Judge strikes down Florida ballot law listing candidates from governor’s party first

I love court cases that hinge on statistics, like these two US Supreme Court cases: Hall vs. Florida, Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association. Such examples demonstrate the relevance of what students are learning in our class: in Hall vs. Florida, the margin of error saved a criminal from the death penalty. The majority opinion in Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association reiterates that correlation does not equal causation and brings up effect sizes.

A recent case in Florida demonstrated that research about voting and candidate order on ballots can unfairly advantage candidates at the top of the list.

Here is a brief summary from the Miami Herald:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article237417779.html

Here are portions of the actual decision from the Election Law Blog. The highlight in the paragraph below in mine, since the primacy effect is also something we talk about in Intro Psych. Also, note the terrific footnote.

This footnote is delightful.

Featured heavily in the decision is Dr. Jon Krosnick of political psychology fame. His corpus of work was used to demonstrate that ballot order matters.

How to use in class:

Research methods matter.
Ballot ordering matters.
There are many, many ways to screw with democracy. Everyone needs to keep their dukes up and be prepared to defend democracy.

Comments

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