"The Significance of Opposition Entrepreneurs on Local Sales Tax Referendum Outcomes".

In this paper, I assess the impact of the presence of opposition entrepreneurs in campaigns on affirmative vote percentages for county and school district special purpose local-option sales tax (SPLOST) proposals in counties in the Metropolitan Atlanta region. SPLOSTs are one percent sales taxes for developmental capital infrastructure projects, such as roads and new schools. The main question addressed by this paper is, how does the presence of identifiable opposition-leading entrepreneurs in SPLOST campaigns affect the affirmative (?yes?) vote percentages for these sales tax proposals? Aggregate-level county data and election specific campaign data are collected for 86 county and school district SPLOST referenda in 15 counties in the Atlanta metropolitan region during the time period spanning from 1998 through 2011. The results of OLS regression analyses support the hypothesis that the presence of opposition entrepreneurs in SPLOST campaigns reduces affirmative voting. The expectation that the existence of opposition generally would result in a decline in affirmative voting was not supported. The results suggest that opposition, by itself, is not sufficient to impact voting outcomes in tax referendum elections. Rather, consequential opposition efforts need to be led by a clear, identifiable leader. This study contributes to the overall understanding of aggregate-level voting behavior in local tax referenda with the finding that individual entrepreneurs leading opposition in tax campaigns play a significant role in tax issue election vote outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]