Newswise — Campaign finance disclosure information may not help voters better identify the positions of interest groups, according to a new study at the University of Rochester.
The author of the study, David Primo, associate professor of political science and business administration, argues that in the 24 states that allow voters to cast ballots directly on policy issues, contributions and expenditures have little effect on voter knowledge at the margin.
“Voters have access to a plethora of information about ballot issues, even obscure ones. Much of the information in disclosure reports duplicates information voluntarily released by interest groups, and even new data is rarely informative once all the other information available in an initiative campaign is taken into account,” said Primo.
To investigate whether or not campaign finance disclosures are pivotal for voters, Primo surveyed 1066 registered voters in Florida. He asked them about a ballot issue addressing tax issues and illegal immigration. This was an actual measure that appeared on Colorado’s ballot in 2006 and currently is a policy issue in Florida.
Voters were then randomly assigned to three different groups: A, B or C. Once members were presented the ballot issue in group A, they were allowed to vote yes, no or unsure. After the ballot presentation, groups B and C were given the opportunity to do additional research and take as much time as needed before voting. This additional information included 10 newspaper articles, a voter guide and two advertisements. Group C had the option of viewing all of the material available to Group B plus two additional newspaper articles that included information that the reporter almost surely obtained through campaign finance disclosures (the amount of particular contributions or expenditures). In total, a sixth of the articles in group C were disclosure-related, a far higher proportion than in a typical campaign
After voters had the chance to review the materials and vote on the ballot measure, they were presented with 13 interest groups and asked to identify the political positions of each. Eight groups had their positions mentioned in articles available to groups B and C. The remaining five were only mentioned in the two disclosure articles available to group C.
“There are two particularly noteworthy findings in the study. First, voters in groups B and C, for the most part, chose not to access any additional information when given the opportunity to do so,” said Primo. “Second, when they did, disclosure-related information did not make group C respondents more knowledgeable about the stances of interest groups on the ballot measure.”
The conventional wisdom in the scholarly and legal community is that disclosure laws are a “no-brainer,” giving voters necessary information and imposing few, if any costs, on contributors. Primo’s study, combined with previous research, shows that the opposite is true. Disclosure provides few benefits to voters, but imposes costs on groups—especially small, grassroots groups—who want to participate in the political process.
A policy report on disclosure laws, which includes a discussion of this research, was published by the Institute for Justice, a non-profit public interest law firm, and is available here: http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/other_pubs/fulldisclosure.pdf.An academic paper presenting this research is currently under review at a political science journal and is available here: http://www.rochester.edu/College/PSC/primo/experimentdisclosure.pdf.
Dick Jones Communications helps the University of Rochester with some of its public affairs work.
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