Sunday, November 02, 2008
Where we vote affects how we vote
Christian Trejbal
Recent columns
- Montgomery schools' $6.2 million deficit
- This column does not compute
- Make political parties pay for their primaries
- Tough times ahead for schools
From the RoundTable blog
Election Day is nearly here. Voters will gather in school gymnasiums, libraries, government centers, recreation centers and other halls.
Most people take polling places for granted in Virginia, where absentee ballots are too hard to come by. They park, run the gantlet of candidates, stand in line, then vote.
The peaceful moment alone with the voting machine is an illusion. Take a minute to look at your surroundings on Tuesday; your subconscious is.
Researchers have found that where we vote affects how we vote, even if we do not realize it.
"Subtle environmental cues can have a significant influence on consequential real-world decisions," experts from the University of Pennsylvania, MIT and Stanford University wrote in a study published this summer in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Specifically, we show that the type of polling location (e.g., church, school, etc.) where people happen to be assigned to vote in a U.S. general election influences how they cast their ballot."
Everything else being equal, people who vote in schools are more likely to support school levies. The researchers found small differences -- about 2 percentage points -- but candidates spend millions for even smaller electoral shifts.
If it were just schools, it might not be much of an issue in Virginia. Levies are all but unheard of because school systems receive their funding from localities.
People in half of Montgomery County's precincts must vote somewhere that could have a much greater subliminal influence on them, a place where contextual priming and construct activation -- in the research lingo -- shape what people do every day.
Half of the precincts vote in churches.
The researchers looked only at schools in this particular study but suggest places of worship might also taint elections. It's easy to see how.
Pulling up to the polling place, crosses -- all of the churches used for elections around here are Christian -- create a church mindset. The devout feel the pressure of their faith community as they pass icons and inspirational posters that promote religious causes.
Your thoughts
No matter how rationally they studied the ballot at home, it's difficult to vote against the candidate who supposedly aligns better with the pulpit or against the ballot measure that condemns abortion or gays when you believe Jesus is looking over your shoulder on holy ground.
It's no picnic for nonbelievers, either. Whether they worship other gods or no god at all, they must enter a place that offends their sensibilities if they wish to participate in the democratic process. Christians should think how comfortable they would feel entering a mosque, temple or Wiccan hall on Election Day. Religious conviction is not a valid excuse for an absentee ballot in Virginia.
The state may not hang crosses over a voting machine, but it may set up the voting machine under a cross, it seems.
Sometimes, officials have no choice. In some sparsely populated areas, a church hall might be the only suitable place for elections. That should be the exception.
In many Montgomery County precincts that use churches, there are better alternatives.
Christiansburg residents could vote at the Town Hall or school board offices rather than the Christiansburg Church of the Brethren.
Then there is Precinct E1, which runs from the New River all the way to Virginia Tech and includes a large number of dorms. This year it has almost 2,000 new voters, many of them students. They must travel to Saint Michael's Lutheran Church out on Merrimac Road Tuesday.
That is too far to walk from campus and is a dangerous bike ride. Blacksburg Transit does not even send a bus that far on normal days, but it will operate a special route on Election Day every half hour from Burruss Hall along with routes to other voting sites.
What's wrong with all the publicly owned buildings on campus? State law specifically encourages the use of public buildings over churches and others site.
Back in the day, many elections took place in saloons. Maybe some local taverns would generously agree to stop serving drinks for a day in the service of democracy and for the fee that the county pays churches.
In Craig County, they will vote at Mag's Store on Tuesday. That site replaces the previous voting location -- someone's garage.
There's no blame here. No one messed up. Churches have long housed polling places. Yet as we better understand how place influences action, Americans should demand neutral environments so that elections reflect the true will of the voters. Casting a ballot is a civic responsibility, not a holy one.
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
