Determinants of countywide voting behavior on environmental ballot measures: 1990-2000

There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the variables that produce differing levels of countywide support for environmental protection. Competing explanations include differences stemming from individual attributes of residents, economic conditions, and urban-rural differences. The present study examines why some counties express higher levels of support for environmental protection when voting on environmental ballot measures. Using voting data aggregated at the county level on state-wide environmental ballot measures in five states, OLS regression is employed to examine the utility of each explanation. The results suggest that while all three hypotheses are accurate in a number of cases and urban counties tend to be more supportive of environmental protection than rural counties, individual attributes and economic conditions appear to be the most influential.