Voting on the Propositions: Ballot Patterns and Historical Trends in California*

John E. Mueller

American Political Science Review, 1969, vol. 63, issue 4, 1197-1212

Abstract: Entering the polling booth on Tuesday, November 3, 1964, the typical California voter found himself confronted with an immense sheet of finely-printed green paper, a dirty black rubber stamp, a tiny ink pad, and thirty decisions to render. A few minutes later (the legal maximum is 10) he emerged and numbly surrendered to a clerk his ballot, now slightly embellished, like the fingers of his decision hand, with black ink stains. Most of his decisions were made on a lengthy array of propositions. In these, questions on an assortment of issues were posed, each couched in language tedious and obscure—as only minds trained in the finest law schools could devise. This study seeks to gain some knowledge about factors which influence the vote on these propositions. It employs a somewhat unorthodox method: an analysis of the voting patterns on actual ballots. The ballots furnish attractive data because they are, after all, completely accurate records of the results of those minutes of decision-rendering in the artificial privacy of that cramped polling booth. It would be impossible by this method to generate a comprehensive theory about proposition voting behavior—too much information about the individual voter is forever lost by the secrecy incorporated in the balloting procedure. Nevertheless a contribution can be made in several areas of relevant concern, areas currently dominated more by folklore and mythology than fact or theory.

Date: 1969
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