Eligible Voters Research Articles

Secretary’s Report, 2014

Secretary’s Report, 2014

Five Laws of Politics

Political scientists tend to shy away from claiming that there are laws of politics. This diffidence is unwarranted. Here, I present five empirical laws of politics. By a of politics I mean an empirical regularity that is invariant, or almost invariant, that is descriptive of intrinsic properties of politics, democracy, and the state. The laws, four spanning democracies and autocracies, and one setting a boundary between the two regime types, are drawn from data on 452 in 27 democracies, 15 from the Ibero-America (Latin America plus Spain and Portugal), and most of the rest from North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim (the OECD countries), plus ritualistic elections and referendums in 14 dictatorships. Law #1. The law of minority rule. All governments are minority governments. This is a given in dictatorships, but even in democracies parties capture or retain the presidency or the parliament with the votes of a minority of the selectorate (registered or eligible voters). In democracies, average turnout is about 75% and the mean incumbent share of the vote is around 40%. Therefore, the average winning coalition averages 30%.Law #2. The law of incumbent advantage. In democracies, on average incumbents are reelected more than half the time. Law #3. The law of shrinking support. On average, incumbents lose between 3 and 8 percent points per term, the former representing the cost of governing in the OECD region, the latter in Ibero-America. Their illusions of unanimity and perpetual power notwithstanding, dictatorships are not exempt from this law, as evidence drawn from transition in autocracies from several continents, cultures, and region of the world attest. Formerly ruling parties crashed, their share of the vote plummeting from the 90-99% they used to claim in single party elections to as low as the single digits or low teens.Law #4. The law of 60 percent. In democracies, it is rare for incumbents to win more than 60 percent of the vote, and it never happens twice within the same spell in office. The average maximum incumbent share of the vote across all democracies is 53.5%, the one variable on which there is no difference between regions. This law serves as a boundary separating all democracies from most dictatorships.Law #5. The law of alternation or shared power. In democracies, control of the government alternates between political parties or coalitions of parties. This is because no party is capable to encompassing the totality of the values and interests of any society. As well as presenting the data that demonstrate these patterns, I place these laws in the context of related scholarly literature, and offer possible explanations for the laws in light of it.

NLRB Certifies Union Win Over Company's Objection to Campaign Flier

A divided 2–1 National Labor Relations Board panel certified that a Teamsters Local won the right to represent a unit of school bus drivers. The majority rejected the employer's contention that the election results should be set aside and a new election ordered because the union improperly used photographs of eligible voters in campaign literature (Durham School Services, 360 NLRB No. 108 (2014)).

Memory and Voter Mobilization

Using a combination of randomized experiments and survey data, this article presents evidence relevant to two debates in political science. The first is between those scholars who favor an online processing model of how American citizens process political information before elections, and those scholars who favor a memory-based model of opinion formation. The second debate is between students of voting behavior who favor the use of randomized experiments and those who favor public opinion surveys. The article examines the results of get-out-the-vote campaigns by three community organizations during California’s 2008 general election. Shortly after the election, individuals were surveyed about whether they had been contacted. Eligible voters who did not recall having been contacted but who, in fact, had been contacted were more likely to vote than were the respondents in the control group. This finding is consistent with the online processing model. Moreover, the individuals who completed the post-election survey were more likely to vote than was typical of the larger pool of participants in the field experiments. The unrepresentativeness of the survey respondents leads to inflated assessments of the effectiveness of the get-out-the-vote campaigns, and highlights the challenge of constructing representative samples for election surveys.

Feasibility Study and Simulation of Optimal Power System for Off-Grid Voter Registration Centres

There are cases of disenfranchising eligible voters during registration exercises due to unreliable power supply or no access to electricity in powering the Direct Data Capturing Machines (DDCMs) that is used for the registration of voters in polling stations or registration centres. This paper proposes to design an optimized PV-Battery energy system with an energy management system that will be used to control the operations of power supply (supply the load and charge the Battery) at the registration centres in Nigeria. This research is focused on the simulation of Photovoltaic power generation system with energy storage and management system for off-grid voter registration centres in two locations - Nkanu-West (Enugu State – which covers the southern part of the nation) and Kaura (Kaduna State – covering the northern part of the nation). The developed power control system was used to study the operations of the PV-Battery energy system. From the control output results, it was shown that the load and the supplied energy is efficiently and rationally utilized. A simulation analysis was performed using hybrid optimization model for electric renewables (HOMER) software and the results indicate that the most optimized PV-Battery power system for energy consumption of 2.3kWh/day with a 235W peak demand load consists of 0.9 kW solar PV array, 9 Hoppecke 24 OPzS 300 Battery and a 1kW DC/AC inverter. This energy system can be used in any other registration exercises such as the National Identity Registration or Examination registration etc., and may also be applied to other regions of the country.

Mitigating Mob Rule: Restoring the Supreme Court as a Barrier to Majority Tyranny

In this essay, I show how, contrary to common knowledge, the countermajoritarian difficulty, perhaps the most widely discussed problem in American constitutional theory, gives rise to a United States Supreme Court that issues decisions in line with majoritarian preference. I then turn my attention to a critically important question that scholars have chronically overlooked: does a majoritarian Supreme Court present troubling ramifications? I suggest that it does, asserting that robust oversight of the majoritarian process is necessary to prevent abuse. Finally, I propose a novel reform geared toward solving the countermajoritarian difficulty and thereby bolstering the Supreme Court to provide a more substantive check on the democratic process––a referendum process through which the American public could overrule a Supreme Court decision provided that a majority of all eligible voters vote to overrule the Court . I contend, counter-intuitively to be sure, that this reform might grant the Court greater leeway to challenge majority opinion both more frequently and more effectively.The reform I propose, in keeping with the thrust of the paper, is, first and foremost, a theoretical one. I neither make an effort to investigate whether my reform might pass Congress, nor do I explore whether President Barack Obama might plausibly sign my reform into law. Questions of that nature lie far beyond the scope of this paper. Still, I deny that this renders my proposed reform solely an interesting academic exercise. A majoritarian Supreme Court results in a lawmaking process worryingly free of constraint. Therefore, casting about for ideas to empower the Supreme Court, however unfeasible they may seem today, presents a critical task.

Unconventional Gas Development: Why a Regional Community Said No

Public concern resulting from unconventional coal seam gas (CSG) exploration and production has become a contentious planning issue in regional Australia, with public concern drawing attention to government planning obligations. To assist Lismore City Council (Northern New South Wales) in its deliberations on the topic, a referendum-style poll on the issue of CSG industry development was held in conjunction with the local government elections of September 2012. The poll question, ‘Do you support CSG exploration and production in the Lismore City Council area?’, elicited a poll response rate of 97% of eligible voters, of which 87% voted ‘no’. This paper reports the results of an exit poll survey using the Theory of Planned Behaviour to frame motivations behind the poll result, and examines the role of the poll and exit poll survey in providing a process of deliberative democracy in the context of the CSG debate. Key details highlighted by the results were that non-supporters of CSG exploration were primarily concerned about water quality, while supporters saw the primary benefit being regional employment. Emerging themes of this study are the need for more independent research on potential risks and benefits of CSG developments, increase in institutional transparency, and the development of renewable alternatives. The study concludes that the principles of deliberative democracy involved in the Lismore City Council poll and subsequent exit poll survey have provided an opportunity for a more open discussion and genuine discourse within the CSG debate.

The geography of Irish voter turnout: A case study of the 2002 General Election

Turnout' is a key measure of participation in the democratic process. Specifically, it measures the proportion of eligible voters that turns out to vote on election day. Low (or declining) turnout rates are a cause of concern and are often taken as a measure of disaffection with the political decision-making process. In Ireland, turnout in the 2002 general election confirmed a downward trend in voter participation and represented the lowest turnout since the foundation of the State. However, turnout rates vary markedly across the State. Until recently, it was not possible to examine turnout at a sufficiently detailed geographical scale to allow systematic analysis of the potential causes of such variations. This paper reports on a joint project, involving the Geary Institute, UCD and the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA), NUI Maynooth, that is undertaking a comprehensive analysis of turnout in the 2002 general election at the lowest possible level of aggregation. Here, a cartographic description and introductory analysis is presented that includes the first ever electoral-district-level map of turnout. The resulting geographical patterns are generally coherent and explicable and provide important pointers for future research. In an unanticipated finding, this map shows that the phenomenon of low turnout in urban areas occurs beyond the main cities and their suburbanised hinterlands and shows up as a characteristic of most provincial towns.

Nativity and California Online Voter Registration and Turnout in November 2012

In September 2012, the California Secretary of State made it possible, for the first time, for the state's eligible voters to register online. In fewer than 5 weeks prior to the November 2012 election, 787,337 of California's eligible voters took advantage of this opportunity. In this article, I explore the demographics of California's November 2012 online registrants with a particular focus on nativity in order to see whether US born Latina/o and Asian-American online registrants have different characteristics than those who are naturalized. I find Latino and Asian-American naturalized voters used online voter registration at high rates, but that Asian-origin naturalized voters did so at lower rates than Latinos, sug- gesting the need for more targeted outreach to naturalized voters of different eth- noracial backgrounds. 1 This analysis is based on data provided by Political Data, Inc. (PDI), a data vendor that collects data from each of the 58 counties in California and other proprietary sources. PDI acquires voter data from individual counties at regular intervals, typically no less often than once per 4 months. When voter records are retrieved from counties, they are subjected to record standardization, validation, and enhancement. Standardization includes the application of an internal match- ing reference key, an internal ID tracking number, and name field standardization. Validations against death registries and National Change of Address listings are also performed. For the iden- tification of voters who filed for registration online, PDI relies largely on the record keeping of the individual counties. In most cases, the registration method is recorded and maintained by the county registrar-recorder and can be added directly to voter file records. In certain counties, the

Differences among Latina/o, Asian American, and White Online Registrants in California

DOI 10.1515/cjpp-2014-0011 Calif. J. Politics Policy 2014; 6(3): 415–423 Lisa Garcia Bedolla* and Veronica N. Velez Differences among Latina/o, Asian American, and White Online Registrants in California Abstract: In September 2012, the California Secretary of State’s office offered eli- gible voters the opportunity to register online for the first time. This article ana- lyzes those eligible voters that registered online for the November 2012 election. We find important differences among these registrants by ethnorace, age, and gender. We also find that a large proportion of these online registrants were new voters and that they did not concentrate in affluent census tracts, suggesting that this electoral reform did help to expand the electorate for that election. Keywords: electoral reform; gender; race; registration; socioeconomic status. *Corresponding author: Lisa Garcia Bedolla, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, e-mail: lgarciab@berkeley.edu Veronica N. Velez: Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, USA 1 Introduction On 19 September 2012, the state of California launched its online voter registration system. During the just under 5-week window available for eligible voters to reg- ister online, 787,337 took advantage of this option. 1 This large take-up by voters is 1 This analysis is based on data provided by Political Data, Inc. (PDI), a data vendor that collects data from each of the 58 counties in California and other proprietary sources. PDI acquires voter data from individual counties at regular intervals, typically no less often than once per 4 months. When voter records are retrieved from counties, they are subjected to record standardization, vali- dation, and enhancement. Standardization includes the application of an internal matching ref- erence key, an internal ID tracking number, and name field standardization. Validations against death registries and National Change of Address listings are also performed. For the identification of voters who filed for registration online, PDI relies largely on the record keeping of the individual counties. In most cases, the registration method is recorded and maintained by the county regis- trar-recorder and can be added directly to voter file records. In certain counties, the voter data is not stored in a manner that allows for direct recording of the registration method, which forces PDI to use other means to determine how a voter filed their registration. Of these counties that do not store the registration method directly most have a source code on each voter’s actual affidavit number. By parsing out these codes, it is possible to determine which voters filed for registration online. There are, unfortunately, several counties that are unable to record the application source identifier into the voter’s affidavit number, which make recovering registration method in those counties impossible via currently available means. Those counties are excluded from this analysis.

Media use and political participation reconsidered: the actual and perceived influence of political campaign messages

This study examines the actual and perceived effects of political advertising on the voting intention of less-experienced eligible voters. Elaborating on the demobilization, stimulation, and influence of presumed influence hypotheses, this study examines the effects of political disaffection, presumed influence, and political efficacy on political mobilization. The study analyzes the effects of political advertisements on 311 college voters. The results of the structural equation modeling (SEM) suggest that instead of demobilizing turnout, self-reported exposure to political advertisements boosts young voters' sense of political efficacy and stimulates their political participation by raising the degree to which they perceive that campaign advertisements affect other voters.

Responding to Shelby County: A Grand Election Bargain

The immediate reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder was predictably fast, furious, and fissured. Some lauded the decision as a long overdue recognition that things really have changed in the South since the bad old days of mass disenfranchisement, so effectively demolished by the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). Others lamented the Court’s unceremonious disposal of the civil rights movement’s “crown jewel.” While there is some truth in both perspectives, this article focuses on what both sides have largely missed. The article argues that Shelby County provides an opportunity for Congress to take constructive action to protect the vote for all eligible citizens. It proposes a Grand Election Bargain: federal legislation that would expand the opportunities for voter registration (a priority for Democrats) while requiring voter identification (a priority for Republicans) in federal elections. The approach suggested here is a necessary complement to the race-based remedies available under current law, one that would expand the right to vote more generally. It is a proposal for a Voting Rights Act that will address the problems of the current century rather than those of the last century. Despite the improvements over the years, significant gaps in registration and participation remain for some demographic groups – especially Latinos, Asian Americans, people of limited education and income, people with disabilities, and young people. Liberalized voter registration rules, particularly same-day registration can help include some of those most likely to be left out. The federal registration and identification rules proposed here would preempt contrary state laws in federal elections. This lies squarely within Congress’ power under the Elections Clause, as clarified by the Court’s decision in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona. Part I of the article briefly describes what Shelby County did, setting the stage for discussion of the Voting Rights Act’s actual and perceived effects on election administration. Part II assesses what the preclearance regime was doing before Shelby County, showing that Section 5 was mostly used to stop vote dilution, but did relatively little to stop the new vote denial. Part III examines the evidence regarding who votes and who doesn’t, as well as the causes for low registration and participation among some groups. Part IV proposes a Grand Election Bargain that would expand voter registration and voter identification in federal elections, providing consistent national rules that would trump contrary state and local laws, while moving us closer to the ideal of including all eligible voters in the electorate.

PLAYING GOD IN NIGERIAN POLITICAL EXPERIENCE: TOWARDS A CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY / DIEVO VAIDMUO NIGERIJOS POLITINIUOSE POTYRIUOSE: LINK KRIKŠČIONIŠKOSIOS ATSAKOMYBĖS

The Nigerian universe is a religious one; all phenomena and experiences are apparently explained in the supernatural. It is in this sense that religion and politics are inseparable, though ambidextrous. In this sense, the theoretical or constitutional separation thesis differs from the apodictic demonstrative reality. The latter form of this relationship attributes all events to acts of God, whether good or evil, but more evil than good. The act, will or grace of God (Insha'Allah) in the Nigerian political experience, in the assessment of Christian principles, calls for an evaluation of the political and politicians' recourse to God in the face of anti-God and anti-people display of political power. It is the argument of this paper that God is an alibi in Nigerian political development, thus making the political system to play God. Through the gristmill of critical analysis, it is argued that Christian eligible voters in a democracy bear crucial responsibility of not only correctly and critically, in a contextual manner, interpreting the scriptures, but also going beyond prayer for leadership, which source and ascendancy to power is questionable and illegitimate. The Christian responsibility must therefore be comprehensive, authentic and pragmatic. Santrauka Nigerijos pasaulis yra religinis: visi reiškiniai ir potyriai akivaizdžiai aiškinami antgamtiškumu. Šia prasme religija ir politika yra neatskiriamos, tačiau dviveidės. Tad teorinio ar konstitucinio atsidalijimo tezė skiriasi nuo apodiktinės akivaizdžios realybės. Pastaroji šio santykio forma visus įvykius priskiria Dievo veiklai, – tiek gėrį, tiek ir blogį, tačiau labiau blogį nei gėrį. Išanalizavus krikščionybės principus, Nigerijos politiniame gyvenime Dievo (Insha'Allah) veikla, valia ar malonė antdievo bei antžmoniu, demonstruojančių politinę galią, akivaizdoje kviečia įvertinti politikos ir politikų atsigręžima į Dievą. Šiame straipsnyje argumentuojama, kad Dievas yra Nigerijos politinės raidos alibi, verčiantis politinę sistemą vaidinti Dievą. Pasitelkiant griežtą kritinę analizę, įrodinėjama, kad tinkami rinkėjai demokratijos sąlygomis yra atsakingi ne tik korektiškai ir kritiškai, kontekstualiu būdu interpretuodami šventuosius raštus, bet taip pat ir dėl vadovavimo, kurio šaltinis ir įtaka valdžiai yra abejotini ir neteisėti. Todėl krikščioniškoji atsakomybė turi būti visapusė, autentiška ir pragmatiška.

Gender stereotypes as a double-edged sword in political advertising

Today, more women are seeking public office in elections at all levels. Studies have thus drawn attention to the use of political advertising by female candidates. In the current research, we explore the persuasion effects of gender stereotypes. Gender stereotypes are proposed to be either an asset or a liability depending on the particulars of campaign theme and advertising style. Through two experiments (with samples of 281 and 270 eligible voters, respectively), participants made inferences about unfamiliar candidates based on stimuli manipulated in the ad. Campaign theme was manipulated in the contexts of candidates’ gendered personality traits and issue domain. Administration of the experiments was performed via a shopping mall intercept method. The experimental results indicated that congruity between candidate gender and campaign theme would enhance a positive political ad. Female candidates showing ‘feminine’ traits, or focusing on ‘soft’ issues, could encourage voters’ favourable evaluations and increase their voting intention. Conversely, it was more advantageous for men to campaign with a focus on ‘masculine’ traits or ‘hard’ issues. However, when resorting to an attack ad, the opposite patterns held true: i.e. complementarity between candidate gender and campaign theme enhanced persuasion in advertising. This study concludes by discussing political advertising strategies for female candidates in a seemingly male-dominated political sphere.

Ricochet: How Elite Discourse Politicizes Racial and Ethnic Identities

Political elites often discuss racial/ethnic outgroups in a critical light. I claim this discourse raises the salience of group identity while impugning its worth, thus inducing differential political reactions among high and low identifying group members. Specifically, high identifiers will engage in political efforts that restore their identity’s positive value by displaying ingroup favoritism and challenging the source of their group’s devaluation. In contrast, low identifiers will actively decline political opportunities to bolster their group’s devalued status. Using a national survey experiment, I randomly assigned eligible but unregistered Latino voters to a control group without elite discourse; a non-devaluing condition with elite discourse focused on illegal immigration; or, a devaluing condition with elite discourse focused on illegal immigration and critical of illegal immigrants. High identifying Latinos in the devaluing condition expressed greater pro-Latino political attitudes and a stronger intention to register and vote in a pending presidential election. This dynamic was absent in the other conditions and unrelated to Latinos’ partisan identity. These results suggest an identity-to-politics link is robustly forged among high identifying group members when they sense a devaluation of their group.

Secretary’s Report, 2013

Secretary’s Report, 2013

Electoral registration and the control of votes: The case of Chile

We investigate how the employment relationship may lead employers to control the voting behavior and to induce the electoral registration of their workers. Forced registration and the control of votes become feasible when voting behavior is observable, as in open ballot elections. Workers whose vote is controlled are more likely to be registered as compared to other eligible voters, increasing their impact on electoral outcomes. Increasing the secrecy of the vote (for instance with the adoption of a secret ballot) significantly reduces the control of votes. Electoral registration, however, remains biased as long as the probability of voting behavior disclosure induces less ideologically motivated voters to comply with the political preference of the employer. We provide empirical support for the predictions of the model examining the effects of the introduction of the secret ballot in Chile in 1958.

Development of a More Universal Voting Interface

Voting systems must be usable by all eligible voters regardless of their skills, abilities, and experiences. However, current voting systems do not provide accessibility to all voters, including those with physical and cognitive limitations. To make voting easier for people with and without disabilities, we developed a universal voting interface that integrates a simplified and flexible ballot design that includes multimodal I/O interfaces. The formative usability study results demonstrate people with various types of disabilities could perform the voting tasks on EZ Ballot using their preferred input. In order to refine the EZ Ballot interface, the study found the specific issues on design such as instruction, selection of candidates, confusion about going back, incorrect gestural interaction, and write-in interface.

Khomeini's Concept of Governance of the Jurisconsult (Wilayat al-Faqih) Revisited: The Aftermath of Iran's 2009 Presidential Election

The serious crisis that has unfolded after June 2009 presidential election in Iran exposed absolutist nature of state's highest religious authority, and urgent need to critically interrogate Ayatollah Khomeini's concept of governance of jurisconsult (wilayat al-faqih). Jurists and scholars have been attempting to devise a model in which sovereignty belongs to public by basing their arguments on historical, jurisprudential, theological, philosophical, and extra-religious frameworks to present state models which allow for public sovereignty and challenge notion of divine sovereignty inhering in jurisconsult.The prediction of Ayatollah Hoseyn-'Ali Montazeri (d. 2009)1 that doctrine of al-wilaya al-mutlaqa [the all-comprehensive and absolute authority of jurisconsult] could degenerate into religious and clerical despotism [estebdad] seems to have come true in a most glaring form: political situation after country's June 2009 presidential election. Protesters who believed that massive fraud and vote rigging had occurred were met by a brutal and forceful reaction from Ayatollah 'Ali Khamenei, jurisconsult [vali-ye faqih] who occupies Islamic Republic's supreme position. In his first post-election Friday prayer service, he proclaimed categorically that he would tolerate no more protests or challenges to validity of President Ahmadinejad's reelection with a remarkable 62% of electoral votes and an impressive turnout of 85% of all eligible voters. Construing this as a sign of divine grace and endorsement, he equated any dissent or questioning with greatest crime2 one can commit againstthe nation of Iran. In addition, he signaled to other two presidential candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Ayatollah Mehdi Karroubi, that they would be held accountable if any more blood was shed as state strove to restore order and normality.This was a veiled threat to protesters and a signal to hardliners in Revolutionary Guards (Sepah) that they had some degree of official permission to use coercive methods while putting down protests.3 This arbitrary and excessive use of discretionary authority opened still ongoing discourse on merits of concept of wilayat al-faqih [or velayat-e faqih in Persian, i.e., governance of jurisconsult], which currently lacks any checks and balances.When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) originally promulgated this concept in a 1970 series of lectures delivered in Najaf, Iraq, he relied on both rational and traditional proofs to buttress his case that during concealment of messianic infallible Imam,4 whom believers hold went into occultation in 941,5 jurisconsult has a mandate to implement Islamic rulings not only in matters of devotion and personal affairs, but also in realm of social and political.6 In other words, his prerogative is considered an extension of authority enjoyed by divine guides (also known as the infallible Imams). Khomeini advocated an Islamic state led by a qualified jurisconsult who would ensure that Islamic rulings are adhered to and implemented within broad outlines and principles of shari'a. Thus, his scope of authority was at least circumscribed by fallible human interpretation of nebulous concept of shari'a.7Toward end of his life, however, Khomeini stretched this concept to its farthest limit and expanded scope of jurisconsult's authority8 by proclaiming in January 1988 that this person is not confined to shari'a if it conflicts with society's and best interests.9 Just what constitutes this general welfare and imperative necessity, as well as how they are measured, remained undefined and vague. Moreover, customary checks and balances over this person's expansive powers are conspicuously absent. With this proclamation, Khomeini elevated state's preservation to a primary injunction [al-ahkam al-awwaliyya] and downgraded rituals (e. …

Men Vote in Mars, Women Vote in Venus: A Survey Experiment in the Field

This paper investigates the differential response of male and female voters to competitive persuasion in political campaigns. During the 2011 municipal elections in Milan, a sample of eligible voters was randomly divided into three groups. Two were exposed to the same incumbent’s campaign but to different opponent’s campaigns, with either a positive or a negative tone. The third—control—group received no electoral information. The campaigns were administered online and consisted of a bundle of advertising tools (videos, texts, slogans). Stark gender differences emerge. Negative advertising increases men’s turnout, but has no effect on women. Females, however, vote more for the opponent and less for the incumbent when they are exposed to the opponent’s positive campaign. Exactly the opposite occurs for males. Additional tests show that our results are not driven by gender identification with the candidate, ideology, or other voter’s observable attributes. Effective strategies of persuasive communication should thus take gender into account. Our results may also help to reconcile the conflicting evidence on the effect of negative vs. positive advertising, as the average impact may wash out when aggregated across gender.