Unit 9 Campaigns, Elections, and Voting

Fair, Independent Elections

Popular soveriegnty -

Political participation

  • campaigns, elections, voting

3 Types of Elections

A. Nominations and Primary Elections

  1. Primary - comes first, determines party's nominees (runs for office)

  • 1st New Hampshire

  1. Caucuses - meetings of party members where delegates are chosen, pyramid structure from local precincts to state's convention

  • 1st Iowa

  1. General Election - parties’ respective nominees run against each other & voters decide who should hold office

  1. Presidential primaries - popular vote determines which candidate's delegates will attend the party's nominating convention to vote

Primary vs. Presidential Primary

  • Primary - votes directly for candidate, person who receives 51% of vote gets to run in general election

  • Presidential primary - voters NOT directly voting for candidate; person earns delegates who promise to vote for them at National Convention

Types of Primary Elections

  • Closed primaries - only people who have registered with the party

  • Open primaries - voters decide on Election Day whether they want to vote in Democrat or Republican primary

  • Blanket primaries - voters are presented with a list of candidates from all parties

Presidential Primaries

  • Super Tuesday - in March when most presidential primaries take place

  • Frontloading - tendency of states to hold primaries early to capitalize media attention

Strengths and Weaknesses of Primary/Caucus system

  • disproportionate attention to early ones

  • prominent politicians do not run

  • money plays too big a role

  • participation is low and unrepresentative

  • too much power to media

  • STRENGTH - more democratic

Democrat pps get awarded delegates proportionally

Republican pps get awarded delegates winner-take-all

B. General Election

  • 1st Tuesday after the 1st Monday in November

    • Most Congress and state legislatures have winner-take-all

    • Runoff election - when no candidate receives the majority of the votes cast, vote again later

C. Referendum, Initiative, Recall

  • Referendum - voters can vote for or against a proposed law

  • Initiative - citizen-sponsored proposal, signatures can result in new or amended legislation

    • Proposition - after enough signatures, proposal is placed on ballot

  • Recall election - allow voters to cut short an officeholder's term

The Act of Voting

Who controls registration and voting? The States (Federalism)

A. The 2000 Election and its impact

  1. Bush v Gore, SCOTUS decided to recount votes

  2. Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) - $650M to assist states in changing from punch card ballots to electronic voting systems and set a deadline of 2005 for states to comply

B. Types of ballots

  1. Party-column ballot - groups by party

  • increases tendency to vote the "party line”

  • coattail effect - lower office candidates benefit from the popularity of top-of-the-ticket nominee

  1. Office-block ballot - groups by office

  • ticket splitting - dividing votes between candidates from different parties

C. Voting by mail

  • Absentee voting - casting votes in advance by mail

Running for Office

A. Formal eligibility requirements

  • Representatives -

  • Senator -

  • President / VP -

  • Supreme Court Justice -

The Nature of Political Campaigns Today

A. Professionalism

  1. campaign consultant - paid professional, overall management of political campaigns like fundraising or advertising

  • campaign manager - develops overall campaign strategy

    • Money, Media attention, Momentum

  • Pollster

  • Fundraising consultant

  • Media consultant

B. The Media: Transforming Political Campaigns

  1. access to information

  • TV, news sites, blogs, twitter, radio, podcasts

  1. greater responsibility to be able to discern news

Money and Politics

Political Action Committee (PAC) - amy group that provides campaign contributions to a candidate

  • contribution limits

Citizens United v Federal Election Commission (2010) - allow super PACs, unrestricted money, must be used independently of candidate/campaign

501(c)4s - nonprofit orgs that promote social welfare, lobby, or political campaign

  • unregulated by FEC, not required to transparency requirements

527 - tax-exempt group that raises money for political activities

Timeline

1925, Federal Corrupt Practices Act 

1939, Hatch Act

1971, Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA)

  • 1974, FECA amended

1976, Buckley v. Valeo

2002, Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA), McCain-Feingold Act

  • 2003, McConnell v FEC

  • 2007, FEC v Wisconsin Right to Life

2010, Citizens United v FEC

Presidential Campaigns

Nonstop campaigning

  • allows public to learn about candidates and positions

  • provides avenues for participation

Party Conventions and General Election Campaign

  • Conventions in presidential election years to select nominee

  • Nomination:  official endorsement of a canddiate for aoffice by a political party

  • Delegates: chosen to vote for certain candidates during primary elections, chosen by party

Electoral College

  • 538 electors

  • # of Congress, plus 3 for DC

  • Candidate needs simple majority (270) to win

Who Will Vote

Factors

  1. Education (2016 defied, non-educated vote for Trump)

  2. Age

  3. Race

  4. Income

  5. Party competitiveness

Close race increases voter turnout

  • voter efficacy increases

  • turnout rate: proportion of eligible voters who actually voted

How Voters Decide

  • Prospective voting - based on positions on issues

  • Retrospective voting - based on what they’ve done

  • Incumbency - already holding office are already known, more likely to get vote

  • negative campaigns suppress voter turnout

Why Some Don’t Vote