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VOTING AND ELECTIONS

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Title: VOTING AND ELECTIONS


1
VOTING AND ELECTIONS
2
Elections and Democracy
  • Democratic control
  • Elections are essential for democratic politics.
  • Elections are the principal means by which
    popular sovereignty and majority rule are
    supposed to work.
  • Can elections ensure that governments will do
    what the people want?

3
Purpose of Elections
4
Political Participation
  • Political participation refers to political
    activity by individual citizens.
  • Unconventional participation includes
    activities such as demonstrations and boycotts
  • Conventional participation includes activities
    such as voting, writing letters, contacting
    officials, giving money

5
  • Expansion of the franchise
  • The franchise was quite restricted in the early
    years of the United States.
  • The expansion of the right to vote has been one
    of the most important developments in the
    political history of the United States.
  • Direct partisan elections

6
  • The vanishing electorate
  • Suffrage expanded to more groups during the first
    century of American history, and larger and
    larger proportions voted.
  • Voter turnout rate in the U.S. is very low
    compared with other modern industrialized
    countries.
  • The ideal of political equality is violated by
    low rates of voter turnout.

7
Barriers to Voting
  • Causes of low voter turnout
  • Registration
  • Eligibility rules Cal. (illegal under 18,
    noncitizen,state resident requirements, non
    prisoners/parolees, non legally insane)
  • Alienation and apathy about politics that many
    Americans felt after the 1960s

8
California Registration
  • The deadline November 5, 2002 General Election
    is October 21, 2002. Register criteria 1.
    United States citizen 2. resident of California
    3. at least 18 years of age (or by next
    election date)

9
  • 4. not in prison or on parole for conviction of
    a felony 5. not been judged by a court to be
    mentally incompetent to register and vote

10
You will need to re-register when
  • You move You change your name change your
    political party affiliation Fill-out a Voter
    Registration Form Online We recommend you use
    this service at least one month prior to election
    day to avoid missing your opportunity to vote due
    to postal delays.

11
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12
Campaigning Involvement
  • Despite low voter turnout levels, Americans are
    more likely than people in other countries to
    participate actively in campaigns.
  • Areas of involvement
  • Contact officials
  • Give money
  • Attend meetings
  • Attend political rallies
  • Work actively in a campaign organization

13
Who Participates?
  • Characteristics of voters and nonvoters
  • There is class bias in voting and other forms of
    political participation.
  • Some statistical analyses indicate that the
    crucial factor in voter turnout is the level of
    formal education.
  • Income level may be more important than education
    in affecting who actually votes.

14
Does It Matter Who Votes?
  • Two contrasting points of view
  • The rate of participation is unimportant because
    the preferences of those who vote are similar to
    those who do not vote.
  • A low voter turnout rate may be a positive factor
    since more educated people vote.
  • Nonvoters are clearly different from voters.
  • How participation can make a change
  • Broader participation would increase popular
    sovereignty and political equality.

15
Types of Elections
  • Primary election direct partisan elections
    where voters decide which of the candidates
    within a party will represent the partys ticket
    in the general election
  • Closed primaries party registered voters to
    cast a ballot
  • Open primaries allows independents to vote

16
  • Blanket primaries voters casts ballots in
    either partys primary (but not both) on an
    office by- office basis
  • Runoff primary a second primary election among
    candidates receiving the greatest number of votes
    in the first primary
  • Nonpartisan primary done in Californias local
    elections
  • General Elections voters decide which candidate
    will fill public office

17
Elections voters making Laws
  • Applies to Cal. around 17 other States (famous
    proposition s-13, 5, 215)
  • Initiative voters propose legislation to be
    place on the state ballot
  • Referendum allows a legislative statute from
    taking effect.
  • Recall allows voters to remove elected
    officials from state or local office between
    elections.

18
The Initiative Mess
  • Ballot measure represent big
  • New policy entrepreneurs can emerge
  • Campaigns increasingly rely on television
  • Elected official employ the initiative
  • Local govt workload increaseses after passage

19
Purpose of Campaigns
20
Campaigning for Office
  • Contending for a presidential nomination
  • Primaries and caucuses
  • Momentum
  • How to win factors that affect candidates
    success in gaining delegate support
  • National conventions

21
Nomination Politics and Democracy
  • However, the crucial role of party activists and
    money givers in selecting candidates means that
    nominees and their policy stands are chosen
    partly to appeal to party elites and financial
    contributors, rather than to ordinary voter.

22
Money and Elections
  • Presidential campaigns cost enormous amounts of
    money.
  • The cost has increased rapidly over time.
  • The source of campaign money is far more
    problematic for democracy than the cost of
    presidential elections.
  • Where does the money come from?
  • Does money talk?

23
How Voters Decide
  • The way in which people make their voting
    decisions affects how elections contribute to
    democratic control of government.
  • Parties, candidates, and issues all have
    substantial effects on how people vote.
  • Social characteristics and party loyalties
  • Candidates
  • Issues

24
The Electoral College
  • When voting for president, American voters are
    actually voting for a slate of electors who have
    promised to support the candidate. Consequences
    of the electoral college system
  • Magnifies the popular support for winners
  • May let the less popular candidate win
  • It discourages third parties

25
How does it work?
  • Electors are allocated to the states based on
    their representation in Congress - one elector
    for each of the two Senators, one for each
    representative. For the decade of the 1990's,
    California has 54 electoral votes.

26
  • On the first Monday after the second Wednesday in
    December, the electors representing the party
    whose presidential slate garnered the most votes
    assemble in the Senate Chambers of the State
    Capitol at 200 p.m. to cast their votes, voting
    separate ballots for President and Vice
    President. The results are sealed and delivered
    to the Secretary of the United States Senate the
    Senate tallies the states' votes and officially
    declares the President.

27
  • Electors are paid 10 plus mileage (5 per mile)
    for the round trip from their homes to the
    Capitol. Arrangements for the college meeting are
    handled through the Governor's office.

28
  • All states but Maine and Nebraska have a
    winner-take-all system for electors in those two
    states electoral votes are awarded
    proportionately. US Senate historian indicates
    one California instance of "faithless electors"
    -- one who voted for Wm. Jennings Bryan when the
    state went for Wm. McKinley (1900).

29
What happens if the electoral vote is a tie?
  • The House of Representatives makes the decision
    with each state having one vote. Representatives
    of at least two-thirds of the states must be
    present for the vote. If they cannot decide by
    March 4, then the Vice President becomes
    President and the person receiving the largest
    number of Vice President votes becomes Vice
    President.

30
How are electors chosen?
  • Each party determines its own method for
    selecting electors. In the Democratic Party, each
    congressional nominee and each US Senate nominee
    (determined by the last two elections) designates
    one elector whose names are filed with Secretary
    of State by October 1 of the presidential
    election year.

31
  • In the Republican Party, the nominees for
    governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer,
    controller, attorney general, secretary of state,
    United States Senators (again, going back two
    elections) the Senate and Assembly Republican
    leaders, all elected officers of the Republican
    state central committee, the national
    committeeman and committeewoman, the president of
    the Republican county central committee
    chairmen's organization and the chair or
    president of each Republican volunteer
    organization officially recognized by the state
    central committee act as electors.

32
  • No incumbent Senators, congressional
    representatives or persons holding an office of
    trust or profit of the US can serve as electors.
    American Independent electors are selected at
    the party's nominating convention, as are those
    of the Libertarian, Natural Law, and Reform
    parties, who further specify a 50/50 ratio of men
    and women.

33
  • For more information, you may want to look at the
    following sites National Archives and Records
    Administration (NARA) This site provides answers
    to frequently asked questions on the electoral
    college. Santa Cruz County Elections Department
    - What is the Electoral college? This site
    provides information on the origins of the
    electoral college, the pros and cons of the
    electoral college and the rules that govern the
    electoral college today.

34
Do Elections Matter?
  • In terms of the responsible party government
    theory...
  • Republicans tend to be more conservative than
    Democrats on a number of economic and social
    issues.
  • This provides voters with a measure of democratic
    control by enabling them to detect differences
    and make choices.

35
  • Voters exercise control in the electoral
    competition theory by either reelecting
    successful incumbents or defeating unsuccessful
    officeholders.
  • Elections force parties to compete by nominating
    centrist candidates and by taking similar popular
    positions.
  • U.S. elections help make the publics voice
    heard, but political equality is damaged by
    providing more political influence to some types
    of people than to others.
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