chapter 14
Australian ballot: government prints ballots, registered voters ask for ballot to be sent to them, ballot is returned in secret
Party column ballot: organizes the candidates by party, so that all of a given party’s candidates for every office are arranged in one column
Coattail effect: down ballot candidates benefit from the popularity of the top of the ticket nominee. (People only knew about Obama, so they voted democrat down the rest of the ticket)
Office block ballot: arranges all candidates for a particular office under the name of that office (more likely to encourage ticket splitting- dividing votes betweeen candidates from different parties)
Absentee voting: voters cast their ballots in advance by mail (was only allowed when disability, illness, school, work, serviced in the armed forces, or travel prevented voters from casting a ballot in their voting precincts traditionally, but now many states accept mail ballots more freely)
Oregon, Washington, Colorado, California, and parts of Utah all send mail ballots as a norm
Process of running for office
Motivation: civic responsibility, party loyalty, increasing candidates name recognition, personal goals
Article I of the Constitution specifies some minimum criteria to be a federal office holder
President needs to be 35 years old, natural born citizen, or and resident of the U.S. for 14 years
Vice President needs to be 35 years old, natural born citizen, can’t be a resident of the same state that the president is
U.S. senator needs to be a citizen for at least 9 years, be 30 years old, and resident of the state
U.S. representative needs to be a citizen for at least 7 years, be 25 years old, and resident of the state
Candidates are expected to be “qualified” - already in office, a college degree, considerable professional and leadership experience, strong communication skills, etc.
Primary election: comes first, determines party’s nominees (picking someone from the party- not party against party)
Caucuses: meetings of party members where the delegates are chosen
General election: nominees run against each other, voters decide who should hold office (republican v democrat)
Popular vote determines which candidates delegates will attend the party’s nominating convention
Blanket/open primaries: both parties will vote for
Closed primary: specific party will vote for
Super Tuesday: the day in early March on which the most presidential primary elections take place. A LOT OF VOTES
CITIZENS UNITED
Runoff election: no candidate receives the majority of the votes cast
Instant runoff election: voters rank candidates in order of preference
Recall: taking someone out of office
Proposition: citizen driven legislation
Campaign consultant: runs campaign (theme, how to advertise)
Prospective voting: voting based on their promises and goals, but because you know anything about them
Retrospective voting: votes based on record and past decisions or actions
Saliency: an issue that voters actually care about
Voter fatigue, lack of efficacy, structure of elections, and the rational choice theory are some of the reasons why people don’t vote
Rational choice theory: what is the benefit of this vs that
Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission:
Hard money: money that is given directly to a candidate, has always been regulated
Soft money: given either to a political party, interest group, etc. and regulation has fluctuated. This money isn’t given to candidate themselves
PAC: Political action committee. 25 people can from one, limit to amount of money given to a PAC. Outside group that kind of acts like a political party.
SUPER PAC: can spend or take in unlimited amounts of money, but can not talk to candidates
Federal corrupt practices act of 1925: puts limit on amount of money being able to be given to candidates
FECA: Significantly cuts amount of money that can be given directly to a candidate
FECA was amended- could give more soft money, but kept the hard money restrictions
If you are giving money for candidates, you have to publicly say who you are, whether it is soft money, hard money, or PAC
Buckley v Vale: an individual could spend as much of their own wealth as they wished on their own campaign
McCain-Feingold Act-
Limited hard money
Placed significant limits on soft money
Union, interest group, PAC- can’t run ads at all
Candidate only ads within 60 days before election
Every political ad has to end with who paid for it
Citizens United created Hillary: The Movie, which hates on Hillary, It was supposed to air right before the day of the democratic primary. They were told it couldn’t be aired because it was by an interest group and it was clearly against Hillary. Citizens United sues, SC says that money is speech (any restriction of speech has to pass the tests) and that businesses are people (businesses have the same rights as people). Federal gov attempting to limit hard money is perfectly fine because it protects the integrity of elections. Limits on soft money are also okay, but you have to define who counts as soft money. Unions, IG, and PAC can still run ads, because businesses have the rights of people. Any limits on time frames are unconstitutional, which means 4 gets overturned
Independent expenditures: any money spent in election that isn’t spent by the candidate themselves. Less regulated
527: tax-exempt group that is allowed to raise money for political activities, disclosure is only required if group engages in activities that expressly advocating for the election or defeat of a federal candidate