Proposition number 15: It is a violation of Community Standards for a woman to be topless at a public beach.

Summary: { ‘agreement’ wins, therefore the proposition is decreed as written. If we exclude the ‘no rule’ category, of the 81 Eligible Voters who voted agreement or disagreement, 62% voted against a woman being topless on an undesignated public beach (±10.9%, 19 times out of 20).}

Details:

Graph 15A

Graph 15B

Graph 15C

Calculation of Margin of Error:

Results:

            For women being topless at a beach:  31 votes

            No Rule:                                              13 votes

            Against women being topless: 50 votes

Comparing the ‘for’ and ‘against’ votes:

For:     31 votes±10.9%= 31 votes ±3.4 votes = a range of 27.6 to 34.4

Against: 50 votes±10.9%= 50 votes±5.5 votes = 44.5 to 55.5

            Because the two ranges do not overlap, the difference in the two numbers is statistically significant.

Overall calculation of error:

for: 50±10.1%=50±5.1= a range of 44.9 to 55.1

no rule: 13±10.1%=13±1.3= a range of 11.7 to 14.3

against: 31±10.1%=31±3.1= a range of 27.9 to 34.1

            Because the ranges do not overlap, the results are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level (i.e. 19 times out of 20). If a vote of the general Community were to be taken, we would expect a majority to vote in favour of the proposition.

Discussion of Results for Proposition Number 15: topless woman:

            Fifty out of 94 voters, (53%), sided ‘for’ the proposition that stated: it is a violation of Community Standards for a woman to be topless at a public beach. Thirty three percent voted against the proposition. The people, therefore, have enacted the proposition as stated.

            Eligible males voted mildly against (1.1:1), the proposition, (as did non-resident males), but eligible females voted in much larger numbers ‘for’ the proposition (2.5:1), more than enough to steer the final result in their direction. In fact, eligible females voted more than twice the rate ‘for’ the proposition as males voted ‘against’. Teen females voted in favour of the proposition (12:0), almost five times the rate of the eligible females. The Teen Females would have been unanimous except for one teen female who voted ‘no rule’.

            Graph 15C shows an age effect in the pattern of voting. This graph shows the fraction of female voters who voted ‘for’ the proposition as a percentage of the total number of female voters in each age category. In this graph, series one gives the ‘strongly agree’ vote double weight to demonstrate how the younger females voted ‘strongly agree’ more frequently than the older voters. Females in the age range of 20-30 appear to be the more liberal group when it comes to tops-free.

Voters Comments Section:

Community Standards Vote 2008

Ifs/ands/buts/comments on the following proposition: 15. It is a violation of  Community Standards for a woman to be topless at a public beach. Define ‘woman’ in the above question (in terms of age or stage of development):__________________________.

[Comments are typed as the various authors wrote them with no correction of spelling or editing.  Editors notes are placed within square brackets.]

[legend: M=male, F=female, number is age, X=not specified.]

-end of proposition 15-

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