RATIONAL VOTER, COMPLEX WORLD: EXPLAINING “IRRATIONAL” VOTING BEHAVIOR IN THE 2004

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Eric “Harry” Brisson

POSC 212: Analyzing Politics

May 1st, 2010

INTRODUCTION

For any government to be successful in reflecting the needs and desires of its

constituents, it is crucial that (1.) its constituents are provided means of influencing

policy and that (2.) its constituents use these means effectively. In the United States,

the means provided to constituents are elections; however, there is debate within

political science as to whether or not voters are able to use elections effectively to

create the government that will best serve them.

In the 2004 presidential election, for example, 56.6% of voters voted against

their perceived interest with regard to environmental policy (as shown in Figure 1).

Did these voters act irrationally, threatening the very foundation of American

democracy? Or is there something more complex about the nature of voting

behavior that could perhaps explain why a majority of voters would choose a

candidate whose policy preferences they perceive as more distant than their

alternative?

This paper explores the factors that contributed to “irrational” voting

behavior in the 2004 presidential election, dividing them into three categories:

biographical, behavioral, and ideological. These three categories serve to allow us to

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better understand where the roots of “irrational” voting behavior truly lie – in a

voter’s background, behavior, or beliefs. In isolating the cause of irrational voting,

we are able to better understand what can be done to address it.

Through the use of regression, my results suggest that a voter’s ideological

stance is most influential in their decisions to vote in an “irrational” way, casting

doubt on the very idea that these votes are irrational at all. This paper posits that

many voters vote against their interests strategically, and do so only in pursuit of

other, more highly prioritized interests.

DATA STATEMENT

The 2004 National Election Study entailed both a pre-election interview and

a post-election re-interview with a total of 1,212 cases. The 70-minute pre-election

survey went into the field September 7th, approximately eight weeks before

Election Day. No interviewing was conducted on Election Day, November 2nd. The

65-minute post-election study went into the field the day after the election,

November 3rd, and remained in the field until December 20th. The sample for the

NES is based on a multi-stage area probability sample. Identification of the 2004

NES sample respondents was conducted using a four stage sampling process: a

primary stage sampling of U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) or New

England County Metropolitan Areas (NECMAs) and non-MSA counties, followed by a

second stage sampling of area segments, a third stage sampling of housing units

within sampled area segments, and concluding with the random selection of a single

respondent from selected housing units. The Pre-Election Study response rate was

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.66. Of the 1,212 respondents interviewed in the Pre-Election Study, 1,066

completed Post-Election interviews for an overall response rate of 0.88.

ANALYSIS

Using the data collected in the 2004 National Election Study, voter rationality

was operationalized by looking at specific issues (nine in total) and determining

whether or not a voter chose the candidate whose preferences she or he perceived

as closer to his or her own. From this, we are able to determine how frequently

voters exhibit the “irrational” behavior we intend to study. Figures 1 and 2

demonstrate the percentages of voters who voted consistently with their own

opinions. Figure 1 demonstrates how as issue importance decreases, so does the

probability of “rational” voting behavior, while Figure 2 demonstrates the

differences in “rational” voting behavior between the 2000 and 2004 presidential

elections, suggesting other factors are at play as voters change which issues inspire

rational voting from year to year.

Figure 3 continues to demonstrate the relationship between “irrational”

voting behavior and issue importance by plotting the percent of voters voting

“irrationally” against the mean importance ratings for each individual issue. Both

these lines demonstrate that as issues become more important, “irrational” voting

behavior becomes less frequent.

To explain overall voter rationality, an index (“Voter IQ”) was created

incorporating the voter’s rationality and allocated importance with nine separate

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issues. As long as there were at least five issues for which voters provided

meaningful responses, the index was calculated using the following equation:

Figure 4 shows the distribution of scores for this index, with most scores

falling in between 60 points and 90 points.

An OLS regression was run to investigate key influences to this index (Table

7). In the regression, the various independent variables were divided up into three

separate categories: biographical, behavioral, and ideological.

Biographical Factors

These factors included education level, income level, race, gender, and age.

The first two of these factors, education and income, were included because they are

influenced by society and could theoretically be modified by policy to improve voter

rationality should they be significant. Education level was calculated in years, and

income was calculated in brackets. The final three, however, are personal and not

influenced by policy, but were included to hold them constant in analysis. Should

these variables be significant, it would be difficult to address them directly. Gender

was calculated with a positive correlation signifying higher female voter rationality,

and a negative correlation signifying higher male voter rationality. Race was

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calculated as a positive correlation signifying non-whites voting more rationally,

and a negative correlation signifying whites voting more rationally.

Behavioral Factors

These factors were seen as factors in control of the individual. Should these

factors prove most significant, this would indicate that voters themselves have the

capacity to improve their own voter rationality through a change in behavior. These

factors were political awareness, political engagement, and news attentiveness.

Political awareness was calculated using responses to questions asking

respondents to identify four political officials by position held. For each official the

respondents were able to correctly identify, they were given a point, resulting in a

four-point scale for political awareness. Respondents needed to respond to all

questions for their index to be valid.

Political engagement used nine questions regarding participation in political

activities, such as protests or political discussions, and granted a point for each. As

long as valid answers were provided for at least five of the questions, their

information was considered valid. The total affirmative responses was divided by

the total valid responses to ensure that those that simply answered more questions

did not have their results inflated.

News attentiveness used 14 questions regarding the use of news sources.

Some questions were frequency based, and those that were not had affirmative

responses multiplied by five to increase their weight in the index. Respondents

needed to respond to all questions for their index to be valid.

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Ideological Factors

Three ideological factors were chosen to explore the effect of personal beliefs

and opinions on one’s ability to vote rationally. The three variables chosen were

position on a left-right ideological scale, extremism on a left-right ideological scale,

and the value placed in political issues.

Position on a left-right ideological scale could indicate whether those in the

opposing party of that in power are willing to make more compromises in their

voting behavior than others. It also could indicate which party has a clearer

platform that allows its partisans to make fewer sacrifices in voting. In this analysis,

respondents identified themselves on an 11-point scale from left to right in the

National Election Study data.

Extremism on a left-right ideological scale would demonstrate whether

extremists found it easier to choose a candidate nearer to all their values than non-

extremists. For example, a candidate more conservative on all issues than both the

Democratic and Republican candidates should easily be able to settle on the

Republican candidate. This information was calculated finding the distance from

the moderate 5 in the aforementioned 11-point scale.

The “Political Values” index was calculated by adding up the answers to nine

questions on nine different issues about their importance. Each question was on a

five point scale, and the total was added up so those with a higher index found the

most issues most important and those with a lower index found the least issues

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most important. This could show that those who find political issues most

important perhaps put the most time into making a rational decision.

In the results, it was demonstrated that ideological factors were most

significant, particularly the “Extremism” index, with a significance of below .05%.

Also significant were the “Political Values” index and, to a lesser degree, the left-

right scale.

The behavioral factors were close to significant, particularly the “News

Attentiveness” and “Political Awareness” indexes. The biographical factors,

however, were not at all significant.

To explore the role of ideology further, the relationship between the number

of rational choices sacrificed was examined separating respondents by party

identification, which is seen in Figure 3. The results are significant with a X2 of

51.56 and a significance level of below .05%. Note the “U-shape” in the data for

those making no irrational choices as well as for those making one or two irrational

choices. Compare this with the mountain-shape found for those making five or

more irrational choices.

Issue-based rational and irrational voting was also explored further in Table

3, as the factors applied to the overall index were then applied to find how they

affected voter rationality in specific cases. Changes were made with the “ideological

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factors” category, using three new variables: Party Identification, Strength of Party

Identification, and Issue Priority.

Party Identification was calculated using a seven-point scale that

respondents used to identify themselves, lower numbers being more liberal and

higher numbers being more conservative. This is significant in determining

whether some parties were better at ensuring cohesion on certain issues or not.

Strength of Party Identification demonstrates whether extremists have an easier

time voting, as we saw in the earlier regression.

Issue Priority used responses placing individual issues on a five-point scale,

and then calculating the difference from the mean importance of all responses from

a given respondent. This was to ensure that those simply found everything

important were put in balance. The prediction would be that we would see this

highly correlated, as voters sacrifice on issues they find relatively less important

while voting in accordance with the policy preferences they find most important.

DISCUSSION

In Table 5, we see a key role being played by ideology, more so by the

extremeness of a subject’s political opinions than by the side of the political

spectrum with which they associate themselves. This relationship is clearly

demonstrated in Figure 5, as most independents make sacrifices on more than half

of the issues in question. The transformation in shape from the “valley” to the “hill”

is a clear visual representation of the role of partisan extremeness in the crafting of

rational voting behavior. This is likely not because those who are extremely

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partisan are more intelligent and rational, but rather simply because moderate

voters have to make more compromises than their heavily partisan counterparts.

Figure 5 also hints at the slight improvement in rationality that one finds as

they move from the right to the left, which we see demonstrated in Table 5. This

could be a result of the Democratic party having a more unified party and a more

consistent platform than the Republican party, or it could also be a result of Kerry

being a new candidate compared to Bush, so left-leaning voters spent more time

actually processing their voting decision than did those who voted for Bush.

It is also worth noting that there were weak correlations within the OLS

model with political knowledge and news attentiveness, which are rather optimistic.

As opposed to the influence of ideology, which unfairly discriminates against those

whose policy views do not fit in line with the arbitrary agendas of current parties in

the American political system, the influence of behaviors is inherently democratic

and empowering. It suggests that individuals can simply brush up on current events

and become more effective voters.

Issue-Specific Voting Behavior Influences

Table 7 reveals some interesting observations regarding the presence

“irrational” voting behavior, primarily the consistent influence of issue priority,

political values, and gender. Issue priority and political values seem to be the

strongest influences, which seems to suggest that “irrational” voting is in fact quite

deliberate. Gender, however, is peculiar; women significantly underperform men in

terms of voter rationality with regard to every issue except particularly female-

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salient issues such as abortion, women’s issues, and gun control. This is perhaps as

a result of cognitive differences in how decisions are made by men and women.

Education is also found to significantly correlate with whether or not voters

vote “rationally” with regard to the government provision of jobs and abortion.

Those with more years of education make decisions that are more consistent with

these beliefs, which can be problematic since there is such a wide disparity of

education in the United States and there are many areas with weak education

programs. This means that our society puts some members in a better position to

represent their own interests through the provision of more education, which seems

to be inherently undemocratic.

Income level holds some influence, and this problematic for many of the

same reasons. Family income level is found to correlate with a voters’ voting

consistently with their jobs and defense preferences, with those with higher family

incomes voting more consistently with their policy preferences. This may be

because they have access to more resources and can therefore feel more confident

with regard to their decisions.

Race and age also pop up as an influence to voter effectiveness with regard to

diplomacy, with non-whites voting less “rationally” than whites and older people

voting less “rationally” than young people. These variables, along with education

level and income level, are concerning because they are not factors that can be easily

changed, and some of them cannot be really changed at all. It is fundamentally

unfair for certain populations to be less able to represent their interests rationally in

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elections than others, and to correct for these problems it would be necessary to

provide more public resources, particularly education and income redistribution.

The behavioral factors hypothesis had only weak results; political awareness

and political engagement demonstrated relationships in the jobs and abortion issue

areas, respectively. It is always desirable for these factors to have a strong

influence, as they are easy characteristics to develop, but no such strong and

consistent relationship seems to exist.

Party identification is particularly strong in influencing subjects’ votes with

regard to abortion. Liberals, according to my regression, were more likely to vote

consistently with their policy preferences, even with issue priority held constant.

This could be due to Democrats, at this time, being out of power therefore willing to

compromise.

Guns, Abortion, and the Environment

The model for voter rationality prediction explains some variables better

than others, with R2’s ranging from .168 for jobs to .028 for gun control. The

models, though far from perfect, do provide insight into the role played by policy

preference and ideology as key determinants of a voter’s ability to vote rationally.

Three variables were found to not have significant correlation with “Political

Values” and “Issue Priority”: guns, abortion, and the environment. If more

information were available with regard to the amount of coverage these issues had

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in the elections, I correlate that with these results, imagining the result to be that

these issues were not heavily covered by the candidates or the media, and in turn

voters had difficulty making rational decisions when faced with them.

Do Rational Decisions Produce Ideal Outcomes?

It is also worth noting that all this data focuses on the idea of rational

decision, but not necessarily on rational outcomes. A second study examining what

factors affect what factors impact perceived positions of candidates would perhaps

reveal correlations that seemed less significant in this model.

Issue importance, though, seems to be the key factor in impacting which

issues voters decide act rationally, although for them to be able to do so they must

be provided with accurate and reliable information about the candidates that are

campaigning.

CONCLUSION

In contrast to the idea that voters behave irrationally, my model -- finding

“Political Values” and “Issue Priority” as most significant indicators of issue-based

rationality –suggests the opposite: (1.) voters who are value politics generally make

more rational decisions, and (2.) voters vote strategically, sacrificing on issues that

are not as important to gain on those that are of higher relative value.

Understanding that voters who find political issues more important make

more rational decisions suggests that we should do what we can to allow citizens

appreciate the importance of political policy in shaping their lives. I would like to

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conduct further research examining what social factors shape “Political Values,” and

then making policy proposals that reflect the findings of that research.

The second point, that voters sacrifice strategically, exposes a flaw in our

voting system. Since many voters have to compromise to choose a candidate, those

whose personal policy preferences arbitrarily do not reflect that of a given party are

forced to sacrifice more often than those who do not as is shown in Figure 3.

Exploring ways to better include all perspectives and reduce sacrifices would be a

prudent discussion in light of these results.

Finally, reflecting on the irrationality found in guns, abortions, and the

environment, campaigns should provide more clear information on all issues that

matter to voters. This would hopefully reduce the amount of “irrational” voting

behavior, and provide a more effective and more inclusive democracy.

APPENDIX A: TABLES

TABLE 1 Irrational Voting Behavior in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential Elections

Issue

Percent Voting “Irrationally” Democratic Candidate Republican Candidate

2000 2004 2000 2004

Abortion 40.2% 36.2% 40.6% 47.3% Black Aid 43.1% 35.1% 31.3% 37.1% Defense Spending 41.5% 29.7% 38.1% 27.8% Diplomacy - 35.1% - 43.7% Environment 41.0% 54.3% 37.4% 58.9% Government Spending - 28.9% - 30.5% Gun Control 28.5% 39.4% 30.2% 41.7% Job Creation 40.3% 26.3% 24.5% 31.0% Women’s Rights - 21.0% - 39.3% Sources: ANES 2000, ANES 2004

TABLE 2 Issue Importance and Voter Irrationality

Issue Importance Statistical Significance Issue High Medium Low Chi2 Significance

Abortion

……in 2000 38.1% 43.9% 41.0% 3.097 .213

……in 2004*** 30.1% 39.4% 40.4% 9.430 .009

Black Aid

……in 2004*** 28.2% 35.9% 50.9% 33.495 .000

Defense Spending

……in 2004*** 17.8% 40.8% 60.2% 108.156 .000

Diplomacy

……in 2004*** 32.6% 50.8% 75.0% 59.286 .000

Environment

……in 2004*** 50.1% 61.3% 69.4% 20.818 .000

Government Spending

……in 2004*** 21.4% 40.6% 53.2% 62.382 .000

Gun Control

……in 2000* 27.2% 31.2% 27.2% 4.717 .095

……in 2004 39.8% 39.7% 46.6% 1.570 .461

Job Creation

……in 2004*** 22.8% 33.4% 54.7% 40.293 .000

Women’s Rights

……in 2004** 28.1% 31.8% 40.8% 7.198 .027 Sources: ANES 2000, ANES 2004 Significance: * < .10 ** < .05, and *** < .01. Issue Importance collapsed from five-option scale; “Extremely Important” and “Very Important” become “High”, “Somewhat Important” becomes “Medium”, and “Not Too Important” and “Not at All Important” become “Low”. 2000 statistics omitted due to absence of data.

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TABLE 3 Issue Importance and Voter Irrationality in 2004, by Vote

KERRY VOTERS

BUSH VOTERS

Issue

Mean Importance*

Percent Voting “Irrationally”

Issue Mean

Importance* Percent Voting “Irrationally”

Black Aid 2.49 35.1%

Black Aid 2.32 37.1%

Defense 2.64 29.7%

Environment 2.50 58.9%

Environment 2.78 54.3%

Gun Control 2.68 41.7%

Abortion 2.84 36.2%

Women's Rights 2.77 39.3%

Jobs 2.88 26.3%

Jobs 2.79 31.0%

Gov't Spending 2.95 28.9%

Gov't Spending 2.79 30.5%

Gun Control 2.96 39.4%

Abortion 2.89 47.3%

Diplomacy 3.13 35.1%

Defense 2.98 27.8%

Women's Rights 3.17 21.0%

Diplomacy 3.09 43.7%

Source: American National Election Study 2004. *Mean scores on 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (“Not at all important”) to 5 (“Extremely important”). See Appendix C for coding of variables.

TABLE 4 Variable Descriptives

Issue N Min. Max. Mean Std. Dev.

“Voter IQ” 707 19.51 100.00 74.14 14.118 Education 1210 1.00 17.00 13.69 2.403 Race 1153 0.00 1.00 .25 .435 Income 1070 1.00 23.00 14.94 6.001 Gender 1212 1.00 2.00 1.53 .499 Political Awareness 1055 0.00 4.00 1.93 1.146 Political Engagement 1066 0.00 1.00 .27 .213 News Attentiveness 710 0.00 70.00 36.97 17.175 Left-Right Scale 917 0.00 10.00 5.83 2.328 Extremism 917 0.00 5.00 1.87 1.616 Political Values 1206 .16 .80 .55 .113

Source: American National Election Study 2004. See Appendix C for full coding of variables.

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TABLE 5 Factors Influencing Overall Voter Rationality (“Voter IQ”) in the 2004 Elections

B Std. Dev Sig

Constant 75.484 7.269 .000

Biographical Factors

Education Level .197 .361 .585 Income Level .042 .147 .774 Race -1.802 1.841 .329 Gender .262 1.523 .864

Behavioral Factors

Political Awareness* -1.376 .816 .093 Political Engagement -4.320 3.488 .216 News Attentiveness* .139 .072 .056

Ideological Factors

Left-Right Scale** -.758 .320 .019 Extremism*** 1.900 .512 .000 Political Values 11.199 7.001 .111 Source: ANES 2004 (R2=.082, SEE=12.819) Significance: * < .10, ** < .05, and *** < .01.

TABLE 6 Correlations Among Rational and “Irrational” Voting Behaviors in 2004

Abortion Black Aid

Defense Diplomacy Environment Gun

Control Gov't

Spending Jobs

Women's Issues

Abortion 1 .103** .133** .331** .040 -.005 .115** .086** .196**

Black Aid .103** 1 .232** .148** .171** .187** .277** .326** .278**

Defense .133** .232** 1 .292** .132** .051 .276** .218** .196**

Diplomacy .331** .148** .292** 1 .088** .027 .168** .109** .153**

Environment .040 .171** .132** .088** 1 .097** .144** .167** .175**

Gun Control -.005 .187** .051 .027 .097** 1 .083** .118** .189**

Gov't Spending .115** .277** .276** .168** .144** .083** 1 .304** .264**

Jobs .086** .326** .218** .109** .167** .118** .304** 1 .246**

Women’s Issues .196** .278** .196** .153** .175** .189** .264** .246** 1

Source: American National Election Study 2004. Significance: * < .05, and ** < .01. See Appendix C for full coding of variables.

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TABLE 7 Factors Influencing Voter Rationality in the 2004 Election, by Issue

Diplomacy Spending Guns Jobs Abortion Defense Environment Black Aid

Statistics

Constant .780 .681 1.172 .588 .434 .904 .789 .727 R2 .140 .143 .028 .168 .081 .104 .050 .097 SEE .39941 .38525 .48221 .39946 .42347 .39554 .49371 .43386

Biographical Factors

Education Level .001 .078 -.049 .140*** .138 ** -.002 .076 .046 Income Level .053 .080 .009 .063** -.034 .096* .006 .044 Race -.107** -.012 .073 .101 .004 -.020 -.020 .086 Gender -.030 -.123** -.054 -.122** -.022 -.088* -.104** -.131*** Age -.136*** .042 -.027 -.051 -.054 -.021 .002 .045

Behavioral Factors

Political Awareness .053 -.054 .030 .141** -.023 .045 -.018 .025 Political Engagement .075 .034 -.012 -.010 .107** .051 -.052 .047 News Attentiveness .098* .072 -.058 .016 .002 .036 -.014 .034

Ideological Factors

Party Identification -.084 .092* -.074 .010 -.273*** .014 -.003 .080 Party ID Strength .101* -.041 -.103* .086 -.084 -.028 .072 .064 Political Values .110** .162*** .046 .191*** -.024 .162*** .164*** .165*** Issue Priority .176*** .230*** .031 .135*** .036 .157*** .059 .104** Source: American National Election Study 2004. All coefficients standardized to facilitate comparison. Significance: * < .10, ** < .05, and *** < .01. Issues listed left to right by issue importance mean scores, from most important to least important. See appendix for coding of variables.

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FIGURE 1 Voter Rationality in the 2004 Presidential Election, by Issue

Source: American National Election Study 2004. Issues listed left to right by issue importance mean scores, from most important to least important. See Appendix C for coding of variables.

64

.9% 7

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71

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Kerry Bush Linear (Kerry) Linear (Bush)

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FIGURE 2 Voters Voting “Rationally” in the 2000 and 2004 Elections, by Issue

Source: American National Election Study 2004. Issues listed left to right in alphabetical order. See Appendix C for coding of variables.

59

.8%

56

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58

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59

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71

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10.0%

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50.0%

60.0%

70.0%

80.0%

Abortion Black Aid Defense Environment Gun Control Jobs

Gore (2000) Bush (2000) Kerry (2004) Bush (2004)

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FIGURE 3 “Irrational” Voting Behavior and Mean Issue Importance in 2004

Source: American National Election Study 2004. Values available in Table 3: Issue Importance and Voter Rationality, by Vote. See Appendix C for coding of variables.

FIGURE 4 “Voter IQ” Index Score Distribution

Source: American National Election Study 2004. More on “Vote IQ” in Table 4: Variable Descriptives. See Appendix C for coding of variables.

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25.0%

30.0%

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Mean Importance Rating

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Bush Voters Kerry Voters Linear (Bush) Linear (Kerry)

More Important Less Important

“Voter IQ” Index Score

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FIGURE 5

Strength of Party Identification and Voter “Irrationality”

Source: American National Election Survey 2004. X2=51.560, p<.0005 Issues considered: Abortion, Black Aid, Defense Spending, Diplomacy, Environment, Government Spending, Gun Control, Jobs, and Women’s Issues. See Appendix C for coding of variables.

9.8

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Number of "Irrational" Components to Voter's Decision

Strong Democrat

Weak Democrat

Independent Democrat

Independent Democrat

Independent Republican

Weak Republican

Strong Republican

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APPENDIX C: VARIABLE CODING AND SYNTAX

Issue Rationality Heuristic

This is determined by comparing a voter’s self-placement on an issue with their

placement of the two candidates. If they vote for the candidate whose position is closer to

their own, then they receive a “1” for voting “rationally”; if not, they receive a “0” for voting

“irrationally”. In case of a tie, the vote is considered rational and they receive a “1”.

This is calculated for the following issues: Abortion, Black Aid, Defense Spending,

Diplomacy, Environment, Government Spending, Gun Control, Jobs, and Women’s Issues.

Issue Importance Ranking

Each ANES respondent was asked to state their perceived importance of the

following issues: Abortion, Black Aid, Defense Spending, Diplomacy, Environment,

Government Spending, Gun Control, Jobs, and Women’s Issues.

Importance was coded as follows:

1. Not at all important

2. Not too important

3. Somewhat important

4. Very important

5. Extremely important

Voter IQ

The variable used to describe overall voter rationality combines the two was a

variable I call “Voter IQ,” which uses the following equation to calculate an index for each

respondent:

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This equation gives each voter a score out of 100, evaluating their ability to vote

rationally. Essentially, it takes a voter’s Issue Rationality and multiplies it by self-identified

importance on a five-point scale. This number is then adjusted by dividing by the total of

all issue importance responses, to ensure that those just find everything important do not

have higher scores.

This statistic is considered valid so long as they have valid information for at least

seven of the nine issues.

Here are two examples of how this indicator is calculated:

RESPONDENT #148 (PRE CASE ID)

Abortion

Importance = 5

Rationality = 1

Black Aid

Importance = 5

Rationality = 1

Defense

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Diplomacy

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Environment

Importance = 4

Rationality = 0

Gun Control

Importance = 5

Rationality = 0

Government Spending

Importance = 5

Rationality = 1

Jobs

Importance = 5

Rationality = 1

Women’s Issues

Importance = 5

Rationality = 1

Brisson 24

RESPONDENT #172 (PRE CASE ID)

Abortion

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Black Aid

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Defense

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Diplomacy

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Environment

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Gun Control

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Government Spending

Importance = 4

Rationality = 1

Jobs

Importance = 3

Rationality = 1

Women’s Issues

Importance = 4

Rationality = 0

As can be seen, with just a score of rationality-importance products, Respondent

#148 receives a higher index (34 points compared to #172’s 31 points) simply because he

identified all issues as more important, granting mostly 5’s while Respondent #172 granted

mostly 4’s. By dividing the sum of the rationality-importance products by the sum of

importance ratings, this index is adjusted so that it will not fluctuate if the respondent

simply has a tendency to allocate more importance to all issues. As shown, Respondent

#172 then receives a score of 88.57 while Respondent #148 receives a score of 80.95.

It is also important to divide by the sum of importance ratings so that when not all

nine issues are incorporated into the index, the index will not be artificially lowered.

Brisson 25

Race

Respondents to the 2004 ANES responded to the following question, identifying as one of

the following

1. Black

2. Asian

3. Native American

4. Hispanic

5. White (no mention of other race)

7. Other

Race was then recoded as follows:

0. White (Including “5. White”)

1. Non-White (Including “1. Black”, “2. Asian”, “3. Native American”, “4. Hispanic”, and

“7. Other”)

Gender

Respondents were asked to self-identify their gender, coded as follows:

1. Male

2. Female

Income

Income is family income (self-reported), and is defined as follows:

1. None or less than $2,999

2. $3,000 - $4,999

3. $3,000 -$4,999

4. $5,000 -$6,999

5. $7,000 -$8,999

6. $9,000 -$10,999

7. $11,000-$12,999

8. $13,000-$14,999

9. $15,000-$16,999

10. $17,000-$19,999

11. $20,000-$21,999

12. $22,000-$24,999

13. $25,000-$29,999

14. $30,000-$34,999

15. $35,000-$39,999

16. $40,000-$44,999

Brisson 26

17. $45,000-$49,999

18. $50,000-$59,999

19. $60,000-$69,999

20. $70,000-$79,999

21. $80,000-$89,999

22. $90,000-$104,999

23. $105,000-$119,000

24. $120,000 and over

Age

Age is provided in years (self-reported).

Education

Education is provided in years of education (self-reported).

Political Awareness

Respondents were asked to identify the following by position:

1. Chief Justice of Supreme Court

2. Prime Minister of England

3. Vice President of United States

4. Speaker of the House

Each correct response was given one point. Incorrect responses or “Don’t Know” were

given no points. Results were only considered if valid answers were provided for all four

questions.

Political Engagement

Respondents were given one point for each of the following behaviors:

1. Attending Committee Meeting About an Issue

2. Worked in a Committee to Solve a Problem

3. Contacted a Public Official to Express Views

4. Attended a Protest

5. Attended a Campaign Rally

6. Displayed a Candidates Sign or Button

7. Discussed Politics

Brisson 27

Each correct response was given one point. Incorrect responses or “Don’t Know” were

given no points. Results only considered if valid answers provided for at least five

questions.

Left-Right Scale

Respondent identified themselves on an 11-point scale ranging from left (0) to right (11).

Extremism

Distance from 5 (moderate position) on aforementioned 11-point scale.

Political Values

Sum of importance rankings on all available issues divided by the number of importance

rankings given (given that at least 7 responses are provided). Higher responses find more

importance. In short, the mean of all issue importance rankings given from a respondent.

Issue Priority

Importance Score adjusted against Mean Importance Score to determine deviation

Brisson 28

APPENDIX D: WORKS CITED

The National Election Studies (www.umich.edu/~nes). 2001. THE 2000 NATIONAL ELECTION

STUDY [dataset]. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies.

The National Election Studies (www.umich.edu/~nes). 2005. THE 2004 NATIONAL ELECTION

STUDY [dataset]. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, Center for Political Studies.