Speaker 1: Your voice. I drive around and talk to a lot
Speaker 1: of people your vote, trying to do my part to
Speaker 1: get Donald J. Trump reelected.
Speaker 2: On fifty five KR the talk station at oh five
Speaker 2: fifty five KRC Detalk Station. Brian Thomas wishing everyone a
Speaker 2: very happy Wednesday, looking forward to the bottom of the
Speaker 2: hour as I always do on Wednesdays with judg Ena Paulitano,
Speaker 2: and really looking forward to dive on into this study
Speaker 2: done by my next guests, among other researchers, Hillary Shulman, PhD,
Speaker 2: Associate Professor in the School of Communication at the Ohio
Speaker 2: State University. Her work examines on how communication can be
Speaker 2: used to stimulate engagement in the areas of politics, health
Speaker 2: and science, and that's of course the focus of the
Speaker 2: study we'll be talking about today. Caption Predicting vote choice
Speaker 2: and election outcomes from ballot wording, the role of processing
Speaker 2: fluency in low information direct democracy elections. Welcome to the program,
Speaker 2: Hillary Schulman. It's a real pleasure to have you on today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Now in your study and I and I dove into it,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's a lot, it's well, it's a
Speaker 2: well written study. All of the research is documented. You
Speaker 2: do give credit where credit is due, so no plagiarism here.
Speaker 2: Lots of citations and other previous studies you relied on.
Speaker 2: I had to clear the error on that one right out.
Speaker 2: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you're reading that whole thing.
Speaker 2: Yes, you talk about low information voters, and this is
Speaker 2: a concept that I am an admitted weed dweller. This
Speaker 2: is what I do for a living. I'm reading politics
Speaker 2: twenty four to seven basically, so I kind of feel
Speaker 2: like I'm kind of at a higher level of understanding
Speaker 2: when it comes to a lot of matters, including ballid initiatives.
Speaker 2: But so many people, as you know, and I think
Speaker 2: most people will acknowledge, don't pay a lot of attention
Speaker 2: to politics, and the more obscure an issue, the less
Speaker 2: likely they're going to have any knowledge about it. And
Speaker 2: as you note in your study that well, sometimes when
Speaker 2: people show up at the polling booth, it's the first
Speaker 2: time they've ever been even exposed to the issue that
Speaker 2: they're voting on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. I mean there are definitely some issues
Speaker 1: that gain a lot of exposure, and that campaigns rely
Speaker 1: heavily on the fact that people aren't going to read
Speaker 1: the language, so they just send you a mailer and
Speaker 1: say vote yes or vote no, and people just go okay,
Speaker 1: and they never actually read the language. But for these
Speaker 1: like more obscure, like you're talking about political issues, things
Speaker 1: like millages, things like amendments to you know, esoteric laws,
Speaker 1: people might not know those are up for election and
Speaker 1: walk into the voting booths on election day and see
Speaker 1: those for the first time.
Speaker 2: Well in issue one, and I don't know where you
Speaker 2: are on and it's immature for the purposes of our discussion.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'll predicate this statement or this this question,
Speaker 2: or this point by acknowledging that, yes, I am a
Speaker 2: weed dweller, but I'm also a lawyer at seven years
Speaker 2: of college tall it wasted or not practice for sixteen years,
Speaker 2: and the self deprecating comment I always raise my MENSA
Speaker 2: membership because to me, it doesn't mean any thing. It
Speaker 2: doesn't mean you're smart on any given issue. Now, with
Speaker 2: all that I read Issue one, it's lengthy and it
Speaker 2: is bloody confusing, even to someone who understands, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe more than the average voter. I mean, it's it's crazy.
Speaker 2: So how is someone how is someone to walk into
Speaker 2: the poll as a low information voter to have any
Speaker 2: any understanding of how this is actually going to play
Speaker 2: out in practice. Who doesn't walk through hypothetical scenarios like, well,
Speaker 2: what if one of these independent committee members happens to
Speaker 2: be a felon, or you know what if they do
Speaker 2: something untoward or illegal. As I understand it, there's no
Speaker 2: way for the average person to go after them, to
Speaker 2: sue them, to litigate whatever to get them off. They
Speaker 2: have to be voted out by their own membership. I
Speaker 2: find a problem with that. But you aren't going to
Speaker 2: even grasp that small component if you're standing there for
Speaker 2: the first time looking at it in the ballot box.
Speaker 1: Nope, And here's what you're gonna do. You're going to
Speaker 1: read that for the first time in the ballot box,
Speaker 1: and you are going to vote no on Issue one accordingly,
Speaker 1: because you're going to be like, I don't like this,
Speaker 1: and I use the word in my title, which you
Speaker 1: know is a jargon y term, so forgive me. But
Speaker 1: this idea of processing fluency, and that's the idea of
Speaker 1: how much effort we feel like we're spending on reading something,
Speaker 1: And in the case of Issue one, that perception of
Speaker 1: effort is going to be really high and really hard,
Speaker 1: and we don't like things that kind of challenge us
Speaker 1: when we're not anticipating that challenge, and what we do
Speaker 1: is we usually oppose it in that case. So, well,
Speaker 1: then who just walks into the voting booth. They're probably
Speaker 1: going to vote no if they're just relying on the
Speaker 1: language and I'm just relying on kind of their gut instinct,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Suppose your research demonstrates it. Well, I know what I'm
Speaker 2: what I'm living with now and may not be perfect,
Speaker 2: but since I'm confused by what I'm staring at, I'd
Speaker 2: rather just stick with the status quo because I'm at
Speaker 2: least familiar with and it isn't impacting my life directly.
Speaker 1: Basically, Yeah, yeah, there is evidence of that. It's called
Speaker 1: the statf that is quo biased, and that is indeed
Speaker 1: true that people will tend to vote for the thing
Speaker 1: that's already existing, especially if they don't feel like they
Speaker 1: did their due diligence and their you know, information searching
Speaker 1: on the topic, and like you said, a lot of
Speaker 1: people sure don't. We might. I read the news every day.
Speaker 1: I enjoy listening to all sorts of programs and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But I recognize that I am an audity compared to
Speaker 1: the average voter, and so absolutely, well.
Speaker 2: You got some company anyway.
Speaker 1: Well, the research does show that you and I, even
Speaker 1: if we're in totally different ends of the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: have a lot more in common with each other than
Speaker 1: somebody who's less engaged.
Speaker 2: Okay, now, how what impact? And again I'll just rely
Speaker 2: on Issue one as an illustration of how this happens
Speaker 2: generally speaking, because you didn't focus on that issues, focused
Speaker 2: on these ballid issues generally. But then the money that
Speaker 2: flows in and in that in particular Issue one, we
Speaker 2: got a lot of out of state money. We have,
Speaker 2: I guess the guy from Switzerland who's pumped in millions
Speaker 2: and millions of dollars for reasons beyond my understanding, but
Speaker 2: I think I understand it's for political reasons. Does the
Speaker 2: money and the the the just sort of the boiled down,
Speaker 2: boilerplate language politicians evil? This takes politicians out of the equation.
Speaker 2: Does that have an impact on people who otherwise are
Speaker 2: low information voters and not inclined to read through all
Speaker 2: this and the complexities to.
Speaker 1: Go with it. I mean, yeah, so the study you
Speaker 1: read at the beginning actually focused on issues that get
Speaker 1: no money, right, so that there's no outside interests, there's
Speaker 1: no bank account from Switzerland funding an Ohio election ballot.
Speaker 1: But so in these cases ballot language matters. But in
Speaker 1: the instances you're talking about, right, the ballot or the
Speaker 1: funding for these ballot initiatives can work a lot like
Speaker 1: an R or a D on a kind of on
Speaker 1: local election, right where people just use it as a heuristic.
Speaker 1: My going yet, I'm going yes. If my team's going no,
Speaker 1: I'm going no. And I'm probably likely to never read
Speaker 1: that ballot language and just rely on these heuristics for
Speaker 1: these cues, like we do it a lot of kind
Speaker 1: of down ballot races just to say, I vote for
Speaker 1: my team and I vote against my opposing team, and
Speaker 1: that's that.
Speaker 2: Whatever the pink sheet of blue sheet states.
Speaker 1: Exactly whatever the fly or tells me that a person
Speaker 1: whom I like, you know, endorsements matter for these things too.
Speaker 1: You know, if I the senator that I like is
Speaker 1: endorsing this, then I'm likely to just say yes or
Speaker 1: and vice versa.
Speaker 2: Well, in the underlying issue itself tends to matter in
Speaker 2: terms of people's awareness of it. I think your research
Speaker 2: found out or other research cited in your study, finds
Speaker 2: out that social and moral issues have a higher awareness
Speaker 2: rate than something non social like jerrymandering, I would imagine
Speaker 2: is a non social issue.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's a non social issue, but they both are
Speaker 1: likely to receive fun. But the thing is about social
Speaker 1: and moral issues. You know, we had the constitutional amendment
Speaker 1: in August right about putting abortion rights in the state constitution.
Speaker 1: Regardless of how that ballot's written, people sort of know
Speaker 1: where they stand on that, and all they have to
Speaker 1: do is look up whether or not where they stand
Speaker 1: aligned with the guests or now.
Speaker 2: Yeah and then.
Speaker 1: So so for those people are more readily able to
Speaker 1: access you know, what their vote means and what they
Speaker 1: care about versus you know, millages and you know, more right,
Speaker 1: more complicated in the weeds types of initiatives.
Speaker 2: But going back to something when I when I recall
Speaker 2: the vote to legalize gambling, that ballot initiative that was
Speaker 2: in or amendment that was in. People didn't think the
Speaker 2: government should say you're not allowed to gamble. I think
Speaker 2: it was you know, everybody, for the majority of us,
Speaker 2: we don't find any problem with gambling. There are problem gamblers,
Speaker 2: but that's a subset. But in terms of me being
Speaker 2: able to go out in place a bed, nobody cares.
Speaker 2: So when Kevin an opportunity, it is like, oh, this
Speaker 2: legalizes gambling, you get my yes vote. But they didn't
Speaker 2: pay attention to the fact that it created a monopoly
Speaker 2: for specific individuals and casinos, which was enshrined in the constitution,
Speaker 2: which I find absolutely I voted no just because of
Speaker 2: that reason, same reason I voted no on the original
Speaker 2: marijuana cartel establishment. It was the mechanism that was wrong,
Speaker 2: not the general issue. I don't care if you want
Speaker 2: to smoke weed, but as sure as I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to put in the hands of John Bayner in hand
Speaker 2: select couple of other people.
Speaker 1: Sure, well, this was really interesting, and you're raising the
Speaker 1: question of whether direct democracy is a good thing, and
Speaker 1: whether or not citizens are capable of kind of reading
Speaker 1: legislation of this kind and understanding all the repercussions and
Speaker 1: the ramifications of a certain initiative. And there are definitely
Speaker 1: people out there who would consider themselves, you know, pro
Speaker 1: democracy and really care about what the people think. But
Speaker 1: they still say, like direct democracy could be problematic because
Speaker 1: these decisions are potentially too complicated or multicaceted to put
Speaker 1: in the hands of the people. And so you know,
Speaker 1: these can be instances and again depending on how these
Speaker 1: are written, and not all of us have law degrees,
Speaker 1: whether we use them or not, you know, it could
Speaker 1: be problematic for sure. And there are definitely people who
Speaker 1: are opposed to kind of ballot initiatives and direct democracy
Speaker 1: in general for these reasons. They think it could be manipulated.
Speaker 2: Clearly they can. Now now in terms of you deal
Speaker 2: a lot within your study, which is fascinating. I'll encourage
Speaker 2: my listeners to take a look at it. My producer
Speaker 2: will put it on my blog page fifty five cars
Speaker 2: dot com. The language that you use and the word difficulty,
Speaker 2: the complexity of the language. So yeah, boiled down. I
Speaker 2: got to figure based upon what you've explained to me,
Speaker 2: and of course I read it. The more difficult the
Speaker 2: languages to understand, the again, the less likely is someone
Speaker 2: who's going to is someone who's going to embrace it
Speaker 2: like scratch my head, I don't get it. I'm going
Speaker 2: to go with no.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, so well, you know that's but you know
Speaker 1: some of this too, is that this varies by state,
Speaker 1: like and some of these ballots, and again this goes
Speaker 1: into the challenges of direct democracy, is that some of
Speaker 1: these ballots can be written, you know, with they have
Speaker 1: more flexibility with how they're written, and politicians can write
Speaker 1: them to kind of appeal to or try to explain
Speaker 1: or make more accessible the ideas there is. But some
Speaker 1: of these ballot propositions in certain states go directly into law,
Speaker 1: so they necessarily have to be written in this legally
Speaker 1: sort of fashion, and that, one could argue, makes voters
Speaker 1: even less prepared to vote their preferences on that matter.
Speaker 2: So, in terms of using your study as a guide
Speaker 2: for those who are proponents of or opponents of any
Speaker 2: given legislation, does your study help, you know, facilitate an
Speaker 2: opportunity to create a broaden understanding of issues. Does it
Speaker 2: suggest you know that you can market or buy ads
Speaker 2: sufficient enough to sway the vote one way or another,
Speaker 2: or really does it come down to securing the endorsement
Speaker 2: of one party or the other.
Speaker 1: Well, there are cynical and stimistic views of this research.
Speaker 1: But what I will say is, and this is like
Speaker 1: a thesis of all of my work, is I am
Speaker 1: just an advocate for I think people should better understand
Speaker 1: and be engaged with kind of the political process. They
Speaker 1: should know what they're voting for, and they should be
Speaker 1: able to kind of understand and when we use certain
Speaker 1: kind of language tricks to potentially impair that understanding, whether
Speaker 1: again for a bad intention or you know, just something
Speaker 1: you're not even thinking about reasons, whatever those reasons are,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it should cause us to reflect
Speaker 1: a little bit about how we can make the public.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to meet the public where they are,
Speaker 1: because you know, politics is in the service of us,
Speaker 1: and language is one way to do that.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I just wish it was higher on people's
Speaker 2: you know to do list, paying attentions to matters political
Speaker 2: because it impacts every single one of us. Hillary Schulman, PhD,
Speaker 2: Associate Professor in the School of Communication at de Ohigh
Speaker 2: State University. Check out the study if you care too
Speaker 2: at fifty five krc dot com. Hillary, has been a
Speaker 2: real pleasure having you on the program today. I enjoyed
Speaker 2: our discussion me as well. Thanks for having me, It's
Speaker 2: been a real pleasure. Take care of yourself eight eighteen,
Speaker 2: fifty five KRCD Talk Station more coming up, including, of
Speaker 2: course Bottom of the Hour judge and An Apolitano, who
Speaker 2: you can stick around right here at fifty five krc
Speaker 2: DE talk station.
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