Elections

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• Elections

American Government Continuity and Change 9th
Edition OConnor and Sabato
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Just a review..
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Patterns in Voter Turnout

• Turnout the proportion of the voting-age public
  that votes
• 40 of the eligible adult population votes
• 25 are occasional voters
• 35 rarely vote

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Patterns in Voter Turnout

• Education Voters tend to be more educated
• Income Consistent voters have higher incomes
• Age Younger people vote less
• Gender Women vote at the same rate or slightly
  higher rate than men
• Race and Ethnicity
• Whites vote more regularly than African Americans
  related to income and educational differences
  in the two groups
• Hispanics vote less than African Americans
• Have potential to wield much influence given
  their increasing size
• Interest in politics Those interested in
  politics vote more

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Why Is Voter Turnout So Low?

• Too Busy
• Difficulty of Registration
• Difficulty of Absentee Voting
• Number of Elections
• Voter Attitudes
• Weakened Influence of Political Parties

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Efforts to Improve Voter Turnout

• Easier Registration and Absentee Voting
• Make Election Day a Holiday
• Strengthen Parties
• Other suggestions
• Holding fewer elections
• Proportional representation system for
  congressional elections
• Saturday or Sunday election day
• Making voting mandatory
• Tax credits for voting
• Election weeks rather than election days
• Internet voting FRAUD CONCERNS

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Patterns in Vote Choice

• Party Identification
• Most powerful predictor voter behavior
• Ticket-splitting voting for candidates of
  different parties for various offices in the same
  election
• Race and Ethnicity
• Whites increased tendency to vote Republican
• African Americans vote overwhelmingly for
  Democrats
• Hispanics also tend to identify with and vote for
  Democrats
• Women today more likely to support Democratic
  candidates
• Gender gap varies by election
• Poor vote more often for Democrats wealthier for
  Republicans
• Ideology related closely to vote choice
• Conservatives for Republicans
• Liberals for Democrats

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• Voting What do you think?
• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vZG_IG-S1bfE

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Assignment

• I want you to write 4 reflections of at least 5
  sentences.  You'll be sharing these tomorrow with
  a small group
• 1. Watch this clip (and maybe the next one) and
  write whether or not you agree with John Stossel.
• 2. Argue both sides for literacy tests being a
  requirement for voting - for and against.
• 3. Argue that the voting age should stay 18 and
  then argue that it should be raised to 21.
• 4. Ask a person to share their voting experience
  (or feelings about voting) with you and summarize
  it.
• 5. Come up with three suggestions to improve
  voter turnout.

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Purposes of Elections

• Regular free elections
• guarantee mass political action
• enable citizens to influence the actions of their
  government
• Popular election confers legitimacy on a
  government that can be achieved no other way
• Regular elections also ensure that government is
  accountable to the people it serves

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Purposes of Elections

• Electorate
• Citizens eligible to vote
• Mandate
• A command, indicated by an electorates voters,
  for the elected officials to carry out their
  platforms
• Sometimes the claim of a mandate is suspect
  because voters are not so much endorsing one
  candidate as rejecting the other

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Primary Elections

• Election in which voters decide which of the
  candidates within a party will represent the
  party in the general election.
• Closed primary a primary election in which only
  a partys registered voters are eligible to vote
• Open primary a primary in which party members,
  independents, and sometimes members of the other
  party are allowed to vote
• Blanket primary a primary in which voters can
  cast votes back and forth between candidates from
  any party.

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Primary voting can bring

• Crossover voting participation in the primary of
  a party with which the voter is not affiliated
• Raiding An organized attempt by voters of one
  party to influence the primary results of the
  other party
• Runoff primary a second primary election
  between the two candidates receiving the greatest
  number of votes in the first primary

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General Elections

• General elections are those in which voters
  decide which candidates will actually fill
  elective public offices
• Held at many levels
• Contests between the candidates of opposing
  parties

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Initiative, Referendum, and Recall

• Initiative
• An election that allows citizens to propose
  legislation and submit it to the state electorate
  for popular vote
• Referendum
• An election whereby the state legislature submits
  proposed legislation to the states voters for
  approval
• Recall
• Voters can remove an incumbent from office by
  popular vote
• Are very rare

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Presidential Elections

• Primary elections or caucuses are used to elect
  national convention delegates which choose the
  nominee
• Winner-take-all primary
• Proportional representation primary
• Caucus

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Primaries v. Caucuses

• Primaries

• Caucuses

• More democratic
• More representative
• A rigorous test for the candidate

• Caucus participants more informed more
  interactive and informative
• Unfair scheduling affects outcomes
• Frontloading (being first in the primary
  calendar) gives some primary states an advantage
• Frontloading is the tendency to choose an early
  date on the primary schedule

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2012 Primary Results
http//www.cnn.com/election/2012/primaries.html
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The Party Conventions

• Out-of-power party holds its convention first,
  usually in late July/August, followed in
  August/Sept by party holding the presidency
• Conventions were decision-making body in the 19th
  century
• Today the convention is fundamentally different
• Nominations settled well in advance of the
  convention because of primaries

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For a review on all things elections.

• https//www.youtube.com/watch?vWfrXIGclkLA

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National Convention Schedule

• Day 1
• Keynote speaker
• Day 2
• Announcement of party platform

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National Convention Schedule

• Day 3
• Candidate nomination speeches
• Balloting from the states (majority rule)
• Winner (party nominee) names a VP running mate
• Day 4
• Confirm party nomination
• Nominee Acceptance speech
• Campaign Kickoff

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2012 National Conventions

• Democrats

• Republicans

• September 3 6, 2012
• Charlotte, NC
• http//www.demconvention.com/

• August 27 30, 2012
• Tampa, FL
• www.gopconvention2012.com

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National Conventions The News Media

• Changing nature of coverage
• No prime time coverage on some days
• Extending coverage on the final day of each
  convention
• Reflects change in political culture
• More interest in the candidates themselves
• Convention still generates much coverage for the
  party

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The Electoral Collegehttps//www.youtube.com/watc
h?vW9H3gvnN468

• Representatives of each state who cast the final
  ballots that actually elect a president
• Total number of electors for each state equal to
  the number of senators and representatives that a
  state has in the U.S. Congress
• District of Columbia is given 3 electoral votes
  (23rd Amendment)

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The Electoral College

• States are winner takes all
• Emphasis is placed on heavily populated states
• Maine and Nebraska are the exceptions and use
  proportional voting
• Vote of Electors
• First Monday after first Wednesday in December
• Counted before joint session of Congress in
  January by the Vice President.

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The Electoral College

• Result of compromise between
• Selection by Congress versus direct popular
  election
• Three essentials to understanding the design of
  the Electoral College
• Constructed to work without political parties
• Constructed to cover both the nominating and
  electing phases of presidential selection
• Constructed to produce a nonpartisan president

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The Electoral College in the 19th Century

• 12th Amendment (1804)
• Attempt to remedy the confusion between the
  selection of vice presidents and presidents that
  emerged in the election of 1800
• Provided for separate elections for each office,
  with each elector having only one vote to cast
  for each
• In event of a tie, the election still went to the
  House
• Top three candidates go to House
• Each state House delegation casts one vote

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The Electoral College in the Twentieth and
Twenty-First Centuries

• Electoral college crises
• At times a candidate can win the Electoral
  College vote without having won the popular vote
• Reapportionment matters
• Representation of states in the Electoral College
  is altered every ten years to reflect population
  shifts
• Party in power can work to earn more districts as
  new lines are drawn.

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Congressional Elections

• Very different from presidential elections
• Lesser known candidates, more difficulty getting
  media attention
• Incumbency Advantage
• Better known
• Fundraising is easier
• Can use office resources (franking privilege,
  staff, travel, etc)
• Can cite work already done in Washington

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Congressional Elections

• When incumbents lose it is generally due to
• Redistricting
• Gerrymandering
• Scandals
• Presidential Coattails
• Senators are less likely to be reelected than
  Reps

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https//www.youtube.com/watch?vYcUDBgYodIE
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Other district lines

• http//www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/planning/2013
  -14AttendanceZones_High.pdf
• Our district
• https//www.govtrack.us/congress/members/GA/6

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Midterm Congressional Elections

• Election takes place in the middle of a
  presidential term
• Presidents party usually loses seats in midterms
• Tendency for voters to punish the presidents
  party more severely in the sixth year of an eight
  year presidency - 6th year itch
• Retrospective voting
• Senate elections less inclined to the 6th year
  itch

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Reforming the Electoral Process

• Focus on the Electoral College
• Other areas
• Nomination
• Regional primaries
• Campaign Finance Reform
• Online Voting
• Voting by Mail
• Modernizing the Ballot

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Electoral College 2008
Obama 69,456,897 365 McCain 59,534,814
173
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2008 Presidential Election

• Voting Age Population 231,229,580
• Turnout 132,618,580
• 56.8

• Obama raised 532,946,511 and spent 513,557,218
• McCain raised 379,006,485 and spent 346,666,422

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Electoral Projections 2012 http//www.washingtonpo
st.com/wp-srv/special/politics/election-map-2012/p
resident/
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