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