Was It the Ballot that Killed Obama?

From the Washington Post, by way of The Plank:

From the WaPost:

The New Hampshire ballot rules may also have played a role. In previous contests, the state rotated candidate names from precinct to precinct, but this year the names were consistently in alphabetical order, with Clinton near the top and Obama lower down. Stanford professor Jon A. Krosnick, a survey specialist, has estimated the impact of appearing high on the New Hampshire ballot at three percentage points or greater.

I have no reason--other than patriotism(!)--to think this isn't true! Or to put it another way, if this is true, what does it say about at least three percent of our country's voters?

--Isaac Chotiner

I don’t know. Biden was still on the ballot, listed above Clinton, and he only registered 616 votes (.002%). If people were smart enough to skip over him, why wouldn’t they be smart enough to skip down to Edwards or Obama if that’s whom they really supported. I’m no Stanford professor, but I think this phenomenon really applies to those election categories where people feel they need to vote for each office even if they don’t know much about who’s running – not a Presidential primary where that is the only reason you’re going to the polls.