Campaigns, Elections,

1
Campaigns, Elections, Voting

• Lecture 14

2

• Bad politicians are sent to Washington by good
  people who don't vote.
• William E. Simon

3
Types of Elections Primaries

• Closed
• Only party members can vote
• Allow for max party control and promote party
  unity
• Open
• Allows independents and members of other parties
• More democratic than closed primaries
• Blanket
• Voters may vote in either parties primary on an
  office-by-office basis
• Runoff
• If no candidate receives a majority, the top two
  have another contest
• Favors incumbents

4
Initiatives, referendum, recall

• Initiatives allow citizens to propose
  legislation and submit it to popular vote
• Ballot access usually determined by petition
• Referendum allows legislature to submit
  proposed legislation for popular vote
• More and more states are requiring a referendum
  for tax increases
• Recall allow citizens to remove someone from
  office
• Very rare Gray Davis ex-Governor of California

5
Presidential Election

• Every four years
• Convention delegates selected at state primaries
  and caucuses for each party
• Winner take all primary
• Proportional representation
• PR w/bonus delegate (one per district)
• Beauty contest w/separate delegates
• Not bound by election results
• Delegate selection w/no beauty contest
• Caucus closed party meeting to select delegates

6
Nomination Campaign

• Primaries or caucuses?
• Primaries
• more democratic better gauge of popular
  approval require candidate to campaign broadly
  rigorous test
• Caucuses
• Deliberative and thoughtful participation those
  involved in selection process must invest a lot
  of personal time in meetings to discuss issues
  and candidates

7
Congressional Elections

• Little media coverage
• Name recognition is ultra important
• Incumbency advantage
• Taxpayer funds
• Franking privileges (free mass mailings)
• Provide services for constituents (cut red tape)
• Mid Term Elections
• Incumbents in presidents party often lose

8
Campaign Finance

• Soft Money and Issue Advocacy Ads
• 527 groups
• Do not mention candidate but clearly favor one
  candidate or harm another one
• Political Action Committees (PAC)
• Interest groups with money to spend (NRA
  Teamsters EMILYs List
• Federal PACs are limited in the amount of money
  that they can contribute to other organizations
• at most 5,000 per candidate per election.
  Elections such as primaries, general elections
  and special elections are counted separately.
• at most 15,000 per political party per year.

9
Campaign Finance (cont.)

• Political Party Contributions
• Congressional Member to Candidate Contributions
• Personal Contribution
• Public Funds
• Presidential election only
• Places spending restrictions on candidate if they
  use public funds
• 2004 Bush did not use public funds but Kerry did
  and was limited to the 75 million lump sum.

10
Campaign Finance Reform

• Do we need more reform?
• What are some possible suggestions?

11
Voting Behavior

• Income people with higher income tend to vote
  more often
• Strong correlation between income and education
• Age older people vote more than younger people
• Gender women tend to vote for Democrats more
  than Republicans
• Race whites tend to vote more often than
  African Americans.

12
Voter Turnout

• Too Busy
• Difficulty in Registration
• Difficulty in Absentee Voting
• Number of Elections
• Voter Attitudes
• Alienation dont like candidates dont see a
  difference in candidates
• Weak Political Parties
• Not able to mobilize voters..

13
What can be done to increase voter turnout?

• Sounds like some kind of an exam question to me..