CBA Record November 2018

For instance, in the 94 contests with six or more candidates, the last ballot position produced only three winners. One mild caution about the tables is that they do overstate their case slightly. This is because candidates who actively compete for the first ballot position also tend to be active in other ways that can help them win (campaigning, seeking endorsements, etc.). In other words, the tables do not compensate for other important factors that are associated with higher ballot positions. But the large majority of candidates do compete for the first position, and many of the candidates who do not do so are nonetheless active in other ways themselves. So there is no reason to dispute the overall patterns shown in the tables. Seeking an Explanation The underlying mechanism that produces the first-position advantage has not yet been adequately explained. Academic researchers have offered several psychological theories for various ballot-position effects, but a more intriguing possibility is a concept known as “satisficing.” Satisficing was first proposed in the 1940s and 1950s by the Nobel Prize-winning economist and busi- ness scholar Herbert Simon. Simon sought a more practical alternative to the rational- choice theories that dominated econom- ics at the time, based on the idea that a “maximizing” rational decision process using complete information is not always possible or realistic. Today the concept is well established in the social sciences. Applied to elections, satisficing voters do not possess complete information about candidates in a contest, and may not be sufficiently motivated to care much about an office that will likely not directly affect them. These voters will simply choose the first option on the ballot that appears sat- isfactory. The idea has obvious application to lower-on-the-ballot contests for offices such as judgeships. Authors of ballot posi- tion research have had conflicting views on the extent to which satisficing applies to voting behavior. The tables presented here strongly support the idea. Eliminating Positional Advantages The “Why” question about what explains

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