yes, people do vote like this. All the time. Most people don't bother or are too busy with their lives to research the details of what is presented to them in town meetings, etc.

Want proof? Read the comments in this thread and count how many of them talk about things like distnace from people's houses, or how the pointer in the map someone posted to is on the side closer to the highway and not the side closest to the houses, etc. None of them bothered to search for that information in any detail, even though the docs, some pdf docs with maps, plans an legends, clearly who this being built right up to these people's properties. Oh, and one of the homes is owned by the realty place behind the project, and the site access is via this one property's driveway.

People vote on dumb crap because it makes them feel good all the time.

I should know. I live in a town with a law that says if a tree in public land is taken down for any reaons, the town will plant 4 new trees to replace it. There is a fund to pay for the threes, the work to have them planted, and make sure they're supported by cables so they are safe until the roots grow and the tree can stand by itself and not fall with a wind, pay the works involved in the planting etc. etc, etc.

What could ever be possibly wrong with that? Is that not an aweseomthing?

The town can't plant any new trees! It has not public land where it can plant new trees! Parks? Nope! They're parks where children play, can't take the monkey bars out to plant a tree! What about side walks? Nope! We have very few sidewalks and they either already have trees on them or there are utlities goino over or under the sidewalks that keep them from planting tress there either! Well, public parking places? Nope, those already have all the tress they can fit without taking up any of the parking spaces!

it was such a great idea to pass a law that guarantees 4 new tree trees were planted every time they had to take one down for any reason, like the own that died because utlity work required destroying most of the roots of a over 200 year old tree, that __no one bothered to even look at whether it was possible to plant new trees in town!!!!__

But wait, there's more! We still have to take trees down for watever reasons. But we can't use those funds for anything else! We got millions in a fund that cannot be used by anything, other than planting tress that will never be planted.

So realy, do you really think people do not just vote for stuff because they feel good about it, even if it does not make sense?