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Moter Voter Law
A 1993 act that requires states to permit people to register to vote when they apply for a driver's license.
Gerrymandering
Is political manipulation of boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency.
Electoral College
A unique American institution created by the Constitution, providing for the selection of the president by electors chosen by the state parties. Although the Electoral College vote usually reflects the popular majority, less political states are overrepresented and the winner-take-all rule concentrates campaigns on close states.
Grandfather Clause
Is a statutory or constitutional device enacted by seven southern states between 1895and 1910 to deny suffrage to African Americans.
Permanent Campaign
Is a political science theory and phrase. The concept of a permanent campaign also describes the focus which presidents give to electoral concerns during their tenure in office, with distinction between the time they have spent governing and the time they have spent campaigning having become blurred.
Poll Tax
Small taxes levied on the right to vote. Poll taxes were used in Southern states to exclude Black Americans from voting.
Split-Ticket Voting
Split-ticket voting occurs when a voter casts ballots for candidates from different political parties in the same election.
Suffrage
The legal right to vote, extended to Black Americans by the Fifteenth Amendment, to women by the Nineteenth Amendment, and to 18-20-year-olds by the Twenty-sixth Amendment.
Voting Rights Act (1965)
A law designed to help end formal and informal barriers to Black American Suffrage. Under the law, hundreds of thousands of Black Americans registered to vote, and the number of Black American elected officials increased dramatically.
Mandate
The idea that the winning candidate has a mandate from the people to carry out their platform and politics. Politicians like the theory better than political scientists do.
Majority-Minority Districts
Are electoral districts in which a racial or language minority comprises a voting majority. They are meant to give political opportunity to those who have been historically barred from electing politicians of their choosing.
Faithless Elector
A member of the electoral college who does not vote for the candidate for whom they had pledged to vote.
White Primary
Primary elections from which Black Americans were excluded, an exclusion that, in the heavily Democratic South, deprived Black Americans of a voice in the real contests. The Supreme Court declared white primaries unconstitutional in 1944.
Microtargeting
Involves using the huge amounts of data consumers give away online about who they are friends with and what they like to target ads at them.
Swing State
A U.S. state where the two major political parties have similar levels of support among voters, viewed as important in determining the overall result of a presidential election.
Retrospective Voting
Is the notion in political science that voters make their decisions in a given election by reflecting on the performance of the party in power over the last four years, particularly as that performance pertains to the economy.
Closed Primary
Elections to select party nominees in which only people who have registered in advance with the party can vote for the party's candidates, thus encouraging greater party loyalty.
