Section 10 - Elections

What makes U.S. Elections Unique?

• Lots of separate elections, all with fixed terms and on a fixed day.

• Most votes wins, no proportional prize.

• VAP vs. VEP: Voting Age Population (everyone old enough to vote) vs. Voting Eligible Population (excludes non-citizens, felons in some states, etc.)

  • Turnout looks lower when measured against VAP.

History of Voting Rights

• Founding: most states limited voting to white, landowning men.

• Jacksonian era (1830s-40s): property requirements loosened

• 15th Amendment (1870s): race can’t near voting

• 19th (1920s): women’s suffrage

• 23rd (1961): DC gets electoral votes

• 26th (1971): voting age lowered to 18

• Native Americans: most states allowed starting 1948 (New Mexico was last)

What Affects Participation?

• Top two factors: education & age

• Religion, race, community ties, strong partisanship, wealth, gender/sex

• GOTV: Get out to vote; direct mobilization (contacting voters) vs. indirect (through media/groups)

• Low turnout causes: too busy, registration hurdles, absentee voting rules, too many elections, attitudes, polls open during work hours, closed places.

• Question raised: if you have a right to participation, do you have a right not to?

How Voters Choose

• Biggest cue: party identification

• Other cues: incumbency, personal connection, candidate traits, even appearance/height

• Prospective voting: Judge based on past performance

• Single-issue voters: vote on one issue regardless of position on others.

What Candidates do?

• Get their message out and connect with the public

• Debates: reach voters, but risky; a chance to shine if expectations are low

• Negative campaigning

The Electoral College

• Indirect election: never worked as the framers planned

• Need a majority (270), not just a plurality

• LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Carter all endorsed replacing it with direct election

• Effects on candidates:

  • 11 states produce 270 electoral votes

  • Candidates focus on swing states and ignore safe ones

  • Can lose the popular vote but still win

  • Can magnify a narrow popular win into a bigger electoral margin

• Nebraska and Maine: split their electoral votes by House district (Nebraska = 3 districts & Maine = 2 districts)

  • Other 48 states are winner-take-all policy

How it Works (Ex: Texas 2020)

• Electors = House seats + Senators (36+2=38)

• Each party picks a slate of loyal electors

• Voters vote on Election day: winner of the state gets that party’s whole slate

• State finalize by Dec. 8

• Dec 14: electors meet in state capitals and cast ballots, singing 6 certificates (1 to VP/Senate Pres, 2 to Archivist, 2 to Secretary of State, 1 to local judge)

• Dec 23: deadline for the Senate Pres to receive votes

• Jan 6: Congress counts votes at 1pm in the House , chaired by the VP. Read alphabetically (Objection requires both house and senate member)

• Governed by the Electoral Count Act of 1887

No Majority?

• House picks President: each state gets 1 vote

• Senate picks VP: each senator gets 1 vote

Campaign Finance

• FECA (1971); FEC created 1976

• Hard money: direct contributions to candidates (limited, disclosed)

• Soft money: unregulated money for party-building; banned for parties in 2002

• Independent spending: by people/groups not coordinated with a campaign

• Parties may coordinate spending on congressional candidates (often with strings attached)

• Citizens United (2010): removed limits on spending by organizations (corporations, unions), treating them as having First Amendment rights

• Result: two systems: (1) money to candidates is limited and disclosed; (2) outside money has fewer limits and less disclosure

• Presidential spending: 2004: $1B → 2008: $2B → 2012: $2.6B → 2016: $2.4B (6.5B total) → 2020: ~$6.6B (14B total)

• Debate: should campaigns be fully private? Concerns that only the rich can win and winners owe favors to donors

• Where money goes: Senate = more TV; House = more mailings; small amounts for speeches/door-knocking. Money is self-reinforcing (money attracts more money).

527s vs. 501s

• Tax-exempt; can use unlimited soft money for voter mobilization and issue ads

• Must report to the IRS; cannot coordinate w/ candidates

• No contribution limits, and who runs them can be murky

501 (c) types (IRS tax code designations for nonprofits)

• (c)(3): religious, charitable, scientific, educational. No political activity, but can do some voter registration

• (c)(4): social welfare groups; can lobby and join campaigns if not their main purpose. Donations not dedutable, but donors needn’t be disclosed

• (c)(5): Labor and agriculture groups

• (c)(6): business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, boards of trade