Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias: Information and Voting Behavior in California Insurance Reform Elections

“Endorsements thus provide voters with the information necessary to approximate voting with complete information (Lupia 1994).”

“For example, many scholars argue that party labels, polls, and endorsements can substitute for knowledge about politics and help citizens to behave as though they are sophisticated (Popkin 1991; Sniderman et al. 1991; Mondak 1993; Lupia 1994; Lupia and McCubbins 1998; Druckman 2001a, b; Boudreau and McCubbins 2007).”

“These debates have often revolved around issues of voter competence (Hobolt 2007; Lupia 1992, 1994), the effect of direct democracy on fiscal policies/economic performance (Feld and Kirchgässner 2000; Matsusaka 2005), or minority rights oppression (Haider-Markel, Querze, and Lindaman 2007).”

“…they judge the reputation of candidates (Lupia and McCubbins 1998, Popkin 1991); they evaluate voting recommendations by interest groups (Schneider 1985, Lupia 1994, Bowler and Donovan 1998, Christin et al. 2002); or they collect political information as a by-product of mass media consumption.”

“Some individuals rely on group cues as a basis of electoral choice (Lupia, 1994; Lupia & McCubbins, 1998).”

“…knowledgeable individuals or groups with known preferences over outcomes, to infer how a proposition will affect them and to make choices that appear to be consistent with their interests and values (Bowler and Donovan, 1998; Lupia, 1994; Lupia and McCubbins, 1998; Lupia and Matsusaka, 2004).”

“There are many forms of heuristics, including affect-driven policy reasoning (Sniderman et al., 1991), partisan identification (Downs, 1957) and source or elite cues (Lupia, 1994; Mondak, 1993).”

“Recent research has argued that limited information need not prevent voters from making ‘correct’ choices, as they can rely on cues or heuristics to overcome the problems of little information (Lupia and McCubbins, 1998; Lupia, 1994; Popkin, 1991; Sniderman et al., 1991).”

“Prior research shows that voters use shortcuts to help them make their vote choice (for example, Popkin 1994 ; Lupia 1994 ).”

“On this view, cue-takers, at least in some circumstances, vote in just the same way as voters who are informed about the issue in itself, and further information therefore makes no difference (Lupia 1994, 2016: 40–55).”

“Voters need information to make political decisions, but information is costly and individuals tend to prefer cognitively simple shortcuts to extensive investigation of candidates and policies (e.g. Lupia 1994).”

“…citizens using heuristics or information shortcuts to make political decisions remains an open and lively area of inquiry (Kuklinski & Hurley, 1994; Lupia, 1994), it appears that reasonable judgments are nevertheless possible even when citizens lack general political acumen, sophistication, or…”

“For example, Lupia (1994) found that voters largely ignorant of the content of ballot propositions, but who were aware of group endorsements, used that information to mimic the voting patterns of the most knowledgeable citizens.”

“These and related ideas about information shortcuts have been further developed by later scholars (see e.g., Miller, 1986; Popkin, 1991; McKelvey and Ordeshook, 1985a, b, 1986, 1987; Grofman and Norrander, 1990; Lupia, 1994 a, b).”

“Early approaches explored the positive potential of rational heuristic processing for a citizenry that does not generally engage in extensive information balancing and issue evaluation (Lupia, 1994; Mondak, 1993).”

“This seems to be contrary to earlier studies showing that voters use different cognitive shortcuts or cues, such as partisan messages, when making choices in elections and referendums (Lupia, 1994; Lupia and McCubbins, 1998).”

“In fact, people can often use heuristics to navigate the realm of politics without having to remember encyclopedic facts about institutions or actors (Lupia 1994).”

“(Scholars in this line of work disagree over how much cognitive constraints impair the judgments and choices of voters and over the effectiveness of heuristics: compare, e.g., Achen and Bartels (2004b) to Lupia (1994).”

“…this focus on deliberative choice about nearterm reward arising from rational choice theories in economics, political scientists have emphasized the notion that political decision-making is driven by the use of heuristics or cognitive shortcuts (Popkin, 1991; Sniderman et al., 1993; Lupia, 1994).”

“Crucially, both arguments – as well as important counter-arguments (Bowler and Donovan, 1998; Garrett and McCubbins, 2008; Lupia, 1994) – focus on a single policy decision: they do not study how direct democracy affects politicians’ incentives and the overall democratic process.”

“Research on referenda has indicated that voters may rely on the endorsements of political parties and interest groups [33].”

“In the US, at least, the average voter is unsophisticated and has vague policy opinions (Carpini and Keeter 1996), so elite opinion has an outsized role, even if only as cue-givers (Lupia 1994).”

“While endorsement effects have been well documented in the American politics literature (e.g., Arceneaux and Kolodny 2009; Lau and Redlawsk 2001; Lupia 1994), the role of endorsements in other systems, especially in new democracies, is hardly studied.”

“Recent research, however, has Matsubayashi and Ueda 381 suggested that voters often rely on information shortcuts (Lupia, 1994, Popkin, 1991, Sniderman, Brody, & Tetlock, 1991) to overcome their lack of information.”

“Drawing a more optimistic portrait (Bartels, 1996), a strong tradition of research on information processing and decision making shows that quite often citizens are able to simplify their decisions by relying on cognitive shortcuts (Lupia, 1994; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock, 1991; Sniderman, 2000; Kriesi, 2005; Nai,…”

“…of the contenders, voters can glean information about the candidates’ profiles, while through previous experience and previous knowledge voters can make plausible propositions about the candidates’ belief system and exploit such cues to cast their vote (Conover & Feldman 1989; Lupia, 1994).”

“Lupia’s (1994) seminal research on the informational role of cues in ballot issue campaigns provides a clear example of the marginality problem.”

“…has largely focused on better understanding whether ordinary citizens can learn and make informed decisions (see e.g., Colombo, 2018; Kriesi, 2005a; Lupia, 1994), whether these processes harm minorities (see e.g., Christmann, 2013; Hajnal, Gerber, & Louch, 2002; Marxer, 2012), or whether the…”

“Research shows that voters use cognitive shortcuts, or heuristics, to arrive at voting decisions (Lupia 1994; Popkin 1994).”

“Generally, if the information giver is perceived to be knowledgeable and honest, the endorsement is seen as valuable, especially by less-informed voters (Lupia 1994).”

“14 This treatment was motivated by research showing that endorsements help citizens make informed decisions (Lupia 1994; Lupia and McCubbins 1998; Boudreau 2009a) and, in particular, by Elmendorf and Schleicher’s (2013) proposal to label candidates for down-ticket local offices with mayoral…”

“11 Other works have also used survey experiments to explore the role of partisanship in individuals' responsibility assignments, see Rudolph (2005), Malhotra and Kuo (2008), Tilley and Hobolt (2011b), Rico and Liñeira (2017).”

“Political sophistication has been regarded as a key element of cognitive tendency in political communication (Converse, 1964; Guo & Moy, 1998; Jacoby, 2000; Lau & Erber, 1985; Lupia, 1994; Shah, 2001; Zaller, 1992).”

“1 Lupia (1994) argues that voters can use information about the preferences or opinions of others such as friends, co-workers, political parties or other organisations to emulate the behavior of relatively well-informed citizens.”

“These beliefs were fostered and reinforced in large part by a steady stream of cues transmitted by trusted, copartisan elites (Lupia, 1994; Zaller, 1992) and by the conservative media (Feldman, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Leiserowitz, 2012; Hmielowski, Feldman, Myers, Leiserowitz, & Maibach, 2013;…”

“Heuristics often facilitate decision-making by allowing individuals to rely on cues from “more informed” others like politicians and political actors (e.g., Arceneaux & Kolodny, 2009; Brady & Sniderman, 1985; Carmines & Kuklinski, 1990; Lupia, 1994; Mondak, 1993; Page & Shapiro, 1992; Sniderman et al., 1986, 1991).”

“Before turning to a more detailed examination of such reasons, we begin with the observation that none of the extant arguments about the positive implications of ballot initiatives for general knowledge challenge widely shared understandings about the psychology of voter behavior, including: (a) citizens commonly pay…”

“And while Lupia (1994) found that voters can “vote correctly”—in line with their political predispositions such as party ID—on ballot initiatives so long as the proper heuristics are available, what happens when proper heuristics are not available?”

“(JEL codes: D72, D80, H71) Keywords: voting behavior, information, vote aggregation”

“Scholars have long established that in processing political information and making political decisions, people often rely on information shortcuts, or heuristics (e.g., Lupia, 1994; Popkin, 1991).”

“In addition to moral foundation appeals, party heuristics (Campbell et al., 1960) should be able to shape opinions regarding tolerance of hate speech through the process of elite cue-taking (Lupia, 1994).”