Voting Context and Vote Choice: The Impact of Voting Precinct Location on Voting for California Proposition 8

Abstract

The vote on Proposition 8 has been characterized as a largely ideological vote among California voters. Certainly, research suggests that at the individual level, conservatism, Republicanism, religiosity, African-American and Hispanic ethnicity, lower education, and male gender all greatly increased the probability of voting “yes” on the Proposition. Recent research has concluded that the physical location of a voting precinct can also influence voting on an issue by providing environmental cues that activate societal norms that can affect the a citizen’s vote on particular issues. At least one author (Rutchick) has concluded that voting in a church can trigger votes in a conservative direction. This research examines the hypothesis that voting at a church (as opposed to a school or other facility) would increase support for the Act over and above other factors affecting the vote. The research concludes that Rutchick’s conclusions may have been affected by the absence of controls for race, religious affiliation, and population density. Nevertheless, the choice of polling location is not neutral and should be studied in future elections. Other analyses of the vote also underestimate the indirect effects of education and ethnicity.

Keywords: Proposition 8, priming, polling location, ideology, partisanship, race, ethnicity