As I say, that is what I read in the evidence that has been reproduced, that you have also, and I don't know it personally for a fact. Senator CLARK. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Clark. Senator Griffin? Doctor, if I may follow up a little on that point-then, from what you have responded to Senator Clark, would it be correct to say that you consider the misleading instructions on these machines to be unimportant?

Dr. PENNIMAN. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, let me ask you-in your book on American parties and elections, on page 639 you state, and I quote:

The technique of mechanical voting is more complicated and necessitates a certain amount of preliminary instruction.

Now, is that statement still true today?

Dr. PENNIMAN. Yes; and there is preliminary instruction available in any voting place. And, again, there is in the record evidence of questions that were asked of the polling people.

But it is also true that that book was written, as you know, in 1952, the second edition. You may even have the first edition that I was involved in in 1948. And machines have been used for a long, long time since then, and people get used to it over the years.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, wouldn't inaccurate and misleading instructions serve to complicate and confuse matters?

Dr. PENNIMAN. Certainly not for people who have been using the machines regularly, I don't think so.

The CHAIRMAN. You have a lot of people that didn't use the machines regularly. You had a lot of new voters obviously in this election.

Dr. PENNIMAN. No doubt had some. But most of the time we hear that the young people are the best trained, the brightest and most experienced of all people. And so I would think they would have no problem.

The CHAIRMAN. And inaccurate and misleading instructions would not complicate and confuse the matters?

Dr. PENNIMAN. Not the moment that one saw that there was not a gadget here to operate with-no, sir, I do not think so.

The CHAIRMAN. On page 2 of your statement, you quote the Campbell and Miller articles as follows:

Whatever the relationships we find between the political motivations of the voters and the way they mark their ballots, it is clear that the form of the ballot itself has an influence on the proportion of straight and split tickets cast. Now, do you agree with that statement?

Dr. PENNIMAN. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, you do not agree with it?

Dr. PENNIMAN. I do not agree with it in the form in which it is stated. I do not believe that it applies in this case.

Again, if one looks at simply Mr. Kirkpatrick's table here, you find that in 1974 alone there was vastly more split ticket voting in the areas where you could cast a straight ticket, by putting your X cast a single ballot. So to say that applies in all elections is not true. One might in very general terms say, yes; that is probably true in most. elections.

But to apply it in any particular election seems to me one has to examine that election, and the very figures which Mr. Kirkpatrick uses show this to be untrue in 1974 in Tulsa County.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, let's reread that statement. I think you said you didn't agree with it, and now, in listening to you, it sounds like you do agree with it.

Whatever the relationships we find between the political motivations of the voters and the way they mark their ballots, it is clear that the form of the ballot itself has an influence on the proportion of straight and split tickets cast.

Now, you are saying that you do not agree with that?

Dr. PENNIMAN. I am saying that in the most general sense, if you take an average of all circumstances; yes, that is undoubtedly true.

But we don't have the average of all circumstances-we have the 1974 election in Tulsa County and Mr. Kirkpatrick's own figures show us that it is not true in this election, that there was greater split-ticket voting in the paper ballot areas and in Oklahoma County than there was in Tulsa and in the other two you had the opportunity to vote, at least in a complicated sense, to vote a straight ticket-you had to pull three levers in this instance, not four, as in a Presidential year.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, that quotation went on to say-you underlined it for emphasis:

This becomes evident when we divide our sample into those voting in states with single choice type of straight ticket voting and those in which a straight ticket requires more than one mark.

Now, was the point there that the more marks necessary, the greater the likelihood of split-ticket voting?

Dr. PENNIMAN. This would be, I take it, their point. My point in underlining it was that a Tulsa machine is, of course, not a single-lever machine and that therefore this evidence is unrelated to the Tulsa County situation.

The CHAIRMAN. Would that be a logical assumption, then, that the more marks necessary, the greater the likelihood of split-ticket voting? Dr. PENNIMAN. Yes, sir, I think that is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. So that comes back to the basic question I asked you a little while ago.

Dr. PENNIMAN. Only as an average and only in general terms, sir. It is not true for any given election in any single jurisdiction.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, let's say, on the average, in general terms, it would be true that the more marks you have to put on the ballot, the more likelihood there is of split-ticket voting?

Dr. PENNIMAN. That is in general correct, but this does not permit us to say anything about any given election. Indeed their own evidence makes clear that in this election where straight-ticket voting was greater apparently in Tulsa County where you did have to make more marks than were needed in the rest of the State where you could vote a straight ticket by making only one mark on each of three paper ballots or by levers on three columns of a machine.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, you conclude your statement on page 12 by saying: "** "*** there is no reason to doubt the validity of the outcome as reported in November 1974."

Now, do you mean by that that the outcome would have been exactly the same, in your opinion, had all the instructions for voting been

truthful, had the straight-party levers been on the machine, and had the Senate race occupied its legal position on the ballot?

Dr. PENNIMAN. Well, I say I have no reason or no evidence to the contrary; yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, do you believe that the outcome would have been exactly the same under those conditions?

Dr. PENNIMAN. Yes, sir, I believe that Mr. Bellmon would have won and Mr. Edmondson lost.

The CHAIRMAN. Then you disagree with Professors Miller and Kirkpatrick that each of these factors tend to weigh against the Democrat and in favor of the Republican?

Dr. PENNIMAN. I think the evidence is almost overwhelming that it did not, sir, because you did in fact have a larger turnout than usual rather than a smaller one, that you had a higher relationship of the vote for Senator, as compared with Governor, than in the normal situation, that on the specific instances of the impact, on the ballots to which I was addressing myself, it had no impact on the rank order in which people voted for candidates. So, I would find it very hard to find evidence that would contradict what I am saying.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, do you agree that a Democrat can be expected to vote Democratic, unless some very unusual circumstance causes him to shift?

Dr. PENNIMAN. Good heavens, no. This is the real point of these huge registration figures as compared with the small votes which the Democratic candidates for President, Governor and Senate get. They obviously split the tickets with great regularity in Tulsa County.

The CHAIRMAN. Then, that being the case, in the light of your answer, you must have been in error, then, when you said in your book, "The American Political Process," in 1962-and I quote:

The voter, in other words, does not rethink his political preference for each election. Rather he may be expected to vote with the party with which he has identified himself, unless some very unusual circumstances cause him to shift. I believe that is your exact language.

Dr. PENNIMAN. That is correct and that is in general terms—and I am sorry, sir, that in general I based it on what was then an acceptance of-too quick an acceptance of a book by Campbell, Converse, Miller, and Stokes, which has overemphasized that position, and so much so that indeed they retreated from that position in 1968. The book from which you are quoting was written in 1962, and I did accept at that time more fully than even they accept it now-and certainly more fully than I would now wish to do.

The CHAIRMAN. So, you completely disagree with that statement in your book now?

Dr. PENNIMAN. I don't say I completely disagree with it. I say it is an overstatement of the case.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, on page 31 of "The American Political Process," you state: "More often the party allegiance of voters is decisive."

Is that still the case, in your judgment?

Dr. PENNIMAN. The allegiance of voters in most circumstances is an important, maybe more important, single factor than any other one. This is obviously not the case, and has not been the case, in the south since 1948, and it is not the case, and has not been the case, in Tulsa

County since 1920. Prior to 1920, curiously enough, you know, Tulsa County was Democratic. Tulsa County voted Democratic from 1907 to 1918. In those years there was a small turnout but a heavy Democratic margin. In 1920, when the big turnouts began the situation changed so that while registration continued to be registered heavily Democratic, the vote for prestige offices has been heavily Republican ever since, with the minor exceptions that I have noted.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you again, then, do you agree that that statement is correct or do you now say that it is incorrect: "More often the party allegiance of voters is decisive." Those were your words, not mine.

Dr. PENNIMAN. If you are looking for-in general terms now-what is most likely to be important in my vote, particularly if you include all the elections and you are getting down near the bottom of the ballot-I don't know how it is out in Nevada-but where I live here in Maryland, we have got as many as 40 places we have got to vote for. And I run out of names that I know after a while.

And if I run out of names that I know, then the best guide I have is my party allegiance. Particularly at the lower end of the ballot this is important. It becomes less important-and almost all the literature makes clear that it is less important-when you are dealing with the three prestige offices. If one deals with all the offices, then, again, it may be different in Nevada, and in any case, you undoubtedly know more of the people than I do-but in Montgomery County, in Maryland, I just run out of knowledge of candidates after a while and the only thing I can do is vote my party.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, then, if we limited that to the three prestige. offices, you would say that this statement is not true, then: "More often the party allegiance of voters is decisive."

Dr. PENNIMAN. The personality and the position of the candidates combined would be more important than the party, yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. On page 92 of the same book, talking about the Massachusetts type ballot, you state that causing the voter to vote separately on candidates for every office-and I quote "encourages the voter to split his ticket."

Is that still a true statement, in your judgment?

Dr. PENNIMAN. Yes; and in some senses that is the characteristic of this machine, because it does cluster them, as you know, in the same manner as the Massachusetts ballot, though it is true that you can vote your clusters by party, but you can't vote a straight ticket, which is what this is referring to-by pulling a single lever which is the situation to which the quote refers.

The CHAIRMAN. But it does encourage him to split his ticket if he can't vote a straight ballot?

Dr. PENNIMAN. It makes it easier for him to do so, yes, sir.
The CHAIRMAN. Senator Griffin?

Senator Clark?

Thank you very much, Dr. Penniman.

Senator GRIFFIN. Senator Hatfield left something here that he wanted to put in the record. It relates to some of the testimony.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be included in the record.

[The material referred to above follows:]

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