Framing Automatic Voter Registration: Partisanship and Public Understanding of Automatic Voter Registration

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 693-699
Author(s):  
Christopher B. Mann ◽  
Paul Gronke ◽  
Natalie Adona
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Election Reform ◽  
Recent Innovation ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
Voter Fraud ◽  
Source Cues

Automatic voter registration (AVR) is a recent innovation in voter registration in the United States, passed by 18 states plus DC in the last 4 years. AVR has generally escaped partisan polarization about election reform, having passed in Republican and Democratic controlled states. Using a survey experiment in the 2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we investigate effects of source cues about support of AVR from different party elites and from election administrators on the public’s expectations about AVR’s impact on turnout, voter fraud, fairness, and election problems. Our experimental results show an asymmetric partisan effect. When AVR is endorsed by Democratic leaders, Republicans (and independents) expect AVR to reduce the fairness and legitimacy of elections, while Democrats are generally resistant to partisan cues.

scholarly journals Elite party cues increase vaccination intentions among Republicans

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (32) ◽  
pp. e2106559118
Author(s):  
Sophia L. Pink ◽  
James Chu ◽  
James N. Druckman ◽  
David G. Rand ◽  
Robb Willer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Substantial Proportion ◽  
Relative Advantage ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Vaccination Rates ◽  
Party Elites

Overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic requires motivating the vast majority of Americans to get vaccinated. However, vaccination rates have become politically polarized, and a substantial proportion of Republicans have remained vaccine hesitant for months. Here, we explore how endorsements by party elites affect Republicans’ COVID-19 vaccination intentions and attitudes. In a preregistered survey experiment (n = 1,480), we varied whether self-identified Republicans saw endorsements of the vaccine from prominent Republicans (including video of a speech by former President Donald Trump), from the Democratic Party (including video of a speech by President Joseph Biden), or a neutral control condition including no endorsements. Unvaccinated Republicans who were exposed to the Republican elite endorsement reported 7.0% higher vaccination intentions than those who viewed the Democratic elite endorsement and 5.7% higher than those in the neutral control condition. These effects were statistically mediated by participants’ reports of how much they thought Republican politicians would want them to get vaccinated. We also found evidence of backlash effects against Democratic elites: Republicans who viewed the Democratic elite endorsement reported they would be significantly less likely to encourage others to vaccinate and had more negative attitudes toward the vaccine, compared with those who viewed the Republican elite endorsement or the neutral control. These results demonstrate the relative advantage of cues from Republican elites—and the risks of messaging from Democrats currently in power—for promoting vaccination among the largest vaccine-hesitant subgroup in the United States.

Bases Loaded

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Costas Panagopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Political Campaign ◽  
Voter Mobilization ◽  
Campaign Strategy ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Swing Voters ◽  
Fundamental Shift

Over the past few decades, a fundamental shift in political campaign strategy has been afoot in U.S. elections: Political campaigns have been gradually shifting their attention away from swing voters toward their respective, partisan bases. Independents and weak partisans have been targeted with less frequency, and the emphasis in contemporary elections has been on strong partisans. This book documents this shift—away from persuasion toward base mobilization—in the context of U.S. presidential elections and explains that this phenomenon is likely linked to several developments, including advances in campaign technology and voter-targeting capabilities as well as insights from behavioral social science focusing on voter mobilization. The analyses show the 2000 presidential election represents a watershed cycle that punctuated this shift. The book also explores the implications of the shift toward base mobilization and links these developments to growing turnout rates for strong partisans and attenuating participation among independents or swing voters over time. The book concludes these patterns have contributed to heightened partisan polarization in the United States.

Development Channelization, Partisanship, and Populism: Possibilities for Rural Renewal in the Death Throes of Coal

2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142110246
Author(s):  
Adam Mayer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Energy System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coal Industry ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Rural Economies ◽  
Right Wing Populism

In the last few decades, the United States has experienced several related and significant societal trends—the transition of the energy system away from coal, the intensification of partisan polarization, and the rise of a populist right-wing political ideology, perhaps best exemplified by the election of Donald Trump. We build Gramling and Freudenberg’s little-explored concept of “development channelization” to argue that nostalgic right-wing populism, grievances directed toward the federal government, and partisanship converge to potentially thwart efforts to transition and diversify rural economies. Populist nostalgia and blame are associated with support for expanding the collapsing coal industry but do not predict support for other types of development. There are patterns of partisan polarization in support for extractive industries and wind power, but many development options appear to be relatively nonpartisan. We discuss these findings in terms of populism, nostalgia, partisan polarization, and the potential for rural renewal in the United States.

scholarly journals A Preliminary Look at the Social Perspective of Warn-on-Forecast: Preferred Tornado Warning Lead Time and the General Public’s Perceptions of Weather Risks

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 128-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hoekstra ◽  
K. Klockow ◽  
R. Riley ◽  
J. Brotzge ◽  
H. Brooks ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lead Time ◽  
Stated Preference ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
Lead Times ◽  
Present System ◽  
The Public ◽  
Tornado Warnings ◽  
Tornado Warning ◽  
Weather Risks

Abstract Tornado warnings are currently issued an average of 13 min in advance of a tornado and are based on a warn-on-detection paradigm. However, computer model improvements may allow for a new warning paradigm, warn-on-forecast, to be established in the future. This would mean that tornado warnings could be issued one to two hours in advance, prior to storm initiation. In anticipation of the technological innovation, this study inquires whether the warn-on-forecast paradigm for tornado warnings may be preferred by the public (i.e., individuals and households). The authors sample is drawn from visitors to the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma. During the summer and fall of 2009, surveys were distributed to 320 participants to assess their understanding and perception of weather risks and preferred tornado warning lead time. Responses were analyzed according to several different parameters including age, region of residency, educational level, number of children, and prior tornado experience. A majority of the respondents answered many of the weather risk questions correctly. They seemed to be familiar with tornado seasons; however, they were unaware of the relative number of fatalities caused by tornadoes and several additional weather phenomena each year in the United States. The preferred lead time was 34.3 min according to average survey responses. This suggests that while the general public may currently prefer a longer average lead time than the present system offers, the preference does not extend to the 1–2-h time frame theoretically offered by the warn-on-forecast system. When asked what they would do if given a 1-h lead time, respondents reported that taking shelter was a lesser priority than when given a 15-min lead time, and fleeing the area became a slightly more popular alternative. A majority of respondents also reported the situation would feel less life threatening if given a 1-h lead time. These results suggest that how the public responds to longer lead times may be complex and situationally dependent, and further study must be conducted to ascertain the users for whom the longer lead times would carry the most value. These results form the basis of an informative stated-preference approach to predicting public response to long (>1 h) warning lead times, using public understanding of the risks posed by severe weather events to contextualize lead-time demand.

RADIATION HAZARDS IN THE FIELD OF PEDIATRICS

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 921-940
Author(s):  
Meinhard Robinow ◽  
Frederic N. Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Radiation Injury ◽  
Radiation Safety ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Tissue Destruction ◽  
Radiation Hazards ◽  
External Sources ◽  
Radiation Induced

The different types of injury from external sources of ionizing radiation are briefly described and the manifestations of radiation injury in the fetus, the infant and the child are reviewed. If radiation therapy for malignant disease is excluded from consideration, it is found that x-ray damage to skin, other tissue destruction, and growth impairment are relatively minor radiation hazards compared to the dangers of leukemia and other malignancy and of radiation-induced genetic damage. Consideration is given to somatic radiation injury as largely an individual problem and genetic injury as a population problem. This point of view is reflected in the differing recommendations concerning "permissible doses" for individuals and for populations. Medical radiation represents a major and presumably growing source of exposure to individuals and to the population in the United States. Various ways are shown in which excessive diagnostic exposure to x-rays, especially in children, can be reduced without interference with requirements of diagnosis. Control of avoidable radiation can be accomplished by combined attack from different fronts. The more important approaches to radiation safety are discussed. They include attention to technical detail, personnel monitoring, maintenance of radiation records, radiation safety through legislative control and public education. The responsibility of the physician in promoting public understanding of radiation hazards is emphasized.

Intervening in Anti-Immigrant Sentiments: The Causal Effects of Factual Information on Attitudes toward Immigration

2021 ◽  
Vol 697 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-191
Author(s):  
Maria Abascal ◽  
Tiffany J. Huang ◽  
Van C. Tran
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Policy Preferences ◽  
Social Cognitions ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
Factual Information ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Nationally Representative ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Contrast Information ◽  
Attitudes Toward Immigration

If preferences on immigration policy respond to facts, widespread misinformation poses an obstacle to consensus. Does factual information about immigration indeed affect policy preferences? Are beliefs about immigration’s societal impact the mechanism through which factual information affects support for increased immigration? To address these questions, we conducted an original survey experiment, in which we presented a nationally representative sample of 2,049 Americans living in the United States with facts about immigrants’ English acquisition and immigrants’ impact on crime, jobs, and taxes—four domains with common misperceptions. Three of these factual domains (immigration’s impact on crime, jobs, and taxes) raise overall support for increased immigration. These facts also affect beliefs that are directly relevant to that information. Moreover, those beliefs mediate the effect of factual information on support for increased immigration. By contrast, information about English acquisition affects neither policy preferences nor beliefs about immigration’s impact. Facts can leverage social cognitions to change policy preferences.

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