Plan de estudios por asignatura, competencias y proceso de investigación en la FAE

Hypothesis 4 looks at the wording of different ballot propositions and the wording’s impact on citizen participation. This is an important area of research because it looks at the impact of the electoral mechanism on participation. Direct legislation propositions are often difficult to read. This wording is often written in terms of double negatives, legislative, and technical language that can affect participation. These propositions can also be quite lengthy. Below are three examples of ballot propositions that appeared on the ballot in different states in 2006.

Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning standards of conduct by persons who are professionally involved with governmental activities, and, in connection therewith, prohibiting a public officer, member of the general assembly, local government official, or government employee from soliciting or accepting certain monetary or in-kind gifts; prohibiting a professional lobbyist from giving anything of value to a public officer, member of the general assembly, local government official, government employee, or such person's immediate family member; prohibiting a statewide elected officeholder or member of the general assembly from personally representing another person or entity for compensation before any other such officeholder or member for a period of two years following departure from office; establishing penalties for a breach of public trust or inducement of such a breach; creating a five-member independent ethics commission to hear ethics complaints, to assess penalties, and to issue advisory opinions on ethics issues; and specifying that the measure shall not apply to home rule jurisdictions that have adopted laws concerning matters covered by the measure?

Amendment 41 Colorado 2006

Ballot Title: State Planning and Budget Process

Ballot Summary:

Proposing amendments to the State Constitution to limit the amount of nonrecurring general revenue which may be appropriated for recurring purposes in any fiscal year to 3 percent of the total general revenue funds

estimated to be available, unless otherwise approved by a threefifths vote of the Legislature; to establish a Joint Legislative Budget Commission, which shall issue long-range financial outlooks; to provide for limited adjustments in the state budget without the concurrence of the full Legislature, as provided by general law; to reduce the number of times trust funds are automatically terminated; to require the preparation and biennial revision of a long-range state planning document; and to establish a Government Efficiency Task Force and specify its duties.

Constitutional Amendment 1 Florida 2006

Do you approve of a law summarized below, on which no vote was taken by the Senate or House of Representatives before May 3, 2006?

Summary

This proposed law would allow candidates for public office to be nominated by more than one political party or political designation, to have their names appear on the ballot once for each nomination, and to have their votes counted separately for each nomination but then added together to determine the winner of the election. The proposed law would repeal an existing requirement that in order to appear on the state primary ballot as a candidate for a political party’s nomination for certain offices, a person cannot have been enrolled in any other party during the preceding year. The requirement applies to candidates for nomination for statewide office, representative in Congress, governor’s councillor, member of the state Legislature, district attorney, clerk of court, register of probate, register of deeds, county commissioner, sheriff, and county treasurer. The proposed law would also allow any person to appear on the primary ballot as a candidate for a party’s nomination for those offices if the party’s state committee gave its written consent. The proposed law would also repeal the existing requirement that in order to be nominated to appear as an unenrolled candidate on the state election ballot, or on any city or town ballot following a primary, a person cannot have been enrolled in any political party during the 90 days before the deadline for filing nomination papers. The proposed law would provide that if a candidate were nominated by more than one party or political designation, instead of the candidate’s name being printed on the ballot once, with the candidate allowed to choose the order in which the party or political designation names appear after the candidate’s name, the candidate’s name would appear multiple times, once for each nomination received. The candidate would decide the order in which the party or political designation nominations would appear, except that all parties would be listed before all political designations. The ballot would allow voters who vote for a candidate nominated by multiple parties or political designations to vote for that candidate under the party or political designation line of their choice. If a voter voted for the same candidate for the same office on multiple party or political designation lines, the ballot would remain valid but would be counted as a single vote for the candidate on a line without a party or political designation. If voting technology allowed, voting machines would be required to prevent a voter from voting more than the number of times permitted for any one

office. The proposed law would provide that if a candidate received votes under more than one party or political designation, the votes would be combined for purposes of determining whether the candidate had won the election. The total number of votes each candidate received under each party or political designation would be recorded. Election officials would announce and record both the aggregate totals and the total by party or political designation. The proposed law would allow a political party to obtain official recognition if its candidate had obtained at least 3% of the vote for any statewide office at either of the two most recent state elections, instead of at only the most recent state election as 56 under current law. The proposed law would allow a person nominated as a candidate for any state, city or town office to withdraw his name from nomination within six days after any party’s primary election for that office, whether or not the person sought nomination or was nominated in that primary. Any candidate who withdrew from an election could not be listed on the ballot for that election, regardless of whether the candidate received multiple nominations. The proposed law states that if any of its parts were declared invalid, the other parts would stay in effect.

Question 2 Massachusetts 2006

From these three examples, there is ample evidence of the problems and variation in direct democracy measures on the ballot. These examples are an indicator that shows how difficult it is for voters to read, understand, and vote on these propositions. The language of these ballot propositions makes participation more complicated for voters and requires a particular level of political knowledge to understand these propositions.

This language deters voters because they are not able to comprehend the question on which citizens are asked to vote. As part of this complex language, readability (grade level) is also an obstacle to voting. According to this research, direct legislation has on average a reading level of grade 17. This is higher than high school and a bachelor’s degree, and double the average American reading level of 8th grade. We know from research on public opinion surveys that the readability of questions leads to different responses (Mondak 1994; Rasinksi 1989; Kalton, Collins and Brook 1978; Bishop, Tuchfarber and Oldendick 1978; Gallup 1941). It is appropriate to suggest that if question-wording affects responses to public opinion surveys, then the readability of ballot propositions can influence participation as well as the vote outcome.

This does not imply that all the responsibility is on the part of the state to make sure that citizens can read the ballot proposition. Rather, it requires the citizen to actively engage and educate themselves on the issues in order to participate.

For citizens to make voting decisions consistent with their political attitudes, the question is expected to be in a clear and readable format. If ballot readability contributes to roll-off, then there is a significant problem not only with the way that direct democracy is presented but also what this means to the American public.

Citizen understandings of elections are paramount to participation in direct democracy. In fact, it is a significant component of why direct democracy elections are available – for the public to assert their policy desires. If citizens are unwilling or unable to understand the question, this can only lead to a more pronounced effect of this response bias and roll-off because citizens get discouraged and feel that they do not know the basis on what they are voting.

The language on individual questions can be an important feature in determining participation. However, the position of the proposition on the ballot may also contribute to the level of participation. The lower the measure is down the ballot, the more races the voter has to participate in, contributing to voter fatigue. Voter fatigue is the term used to describe what happens when voters get discouraged or tired of participating and cease to participate. Ballot propositions are often at the bottom of the ballot, below more salient elections, and are subjected to higher levels of voter fatigue. Ballots with more races on the ballot require more effort on behalf of the citizens. Moreover, when there are complex questions at the end of a lengthy ballot, it is likely and understandable that citizens do not complete the ballot. Therefore,

participation in direct democracy can be limited because of the length of the ballots and voter fatigue. This is addressed in Hypothesis 5.

Hypothesis 5: The lower the position of the ballot proposition on the ballot