VOTING AND ELECTIONS

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VOTING AND ELECTIONS
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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?

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Purpose of Elections
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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

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• 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

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• 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.

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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

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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)

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• 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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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• 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

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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.

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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

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Purpose of Campaigns
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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

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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.

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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?

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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

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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

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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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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).

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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.

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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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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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.

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• 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.