Voting and elections

Step 1

• Have to be registered—2 weeks before

• Increase turnout?• Ease registration, voting?• Require voting?• Holidays?

Partisan versus non-partisan elections

• local elections and state judges are often “non-partisan”

State elections--More “Progressive” legacy

• special elections

• recall

• Initiatives• The voice of the people or special interests?

• Constraining the role of legislators?

Primaries and General Elections

• Primary: Choosing the candidates to compete in the General Election

• General Election: choosing among the candidates to hold office

Presidential primaries (including caucuses)

• Each state and the parties choose how to elect delegates to the national convention

• primary or caucus

• Primaries can be “open” (blanket), “closed” or “semi closed”

The Party Convention

• in most cases now delegates are “committed”, according to result of state’s primary

• so outcome of convention is pre-determined--just a pep-rally with a platform

General Election for President: Electoral College

• Each state gets as many electors as it has members of US House and Senate--minimum of 3 per state

• Almost every state awards its votes “winner take all”, so again electoral vote need not equal popular vote

• Abolish or Reform?

Congressional elections

• Incumbents re-elected over 90%, receive most of the money

• 435 House districts, reapportioned every 10 years by census, reflecting pop change

• State legislature determines their own districts, and for their state’s congressional reps

• Redistricting or “Gerrymandering”

Mystery state A:

60% Rep and 40% Dem

Version A--three safe Rep districts

Version B--two safe Rep, one safe Dem district

1 23

Gerrymandering, contd

• Current trend:• Computers exacerbate gerrymandering

• Types• Partisan

• Racial

• Incumbent

Incumbency Advantage

• Why?• Self-fulfilling prophecy

• term limits?• at state level, not federal

• Good and bad

Who votes?

• The old

• The educated

• The wealthy

• The white

Who Can’t

• The incarcerated, on probation or parole, or felons--depending on the state

Campaign finance

• Campaigns increasingly expensive--mostly for TV ads

TV political ads in millions

Attempts to fix the problem

• Since 70s, contributions are registered, limited, and if by corporations or unions, routed through PACs

• 1976 USSC throws out mandatory spending limits• Present effort to buck Buckley

• 2002 Campaign finance--McCain Feingold abolishes “soft money” in federal elections, continues contribution limits

• but campaign spending continues to grow

Election Reform

• Money--public funding for candidates--”clean elections”--including funds to match opponents private funding