Race a factor for low-info, distracted voters, UC Merced study finds. Guess who wins?

When voters are distracted or looking at an overly complicated ballot, they’re more likely to vote for the white candidate, according to the findings of a UC Merced professor.

Candidates of color are at a disadvantage on local election ballots, when voters often don’t know much about the experience or background of those running, according to Jessica Trounstine, a political science professor.

Research on local election voting, which she did with another professor, found voters tend to rely on implicit biases and racial stereotypes.

“What we find is people who are distracted are less likely to choose minority candidates, in particular, they’re less likely to choose black candidates,” she said. “We find in some additional analyses that black men suffer the worst penalty.”

The research in a paper titled “A Different Kind of Disadvantage: Candidate Race, Electoral Institutions and Voter Choice” won an American Political Science Association award at the group’s last conference.

Two studies involved about 2,000 participants, some of which answered questions and were asked to vote in mock local elections with no information other than photos of the candidates. Some of those participants were asked to do a simple task to distract them while casting votes.

“When the task is complex, you’re more likely to rely on your implicit attitudes rather than your explicit attitudes,” she said. “We’re talking more about something that’s going on in the back of your mind.”

“The solution is make voting easier,” she continued. “Make it less complex and give people politically relevant information to make the decision.”

California is ahead of the curve compared to many states, she said, because many states do not send out voter guides like the one California mails to the homes of registered voters. But, California also tends to have long ballots, which can be complicated, she noted.

Cities that use districts in local elections are also more likely to have diversity on their city council, she said.

Merced and Los Banos went to a system using districts last year, and Atwater has begun the process this year. All of the cities made the move under threat of lawsuits by Latino groups looking for better representation in communities where more than half of the population is Latino.

All of those cities previously used elections that included a citywide vote, what’s typically called an “at-large” election. Those are common across the country, she said, becoming popular after 1900.

“The Merced system was almost exactly what we were looking at here,” she said.

This story was originally published August 3, 2017 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Race a factor for low-info, distracted voters, UC Merced study finds. Guess who wins?."