that what our study is fundamentally different from the work of Biggers (2011) and Seabrook et al. (2015). These two studies examine the degree to which the presence of direct democracy delivers on one of the educative effects hypothesis’s promises: a more informed electorate. To assess whether this is the case, they use measurements of general political knowledge. Here, we are concerned with a more foundational aspect of the educative effects hypothesis: Are voters aware of the presence of ballot measures that would, in turn, possibly empower direct democracy’s educative effects? In essence, focusing on general political knowledge is one of the potential outcomes of the educative effects hypothesis, whereas examining awareness of ballot measures constitutes a more fundamental assumption of the educative effects hypothesis.
For a concise overview of initiative use by state since initial adoption, see Todd Donovan, Daniel A. Smith, Tracy Osborn, and Christopher Z. Mooney. 2013. “Figure 4.4: Historic Statewide Initiative Use” State and Local Politics: Institutions and Reforms 4th edition (Stamford: CT: Cengage), p. 119. Whether measured as a total or by average biennial use, Arkansas is in the top third of initiative users.
The other two referred amendments—one making it more difficult to qualify initiatives for the ballot and the other requiring legislative approval before executive branch rules went into effect – generated some editorial comment but far less attention. See “Against Ballot Issue No. 1,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 21 October 2014.
For an overview of the legislative process that led to the amendment, see Noel Oman, “Panel Passes Ethics Amendment,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 10 April 2013. Polling in advance of the election showed that when each element of the measure was explained, poll respondents overwhelmingly opposed the two additions. See “Poll: Term Limits Extension, Official Pay Hurting Ethics Reform Amendment,” Talk Business and Politics, http://talkbusiness.net/2013/10/poll-term-limits-extension-official-pay-hurting-ethics-reform-amendment/#sthash.eDHa4mbL.dpuf.
Arkansas Term Limits, Arkansas Ethics Commission final campaign finance report, 8 December 2014.
Jay Barth, “Minimum Wage Increase Could Help Democrats,” Arkansas Times, 10 April 2014, http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/minimum-wage-increase-could-help-democrats/Content?oid=3263167. Arkansas Interfaith Alliance, Arkansas Ethics Commission final campaign finance report, 8 October 2014. Arkansas Ethics Commission campaign finance reports.
It is important to note that a series of local alcohol sale legalization measures were in “dry” counties around the state that also expanded the conversation about alcohol sales in certain locales around the state. Arkansas Ethics Commission campaign finance reports.
Max Brantley, “Arkansas Supreme Court Kills Amendments on New Casinos, Tort Reform and Approves Medical Marijuana Amendment,” Arkansas Blog, 13 October 2016.
Brian Fanney, “Court Strikes Medical Marijuana Initiated Act; Issue 7 Votes Won’t Count, but Those on Rival Issue 6 Will,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 28 October 2016.
Arkansas Ethics Committee reports. Accessed at: http://www.arkansasethics.com/blqc.htm.
In Arkansas’s closely-watched 2014 U.S. Senate race, for example, the Arkansas Poll predicted the Republican challenger would garner 57% of the vote; indeed, that was his actual vote share. In the 2016 contest, the Republican incumbent was predicted to garner 61%; he earned 60%. Further details are available at https://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/political-science/partners/arkansas-poll.php. Replication data are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/polbehavior.
Recent scholarship on the measurement of political knowledge rightly sounds the alarm about the widespread absence of intercoder reliability and/or coding transparency. Providing numerous predetermined categories into which interviewers can place responses is an imperfect, if cost effective, solution to the problems well articulated by DeBell (2013). It also however prevents post hoc reliability checks. Still, we believe we have addressed his most important admonition: “[I]t is important to develop and disclose coding rules that are as precise and comprehensive as possible. This does not eliminate subjectivity from the codes. Instead, it moves subjectivity from behind the curtain of the coder’s mind into the sunshine of peer review, in publicly disclosed precise rules for the coding” (p. 396).
While it is possible some people are interested in one issue, other people in other issues and each does not recall certain measures because they do not plan to vote on them, an examination of roll-off rates rules out a role in our results: The roll-off rates in 2014 show little variation: Issues 1 and 2 experienced just 6 percent roll off, Issue 3 (ethics reform/term limits) was 4%, and alcohol and the minimum wage hike were just 2%.
Unfortunately, our sample size on the 2016 survey was not large enough to conduct a statistically meaningful analysis of ballot measure reporting behavior.
Existing work on the factors that either facilitate or impede voters’ capacity to participate meaningfully in direct legislation elections finds roles for education levels (Magleby 1989, Bowler and Donovan 1994), campaign contact (e.g., Bowler and Donovan 1998, Parry et al. 2012), party and elite endorsements (e.g., Boudreau and MacKenzie 2014, Burnett and Parry 2014), ballot language complexity (Reilly and Richey 2011), and multiple initiatives (e.g., Selb 2008). But the dependent variable in these studies is nearly always operationalized as either turnout (presumed to operate as a surrogate for ballot measure interest), or as self-reported — and unverified — awareness of the measure(s) at hand.
We collapse the original measurement of education from a 7 category to a 5 category measure to increase the number of respondents at the tails of the education spectrum. Doing so allows us to have a large enough sample in each educational category to perform analysis that otherwise would have not enough respondents.
Of course, it is possible these otherwise-well-equipped voters have not misrepresented themselves, but instead have enough experience with political participation to anticipate ballot measures in a generic—if not a specific—sense. While we cannot discern precisely which behavior is driving our finding, we suspect social desirability – i.e., wanting to feel like an attentive citizen—is at least partly responsible (Lodge and Taber 2013).
When a specific ballot measure does activate individuals politically, perhaps it is only in unique circumstances—e.g., a special election when the ballot measure is the sole issue, a time when an individual has actually signed a petition to get the measure on the ballot (Parry et al. 2012), or a case when identity politics is at play (see, for example, Feig 2007).
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank the ever-helpful participants of the annual State Politics and Policy Conference for their suggestions, most especially Michael Binder and Daniel Biggers, as well as the manuscript’s anonymous reviewers. Any errors that remain are of course our own.
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Appendix
Appendix
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1.
In 2014, the battery opened with this for the full sample: “Moving from people to issues, do you happen to know if there will be any ballot measures—which are policy questions for voters to decide—on the November ballot?” YES, NO. If “yes,” interviewers moved to instruction 3. below.
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2.
In 2016, the battery opened, for half the sample, with question above and stopped at YES, NO. The other half heard instead: “From what you have heard or read, will voters in Arkansas this November be voting on any ballot initiatives, referendums, state constitutional amendments, or not?” YES, NO. If “yes,” interviewers moved to instruction 3. below.
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3.
Is there a ballot measure, or measures, in which you are particularly interested? Which one? Interviewers were instructed verbally in both years to be generous in placing responses into the following categories. Caller screens advised: DO NOT READ; ALLOW RESPONDENT TO INDICATE MULTIPLE RESPONSES) YES [Administrative Rule], YES [Direct Democracy], YES [Term Limits], YES [Alcohol], YES [Minimum Wage], YES [Other topic, Not on ballot], NO and YES [any of these: four year terms for county officials/single candidates automatically elected/defining “infamous crimes” that affect the eligibility of elected officials], YES [governor retains powers and duties even out of state], YES [economic development/job expansion/job creation bonds], YES [medical marijuana amendment, no grow-your-own, smaller # qualifying conditions], YES [medical marijuana/cannabis initiated act, allows grow-own, larger # qualifying conditions], YES [MEDICAL MARIJUANA GENERALLY], YES [casino gambling, gambling in certain counties, etc.], YES [tort reform, cap on damages in medical lawsuits, cap attorney fees], YES [Other topic, Not on ballot], NO.
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4.
How often do you pay attention to what’s going on in government and politics? ALWAYS (4), MOST OF THE TIME (3), ABOUT HALF OF THE TIME (2), SOME OF THE TIME (1), NEVER (0).
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5.
Political knowledge is an index of respondents’ answers to a three-question, rotated battery of national knowledge questions: Who is the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. I have a list of names here, is it (responses randomized): Harry Reid, John Kerry, John Boehner/Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi. What is the term of office for a U.S. Senator? Is it: Two years, four years, six years, eight years (responses inverted). Who is responsible for nominating judges to federal courts? Is it (responses randomized): The president, congress, the supreme court, state governors. Coded as percent correct.
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6.
Which of the following education categories best describes your highest level of schooling? I have a list here… NO HIGH SCHOOL (1), SOME HIGH SCHOOL (2), HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE (3), SOME COLLEGE INCLUDING BUSINESS OR TRADE SCHOOL (4), COLLEGE GRADUATE (5), SOME GRADUATE SCHOOL (6), GRADUATE OR PROFESSIONAL DEGREE (7).
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How would you describe your views on most political matters? Generally, do you think of yourself as liberal, moderate, or conservative? Coded as a binary variable: both strong conservatives and strong liberals (1), all others (0). strongly conservative or liberal (coded as “1”), and all others coded as “0.”
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Barth, J., Burnett, C.M. & Parry, J. Direct Democracy, Educative Effects, and the (Mis)Measurement of Ballot Measure Awareness. Polit Behav 42, 1015–1034 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-019-09529-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-019-09529-w