Notes

Most Americans think voters in this country don’t have enough say in their government, but at the same time they overwhelmingly believe their fellow countrymen don’t fulfill their responsibility to be informed about the things they vote on.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 90% of Likely U.S. Voters think voters in countries with democratically elected governments have a responsibility to be informed about major policy issues. Just five percent (5%) disagree, while another five percent (5%) are undecided.

Today, all across the nation, the fairness and impartiality of courts is threatened by powerful special interests seeking to tip the scales of justice in their favor. The success or failure of special interest efforts to weaken the courts rests on their ability to mislead voters, particularly if voters lack sufficient knowledge about how impartial courts uphold the rule of law.

Voters must protect fair courts and equal justice for all by exercising an informed vote.

Low-information voters are less likely to vote, and when they do they generally vote for a candidate they find personally appealing. They tend to be swing voters, and they tend to vote split-ticket more than well-informed voters do. Researchers attribute this to low-information voters not having developed clear cut ideological preferences.

A 1992 study found that in the absence of other information, voters used candidates' physical attractiveness to draw inferences about their personal qualities and political ideology. A study performed using logistic regression analysis on data from the 1986 through 1994 American National Election Studies found that low-information voters tend to assume female and black candidates are more liberal than male and white candidates of the same party. (This was before Obama!)