Changing with the Times

• Published date: 01 June 2014
• Date: 01 June 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912914521897
• Author: Jeremiah J. Garretson
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

2014, Vol. 67(2) 280 –292

© 2014 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912914521897

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Article

It provided a turnout opportunity for Republicans . . . The

belief was, the United States Senate race was not going to be

close, and that Republicans needed and social conservatives

needed a reason to get to the polls in November.

—Michael Brodkorb, Former Minnesota

GOP Deputy Chair, on the 2012 Minnesota

Marriage Amendment

Liberal democracies are based on a guarantee of basic free-

doms to all their citizens. The framers of the Constitution

recognized that democratic rule could be tenuous if a major-

ity of citizens could eliminate the basic rights of a minority.

This tension motivated the passage of the Bill of Rights

(Madison, Hamilton, and Jay 1982). Although the Bill of

Rights provided protections at a federal level, state-level

processes by which a majority can vote to restrict the rights

of a minority remain a potential problem for democracy. The

initiative and referenda, as well as the traditional legislative

process, can theoretically move society in a less democratic

direction if misused. This is especially true if used to amend

a state’s constitution and ensure a restriction of rights

immune from state judicial review. Some studies have con-

firmed that minorities, including lesbians and gays, have

faced a disadvantage when their rights have come up for a

public vote (Haider-Markel, Querze, and Lindaman 2007;

D. C. Lewis 2011a). Research also suggests that these votes

can cause increased stress on group members, resulting in

psychological harm, especially when minorities lose these

votes (Russell 2000).

The possibility of restrictions on the civil rights of

minorities can be troubling because, at times, it has been

good politics for majorities to attack minorities. For

example, studies have confirmed that same-sex marriage

(SSM) ballot measures in 2004 primed and mobilized

voters to the benefit of Republican candidates (Campbell

and Monson 2008; Donovan, Tolbert, and Smith 2008).

Although the presence of these spillover effects on candi-

date elections have been contested (Abramowitz 2004;

Hillygus and Shields 2008; Jackman 2004), this pre-

sumed electoral boost to Republicans has become part of

the conventional wisdom regarding these ballot measures

and helped to fuel their further proliferation (D. C. Lewis

2011b). To date, thirty states have voted on SSM at least

once in the last two decades, and new measures to ban

SSM are still in the works (Murray 2013).

Although SSM bans have proved potent in the past,

their impact may be less certain at present given an evolv-

ing political context. Theoretically, it may take more than

just a position in favor of or against an issue on the ballot

to motivate voters to either turnout or to use personal

positions on the issue as a basis for candidate choice. A

521897PRQXXX10.1177/1065912914521897GarretsonPolitical Research Quarterly

research-article2014

1Stony Brook University, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jeremiah J. Garretson, Department of Political Science, Stony Brook

University, Social and Behavior Sciences Building, 7th Floor, Stony

Brook, NY 11794-4392, USA.

Email: jeremiah.garretson@stonybrook.edu

Changing with the Times: The Spillover

Effects of Same-Sex Marriage Ballot

Measures on Presidential Elections

Jeremiah J. Garretson1

Abstract

Studies have shown that same-sex marriage (SSM) ballot measures affected voter turnout and primed voters in a

manner that aided the Republican Party in 2004. However, if attitude strength plays a role in these spillover effects,

then recent increases in the intensity of support for SSM on the left may have eroded—or even reversed—the pro-

Republican electoral boost of these measures. Using individual- and county-level data, I demonstrate that more recent

votes on SSM have mobilized more pro-Obama SSM supporters than pro-Republican social conservatives. These

findings are important for understanding how ballot measures may potentially affect candidate elections.

Keywords

same-sex marriage, ballot measures, voter turnout, priming, elections