Sex and the ballot box: perception of ballot measures regarding same-sex marriage and abortion in California

Abstract

2014). Sex and the ballot box: perception of ballot measures regarding same-sex marriage and abortion in Abstract : Voters in many American states have considered important social policies that redefine civil liberties within their state through the initiative and referendum. An important question remaining is, are voters knowledgeable enough to make decisions on these social policies that have far-reaching effects? The common wisdom is that voters rely on information shortcuts in lieu of extensive knowledge about the issues. Unlike candidate elections, however, ballot measures lack some prominent and useful information shortcuts (i.e. party identification). We test the hypothesis that voters use shortcuts to inform their decisions on two ballot measures central to today's policy debates: California's Proposition 4 on parental notification for abortion and Proposition 8 on same-sex marriage. We show that voters do not use cues universally, and, furthermore, factual information has a limited effect on voters' decisions. In particular, we find that the persuasiveness of an endorsement is conditional on whether an individual trusts the source.

Bring the state (information) in: Campaign dynamics in the run-up to a German referendum

“…The Swiss case has been studied extensively (see for example Kriesi, 2005;Sciarini and Tresch, 2011), but analysis from other countries (see Burnett and McCubbins, 2014for California, de Vreese and Semetko, 2004for Denmark, Schoen, 2013, Schoen et al, 2011aGarry et al, 2005, Marsh, 2007for Ireland, Neijens et al, 2007 for the Netherlands, Renwick and Lamb, 2013 for the UK) as well as comparative research has also been conducted extensively (especially on referendums in the context of the European Union; see for example Hobolt (2005) as well as de Vreese (2007) and the chapters there). Existing research on referendum campaigns shows that campaigns and campaign information matter.…”

Same-Sex Marriage Referendum: What Factors Cause People to Stop the Circulation of Negative Messages on Smartphones?

“…The decision-making process of voters in referendums differs from the process in candidatecantered elections, and political party identification no longer serves as an information shortcut (Burnett & McCubbins, 2014). Burnett (2019) found that, specifically regarding referendum issues, endorsements show the most impact on voter decisions, and voters tend to have insufficient knowledge of the facts.…”

“…Among these limited papers, scholars examined the relationship between voter turnout and the likelihood of banning same-sex marriage (Simon, Matland, Wendell & Tatalovich, 2018), the role of a certain appealing strategy in discussing the issue (O'Connor, 2017) and factors that shape voters' decision-making (Binelli, 2018;Burnett & McCubbins, 2014;Fisher, 2017). Previous findings show that voters are unable to judge same-sex marriage issues in the same way that they typically choose election candidates, that is, through information shortcuts such as party identification (Burnett & McCubbins, 2014). Instead, they rely almost entirely on information, framing, and cues from advocacy groups (Fisher, 2017).…”