Ballot Initiatives and Status Quo Bias. (June 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dyck, Joshua J.; Pearson-Merkowitz, Shanna
• Is Part Of: State politics & policy quarterly. Volume 19:Number 2(2019:Jun.)
• Page Start: 180
• Page End: 207
• Publication Date: 2019-06
• Subjects: direct democracy -- political behavior -- campaigns -- abortion policy -- public policy -- elections -- political communication; State governments -- United States -- Periodicals; Political planning -- United States -- States -- Periodicals; Gouvernements d'États fédérés -- États-Unis -- Périodiques; Politique publique -- États-Unis -- États -- Périodiques; 320.97305
• DOI: 10.1177/1532440018815067
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1532-4400

Abstract

Abstract : Is there an opposition bias in ballot initiative campaigns? While some early research suggested that the "no" side was advantaged in ballot initiative campaigns, recent work has demonstrated that both opposition and support spending in ballot measure campaigns are effective. We offer a new way to conceptualize status quo orientation in ballot measure elections. Specifically, we argue that opposition arguments are more effective than support arguments because of the well-known framing negativity bias and not because the starting position for uninformed voters is to default to no. We present the results of two survey experiments to test the impact of support and opposition arguments in ballot initiative campaigns. We find consistent evidence that opposition arguments are effective in generating more "no" votes and that support arguments are ineffective in generating more "yes" votes.