washingtonpost.com
Order in the Court
You may have missed this, but judges in California are preparing to rule on whether social science research should make a difference in settling political disputes.
So far, the verdict appears to be no.
At stake is the outcome of one of the strangest elections since, well, that strange presidential election 16 months ago. Here's the story so far:
It began last June in Compton, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. That's when challenger Eric Perrodin beatMayor OmarBradley by 281 votes. But Perrodin's name had been printed first on all the ballots, in violation of local election law that requires the order of names to be varied. Bradley challenged theresults in court.
Enter Jon Krosnick, professor of psychology and political science at Ohio State University. His research suggested thata candidate whose name appears first on the ballot gets about 2.5 percent more votes than if his or her name appeared last. (If this sounds familiar, you're right. Krosnick's ballot-order studies were featured in this column in May 1998.)
Based on his research, Krosnick testified that Perrodin probably got at least 306 more votes than he otherwise would have if his name had not always been listed first.
Case closed, said Superior Court Judge Judith Chirlin. On Feb. 8, she took 306 votes from Perrodin and gave them to Bradley, making him the winner.
"I love the fact that this work is of some value in helping to address real problems and, in this case, to making democracy work better," Krosnick said in a statement issued by the university.
Well, maybe not.
Bradley was back in City Hall only 18 days when a California appeals court ordered Perrodin temporarily reinstated. The judges said they wanted to decide for themselves whether Chirlin should have given Bradley those 306 votes just on the basis of Krosnick's research -- a clear sign that the judges were preparing to reverse Chirlin, court watchers told the Los Angeles Times.
And then the California State Supreme Court refused to intervene, allowing Perrodin to stay in office while the appeals court reviews the case. |
