[420 Girl]

People are more likely to admit to a robo-pollster — as opposed to a flesh-and-blood caller on the line — that they support legalizing marijuana. That’s what a rough study of six California polls seems to suggest, FixThirtyEight’s Nate Silver observes.

Three automated polls from Public Policy Polling and SurveyUSA say that Proposition 19, which would legalize pot, would pass across all ethnic populations by double-digit margins. But when live pollsters from the Field Poll, the Public Policy Institute of California and Reuters called, the measure failed narrowly. The most striking result is that while white respondents did not seem to change their answer, the results for black respondents and Hispanics dropped significantly.

Silver makes sure to cover himself with disclaimers – it’s often hard for polls to get a fair and representative sample of minority populations, etc. — but his overall observation seems solid.

He writes:

"Marijuana usage is almost certainly more stigmatized when associated with minorities, and drug possession arrests occur much more frequently in minority communities. This is in spite of the fact that rates of marijuana consumption are only a smidgen higher among blacks than among whites, and are somewhat lower among Hispanics."

The Bradley Effect—named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black man who unsuccessfully ran for governor despite polling ahead — is when voters feel obligated to respond to polls one way but privately vote another way due to social pressures.

Pollsters say the same phenomenon occured with polling on Proposition 8, the 2008 California measure that banned same-sex marriage.


NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: The Bay Citizen
Author: Gerry Shih
Contact: The Bay Citizen
Copyright: 2010 The Bay Citizen
Website: A Bradley Effect on Legalizing Pot

* Thanks to MedicalNeed for submitting this article


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