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Prop 8 Gay Marriage Trial Concludes, Study Shows Risk of Rushing to Ballot |
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VIEW FROM HERE
By Paul Hogarth
Wed nesday, the Proposition 8 trial in San Francisco Federal Court heard its long-awaited closing arguments – as gay marriage advocates prepare to return to the ballot. And a new study [LINK] conducted by the Haas Jr. Foundation looks at pre-election polling data from 33 states that passed anti-gay marriage initiatives. It concludes (a) we always do worse than what polls say, and (b) voters don’t change their minds about this issue during campaigns.
The lesson, of course, is that we must work harder to move hearts and minds – and that work can’t be done in a short election season.
Sadly, the implications of this study will strike many as discouraging – was all the money, time and energy we spent in California and Maine somehow a waste?
It’s true gay marriage is a sensitive topic that voters develop hard feelings about that can’t be changed overnight. But the study did not focus on the small sliver of “persuadable” voters in each election who decide the outcome.
The Haas Jr. Foundation hired NYU political scientist Patrick J. Egan to study 167 polls in the 33 states that had a gay marriage ban from 1998-2009 – and compared it with the results on Election Day. And as we already knew – having painfully experienced this in state after state – the results after votes are counted are worse than what polls had said. Moreover, as Dr. Egan reported, poll results throughout the campaign were mostly static.
(Related coverage: New York Times) [LINK]
Did people lie? Yes and no. Egan’s analysis showed that polls accurately predicted the pro-equality vote – i.e., people who voted “no” on Prop 8 – but that they undercounted people who voted to ban gay marriage. So if a pre-election poll would show us winning a plurality of 48-45 (which campaigns find encouraging), it would mean that we lost 52-48.
Respondents didn’t tell pollsters they were going to vote “no” and voted “yes” – the so-called Bradley effect where voters want to give the “politically correct” answer. What instead happened is that embarrassed voters said they were undecided. Which is why, said Geoff Kors of Equality California, we should only go to the ballot after polls show a majority who plan to go our way. “Once people are for equality, we don’t see slippage.”
Voters are also not confused about which position – “yes” or “no” – is pro-gay marriage in ballot campaigns. In California, the “No on 8” side wasted enormous efforts trying to make sure [LINK] that San Franciscans knew the right way to vote.
In Maine, the “No on 1” campaign also spent a lot of time [LINK] educating the base – but my anecdotal experience was that we saw more confusion there.
Egan’s analysis debunks the “confusion” theory because (a) we would have found it less of a factor in more educated and politically motivated states; and (b) if it was a problem at the start of a campaign, polls closer to the election would have gotten more accurate.
So why the discrepancy? Egan speculated that pollsters screened out “yes” voters more than “no” voters – leading to skewed samples. I believe that’s valid, because those who oppose gay marriage are less comfortable talking about the issue in general to people.
A second theory, which Egan said was “unlikely,” is that there was a substantial shift in opinion during the final days. Again, this goes back to the general theme of the study that political campaigns don’t change voters’ opinions on this issue.
But having gone to Maine twice in October 2009, I believe there was a major change during the final week. We lost the election by six points, but my understanding is we won the early absentees. (The rest of Paul Hogarth )
(Paul Hogarth is the Managing Editor of BeyondChron.org . He is a tenants’ rights attorney at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco where he lives. He can be read and reached at www.BeyondChron.org where this article was first posted.) ◘
CityWatch
Vol 8 Issue 48
Pub: June 18, 2010
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