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Citizens are often directly involved in land conservation, and the protection of important ecosystem services, by voting in local and statewide ballot initiatives and referendums. To understand demand for environmental goods, investigators will often examine the socio-economic characteristics (e.g., median household income) of communities where these referendums occur. This approach, however, provides a limited understanding of the preferences that give rise to voting behaviors, and encourage the passage of these referendums. Our study broadens the understanding of demand for open space by assessing the benefits described in the ballot statement to determine voter preferences, and the psychology of voting. Observations from 76 open space referendums, held in the Eastern U.S. between 1991 and 2013, were fitted to stepwise weighted least squares regression models to predict voting outcomes. We found much of the information provided in the ballot statement was indeed correlated with a yes vote, but response differed by socio-economic group. Many voters also preferred ballots that contained vague descriptions of ecosystem service benefits and used funding mechanisms that obscured who benefits and who pays (i.e., bonds). We conclude these types of ballot statements likely increased the perceived odds of a favorable outcome (i.e., enhanced provision of most preferred benefits at the lowest cost). We recommend that this type of ballot design could encourage the passage of open space referendums in economically diverse communities. |
