![[PDF]](/pb-assets/Icons/adobe-pdf-icon-1498649896243.png){kind=icon}
Abstract
Ballot questions often feature obscure and legalistic language that is difficult to comprehend. Because the language of ballot questions is often unclear, the authors hypothesize that questions with lower readability will have higher roll-off because voters will not answer questions they do not understand. The authors use an objective measure of readability to code readability scores for 1,211 state-level ballot questions from 1997 to 2007. Using hierarchical linear regression models of state-level data, the authors find that increased complexity leads to more roll-off. The authors further analyze some possible influences on readability by examining whether it is affected by the question topic.
|
Bishop, George F. , Robert W. Oldendick , and Alfred J. Tuchfarber. 1978. Effects of question wording and format on political attitude consistency. Public Opinion Quarterly 42 (1): 81-92. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Bishop, George F. , Alfred J. Tuchfarber , and Robert W. Oldendick. 1978. Change in the structure of American political attitudes: The nagging question of question wording. American Journal of Political Science 22 (2): 250-69. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Bowler, Shaun , and Todd Donovan. 1994. Information and opinion change on ballot measures. Political Behavior 16 (4): 411-35. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Bowler, Shaun , and Todd Donovan. 2004. Measuring the effects of direct democracy on state policy and politics. State Politics and Policy Quarterly 4 (3): 345-63. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Bowler, Shaun , Todd Donovan , and Trudi Happ. 1992. Ballot propositions and information costs: Direct democracy and the fatigued voter. Western Political Quarterly 45 (2): 559-68. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Branton, Regina P. 2003. Examining individual-level voting behavior on state ballot propositions. Political Research Quarterly 56 (3): 367-77. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Campbell, Angus , Phillip E. Converse , Warren E. Miller and Donald E. Stokes. 1960. The American voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Brockington, David. 2003. A low information theory of ballot position effect. Political Behavior 25 (1): 1-27. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Darcy, R. , and Anne L. Schneider. 1989. Confusing ballots, roll-off, and the black vote. Western Political Quarterly 42:347-64. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Dubois, Philip L. 1979. Voter turnout in state judicial elections: An analysis of the tail on the electoral kite. Journal of Politics 41 (3): 865-87. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Farr, J.N. , J.J. Jenkins , and D.G. Paterson. 1951. Simplification of Flesch reading ease formula. Journal of Applied Psychology 35 (5): 333-37. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective voting in American national elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Gallup, George. 1941. Question wording in public opinion polls. Sociometry 4 (3): 259-68. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Gelman, Andrew , and Jennifer Hill. 2007. Data analysis using regression and multilevel/hierarchical models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Hall, Melinda Gann. 1999. Ballot roll-off in judicial elections: Contextual and institutional influences on voter participation in the American states. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-5, Atlanta, GA. Google Scholar | |
|
Kalton, Graham , Martin Collins , and Lindsay Brook. 1978. Experiments in wording opinion questions . Applied Statistics 27 (2): 149-61. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Key, V.O. 1964. Public opinion and American democracy. New York: Wiley. Google Scholar | |
|
Kimball, David C. , and Martha Kropf. 2006. Ballot initiatives and residual ballots in the 2004 presidential election. Presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, January, Atlanta, GA. Google Scholar | |
| Lau, Richard R. , and David P. Redlawsk. 2006. How voters decide: Information processing in elections campaigns. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Laurent, Andre. 1972. Effects of question length on reporting behavior in the survey interview. Journal of the American Statistical Association 67 (338): 298-305. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Magleby, David. 1985. Participation in the initiative and referendum elections in Switzerland and the United States. Presented at the 13th World Congress of the International Political Science Association , July 15-20, Paris, France. Google Scholar | |
|
Miller, Warren E. , and J. Merrill Shanks . 1996. The new American voter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Mondak, Jeffery J. 1994. Question wording and mass policy preferences: The comparative impact of substantive information and peripheral cues. Political Communication 11:165-83. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Nichols, Stephen M. 1998. State referendum voting, ballot roll-off, and the effect of new electoral technology. State and Local Government Review 30 (2): 106-17. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Nichols, Stephen M. , and Gregory A. Strizek . 1995. Electronic voting machines and ballot roll-off. American Politics Quarterly 23:300-318. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | |
|
Nicholson, Stephen P. 2003. The political environment and ballot proposition awareness . American Journal of Political Science 47 (3): 403-10. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Nicholson, Stephen P. 2005. Voting the agenda: Candidates, elections and ballot measures . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Rasinski, Kenneth A. 1989. The effect of question wording on public support for government spending. Public Opinion Quarterly 53 (3): 388-94. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Raudenbush, Stephan W. , and Anthony S. Bryk . 2002. Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods. 2nd ed. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Google Scholar | |
|
Rosenstone, Steven J. , and John Mark Hansen . 1993. Mobilization, participation, and democracy in America. New York: Pearson Education. Google Scholar | |
|
Schaffner, Brian , Matthew Streb , and Gerald Wright. 2001. Teams without uniforms: The nonpartisan ballot in state and local elections. Political Research Quarterly 54 (1): 7-30. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Sheppard, Harrison. 2005. Voters hit by "election fatigue"- Frequent ballot initiatives diluting process, interest. Daily News of Los Angeles, September 12. Google Scholar | |
|
Suber, Amy F. , Regina G. Ziegler , Frances E. Thompson , Christine Cole Johnson , Joel L. Weissfeld , Douglas Reding , Katherine H. Kavounis , and Richard B. Hayes . 2001. Is shorter always better? Relative importance of questionnaire length and cognitive ease on response rates and data quality for two dietary questionnaires. American Journal of Epidemiology 153 (4): 404-9. Google Scholar | Crossref | Medline | ISI | |
|
Taebel, D.A. 1975. The effect of ballot position on electoral success. American Journal of Political Science 19 (3): 519-26. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Vanderleeuw, James M. , and Richard L. Engstrom . 1987. Race, referenda and roll-off . Journal of Politics 49 (4): 1081-92. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Walker, Jack L. 1966. Ballot forms and voter fatigue: An analysis of the office block and party column ballots. Midwest Journal of Political Science 10 (4): 448-63. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Woodbridge, Jeffrey M. 2002. Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar |
