Confusing Ballots, Roll-Off, and the Black Vote

Citizen Involvement & Quality of Life: Exit, Voice and Loyalty in a Time of Direct Democracy

“…Further, there is evidence that voters experience fatigue even in the presence of heuristics to cue the public about voting preferences when the time required to complete the voting process increases significantly (Kimball and Kropf 2006;Brockington 2003;Nichols and Strizek 1995;Nichols 1998;Darcy and Schnider 1989;Magleby 1984;Taebel 1975;Walker 1966). Ballot fatigue, or disengagement by voters due to lengthy and difficult questions or topics (Magleby 1984;Reilly 2010) has been found to decrease turnout.…”

“…National elections have more salience (and thus a higher turnout) and it must be expected that these different levels of turnout affect participation on statewide propositions (with low salience in regards to elections listed higher up the ballot). Explanations such as information environment (Nicholson 2003(Nicholson , 2005, topic (Nicholson 2005), media coverage (Bowler and Donovan 1994), race (Magleby 1985;Darcy and Schnider 1989;Vanderleeuw and Engstrom 1987), length of ballot (Walker 1966;Taebel 1975;Brockington 2003), language (Magleby 1984;Reilly 2010;Reilly and Richey 2008) and characteristics of the election (such as electronic counting machines Nichols and Strizek 1995;Nichols 1998) have been explored as reasons for decreased participation on ballot measures.…”

Comparing absentee and precinct voters: Voting on direct legislation

“…More recent work has been published by Vanderleeuw and Engstrom (1987), Darcy andSchneider (1989), ,andBowler, ,Don0van andHapp (1992). Vanderleeuw and En gstrom report that African-Americans roll-off at faster rates than whites, even when controlling for age and education.…”

Non-voted ballots, the cost of voting, and race

“…Darcy and Schneider (1989) examine the different fall-off rates for paper and optical scan ballots during the 1986 general election in Oklahoma. They found that jurisdictions using optical scans generally had less of a "roll-off" for races further down the ballot (see also Miller and Krosnick 1998).…”