SUFFRAGE, VOTING TURNOUT, AND PARTY SYSTEMS

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SUFFRAGE, VOTING TURNOUT, AND PARTY SYSTEMS

• Topic 35

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Suffrage and Voting Turnout

• Suffrage under the early Constitution
• was determined entirely by state laws
• which varied greatly from state to state.
• Moreover, voting turnout among eligible voters
  apparently was quite low.
• During the Jacksonian revolution (1825-1840)
• the right to vote was extended to almost all
  adult white males and
• party organizations waged energetic election
  campaigns,
• which greatly increased voting turnout.
• 15th Amendment (1870) no abridgement of the
  right to vote on account of race, color, or
  previous condition of servitude.
• Jim Crow system in the South (1890-1965)
• Many African-Americans were effectively
  disenfranchised.

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Suffrage and Voting Turnout

• Australian ballot and voter registration systems
  (1880-1900)
• guaranteed secret ballot
• reduce voter fraud but also
• reduced (suppressed?) voting turnout (?).
• 19th Amendment (1920) no abridgement on account
  of sex.
• 24th Amendment (1964) no abridgement by reason
  of failure to pay any poll or other tax.
• Voting Rights Act (1965)
• 26th Amendment (1971) no abridgement on account
  of age 18 or older.
• The 19th and 26th amendments increased the size
  of the electorate but (initially) reduced voting
  turnout among eligible voters.

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Voting Turnout

•                      actual vote       
  recorded Presidential vote
• Voting turnout                       
•                            potential vote    
       voting age population
• voting age population vs. eligible voters vs.
  registered voters
• Motor Voter law (KJ, p. 401)
• vote fraud/suppression
• felon disqualification

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Political Parties

• Negative popular vs. positive political science
  evalu-ations of political parties.
• Elite vs. mass view of political parties
• lessons of Presidential selection
• nominating function
• Party competition the democratic method is that
  institutional arrangement for arriving at
  political decisions in which individual acquire
  the power to decide by means of a competitive
  struggle for the peoples vote. (Joseph
  Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy,
  1942)
• The market model of democracy (Anthony Downs, An
  Economic Theory of Democracy, 1957)
• The jury model of democracy
• Party competition as a check on special
  interests and unrepresentative activists

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Two-Party vs. Multiparty Systems

• Different types of party systems result from
  different types of electoral institutions
  (Duvergers Law)
• Single-winner elections (SMDs and separate
  executives plurality voting) gt two-party
  systems.
• Typical in English-speaking countries.
• Multiple-winner elections (MMDs proportional
  representation, and no separate executives) gt
  multiparty systems
• Typical in most other countries

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Two-Party vs. Multiparty Systems (cont.)

• Different party behavior as a consequence
• Two-party systems
• catch-all parties
• relatively closely balanced elections
• relative party convergence and
• regular alternation in power.
• Multiparty systems
• historically more differentiated parties
• parties of greatly unequal size
• party divergence and
• (sometimes) a hardly changing centrist governing
  coalition.

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Weaknesses of American Political Parties

• Decentralized constitutional structure
• separation of powers
• federalism
• Absence of strict party discipline in Congress,
• due to separation of powers.
• Liberal and individualistic political culture
• social pluralism
• "catch-all" parties
• Absence of mass parties with formal dues-paying
  membership.
• The direct primary (introduced around 1900)
• deprives parties of their fundamental nominating
  function.
• Historically unique but increasingly copied in
  other countries.