Campaigns, Elections and Voting Behavior

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Chapter 8 Campaigns, Elections and Voting Behavior
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• Who Is Eligible to Run for Office
• there are few eligibility requirements to run for
  most U.S. offices
• President
• must be a natural born citizen
• must be 35 years old
• must be a resident of the country for 14 years
  before inauguration
• Vice President
• must be a natural born citizen
• must be 35 years old
• must not be a resident of the same state as the
  presidential candidate
• Senate
• must be a citizen for at least nine years
• must be 30 years old
• must be a resident of the state from which
  elected

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• The Modern Campaign Machine
• longer campaigns than in past times
• greater emphasis on funds
• lesser emphasis on political parties
• greater reliance on political consultants, who
  are hired to devise a campaign strategy
• greater emphasis on candidate visibility, or name
  recognition
• greater use of polls and focus groups
• tracking polls -- indicate how well a campaign
  is going by polling nearly every day
• focus groups -- are small groups of people
  consultants use to gather information about
  reactions to candidates and issues

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• Regulating Campaign Finance
• Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925
• limited election expenses for candidates
• required disclosures
• was ineffective because of its many loopholes
• The Hatch Act of 1939
• prohibited groups from spending more than 3
  million in a campaign
• limited individual contributions to committees to
  5,000
• designed to end influence peddling
• Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) of 1972
• restricted mass media expenditures
• limited contributions by candidate and family
  members
• required disclosure of all contributions over 80
• provided 1 voluntary check-off for presidential
  campaigns on federal income tax form

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• Regulating Campaign Finance (cont.)
• Amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act
  of 1974
• created the Federal Election Commission
• provided public financing of presidential
  elections
• limited presidential election campaign spending
• limited contributions
• required disclosure of contributions and
  expenditures
• allowed corporations, unions and special interest
  to establish political action committees (1976
  amendment)
• Buckley v. Valeo (1976) declared the 1972
  limitation on what an individual could spend on
  his or her own election unconstitutional

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• Beyond Campaign Finance Law
• Soft Money contributions to parties that escape
  the limits of federal election law
• Soft money the Supreme Court said that party
  building activities (like voter registration
  drives and education) should be encouraged, thus
  allowing unlimited and unregulated contributions
  to political parties
• Independent (issue advocacy) expenditures are
  non-regulated funds spent by individuals or
  interest groups on advertising or other campaign
  activities that are not coordinated with any
  candidates expenditures
• Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 -
  increases the limit on individual contributions
  to federal candidates from 1,000 to 2,000 and
  increases amount one can give to all federal
  candidates in a two-year period from 25,000 to
  95,000
• Bundling is the practice of adding together
  maximum individual contributions and presenting
  them to the candidate together to maximize their
  impact

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• What is a Presidential Primary?
• a statewide primary election of delegates to a
  partys national convention to help a party
  determine its presidential nominee
• The purpose was to open the nomination process to
  ordinary party members and to weaken the power of
  party bosses
• Until 1968 there were few primaries. Most were
  just Beauty Contests that didnt factor into
  the convention nomination process
• National Conventions were a gathering of the
  party elite where deals were made between
  candidates and delegates were informed who to
  vote for
• McGovern-Fraser Commission changed the way
  nominations work

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• Types of Presidential Primaries
• closed primary only voters who are declared
  party members can vote in that partys primary
• open primary voters can vote in either party
  primary without disclosing their party
  affiliation. Must choose one party, though.
• blanket primary voters can vote in primary
  elections for candidates of more than one party
  (a Democrat for the presidential nominee and a
  Republican for the Senate nominee, for example)
• run-off primary if no candidate receives a
  majority in the first primary, some states
  require a second primary between the top two
  candidates

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• The Electoral College
• Electors in the Electoral College actually elect
  the president and vice president of the United
  States (538 electors)
• the numbers of electors in each state is equal to
  that states number of representatives in both
  houses of Congress, CA 55
• electors typically cast their votes for the
  candidate that receives the plurality of votes in
  that state. (not what framers envisioned)
• The first Monday after the second Tuesday in Dec.
• Ballots are counted and certified by Congress in
  Jan.
• because of the winner-take-all system of the
  electoral college, it typically serves to
  exaggerate the popular margin of victory

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• Why Dont People Vote?
• political withdrawal fewer citizens feel
  involved enough in their community to be
  interested in voting
• rational ignorance people choose not to inform
  themselves on issues because they do not believe
  their vote is likely to be a deciding factor
• campaign effects the length of campaigns and
  negative advertising may drive voters away

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How elections are conducted

• Australian ballot
• Office-block ballot
• Party-column ballot
• Coattail effect
• Mail ballots
• Vote fraud

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Voting

• Low voter turnout (apathy or satisfaction?)
• Legal restrictions on voting
• Citizen, age, and residency
• How do voters decide?
• Socioeconomic factors (next slide)
• Psychological factors
• Party identification, perception of candidates
  (emotions), Issue preferences (economy, foreign
  policy)
• Are issues more important than image and party
  loyalty?

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• Factors that Influence Who Votes
• age The older you are the more you vote
• educational attainment The more education the
  more you vote
• minority status Whites vote more, but blacks are
  close
• geographic location Dems. North, East cities,
  GOP rural except South
• income levels The wealthier you are the more you
  vote
• two-party competition States with higher
  competition in an election get more people to
  turn out to vote

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• Factors that Influence How People Vote
• Education More Education Republican Less
  Education - Democrat
• Income and socioeconomic status Higher Rep.
  Lower Demos.
• Religion Protestants Rep. Catholics/Jews
  Demos.
• Ethnic background Northern Europeans Rep.
  Others Demos.
• Gender The Gender Gap varies from election to
  election
• Age Older Rep. Younger Demos.
• Geographic region Coastal Demos. Inland
  Rep.
• Psychological factors
• party identification The most important
  determinant in voting behavior in national
  elections. This is caused by political
  socialization
• perception of the candidates Based on emotions
  rather than experience
• issue preferences issue voting it is difficult
  to determine how issues overshadow party loyalty
  or candidate personality in voters
• Issues could be economic, foreign, or social

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• Hot Links to Selected Internet Resources
• http//www.wadsworth.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_prod
  ucts_wp.pl?fidM2discipline_number20product_isb
  n_issn0534592651
• http//www.wadsworth.com/politicalscience
• http//www.fec.gov
• http//www.opensecrets.org

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