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Research on local referendums shows a consistent pattern of negative voting among the socially and economically deprived segments of the population. The research reported here tests the hypothesis that referendums may serve as institutional outlets for pretest, that voting against local issues may be an expression of political protest on the part of the powerless and ordinarily apathetic members of the community. The findings from a study of defeated school-bond issues in two communities show a consistent relationship between powerlessness and negative votes in those cases where a feeling of powerlessness took the from of alienation from certain symbols of power in the community. This relationship holds independently of economic self-interest and related variables. Evidence suggests that voting down local issues does not represent an organized, class-conscious opposition, but a type of mass protest, a convergence of the individual assessments of the powerless who have projected into available symbols the fears and suspicions growing out of their alienated existence.
Horton et al. (Thu,) studied this question.