Nominations and
Elections
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Objectives
• Analyze the factors that contributed to the
development of U.S. elections.
• Understand how elections make officials accountable
to citizens.
• Describe each phase of the presidential campaign and
the strategies that determine candidates’ success.
• Examine the congressional election process and
understand what makes it so difficult to unseat
incumbent members.
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Objectives
• Identify the different types of electoral systems, the
characteristics of the SMDP system, and the effects of
this system on U.S. parties and voting.
• Analyze how the U.S. electoral affects the
representation of women and minorities in
government.
• Understand why it is difficult to regulate campaign
expenditures.
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Why are we the way
we are?
Why does it matter
to you?
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Core Questions:
The Development of Elections in the
United States
• Elections should make government
responsive to the people’s wishes.
• This is not always the case.
• U.S. elections have changed over time.
What factors
determine how
well elections
succeed in
allowing voters
to hold
politicians
responsible for
their actions?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Constitutional design
Limited direct democracy: only House
Voting requirements: property
Bit by bit the rules changed
Senate directly elected (1913)
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
Nineteenth Amendment (1920)
Twenty-Sixth Amendment (1971)
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The Development of Elections in the United States
• Historically, U.S. has been a leader in extending
voting rights.
• One of first democracies in world; fourteenth
country to grant women the right to vote.
• Do we have universal suffrage? Not quite.
• Felons: 48 states bar incarcerated prisoners from
voting (ME and VT exceptions); sometimes
permanently.
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• Election process has evolved over time.
• The government, not the parties, now print official ballots.
• Ballots include the names of candidates from all parties.
• Ballots are distributed only at polling places.
• Ballots are cast secretly, not openly.
• Together these changes are referred to as the Australian ballot
• Continued evolution
• Concern over varied voting procedures in states during 2000 election
• Clearer rules regarding voter registration
• Help America Vote Act (2012): update election equipment
• Legislation focused on making sure those not entitled to vote could not
• Photo identification at polls; longer residency requirements to
eliminate fraud
• Some oppose: argument that it disenfranchise primarily Democraticleaning groups
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The Development of Elections in the United
States
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Elections as Tools for Accountability
• Accountability: ability of voters to impose
consequences on officials for their actions;
including removal from office.
• U.S. has three types of elections:
• Primary elections: competition among
those who wish to be chosen by a party to
appear on the general election ballot
• General elections: voters make their final
choices for public officials in this election.
• Recall elections: offered in some states;
citizens may petition to have state officials
removed from office before they have
completed their term.
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The Presidential Campaign
• First step toward the presidency is winning the party
nomination.
• Must accrue a majority of party delegates.
• Delegates – individuals chosen by procedures
determined by the state.
• Procedures: primaries and caucuses with state
convention
• Other delegate types: superdelegates (Democratic Party)
and unpledged delegates (Republican Party) – these are
elected officials and members of the parties’ National
Committees.
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Primaries
• Used by a majority of states to choose party national convention
delegates since 1972.
• Voters are actually voting on list of delegates submitted by the candidate;
often do not see the names of delegates but rather the name of the
candidate on their ballot.
• Primaries are also used for most other elections as well:
congressional and local offices.
• Open primary: All voters, including independents, may vote in
whatever party primary they choose, regardless of party
registration.
• Closed primary: Voters register and designate their party
affiliation or independence. Those affiliated with a party may
vote in that party’s primary. Others may not.
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Two Key Effects of Primaries
• Crossover voting: voting in primary other than
the one affiliated with your party.
• Usually occurs when there is a more important choice
taking place in the other party. Voting to hurt the other
party is not supported by evidence.
• Independents may vote and perhaps play a
major role in the election
• Can impact who wins
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Caucuses
• Caucuses come in waves:
• Precinct level
• County or congressional district level
• State convention
• Choose which delegates will go to the national convention
• Legislatures of caucus states determine when they will be held.
• Iowa, Minnesota, and Nevada utilize them.
• Focus on grassroots conversations among neighbors and
active party supporters.
• Takes much more time to participate in than primaries require.
• Usually have lower turnouts than primaries.
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• Four Factors can help candidates become known to voters:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Prior fame
Media coverage
Volunteers
Money for advertising
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The Road to Nomination
• Early contests: IA and NH
•
Critical to nomination
• Frontloading: the movement of state’s primary or caucuses to the earliest
data that the party’s rules permit.
• Super Tuesday: bundling of the primaries/caucuses
•
When a number of states hold their contents on the same day; large number
of delegates up for grabs.
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The National Convention
• Role has changed over last 50 years: from true
decision-making body to rubber stamping the primary
process.
• 1972 point of change:
• Result of a turbulent Democratic nominating convention in
1968
• Changes in the process and rules led to the use of primaries
to choose delegates and locked them into support for the first
ballot of the national nominating convention.
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The National Convention
• Today conventions are made-for-TV
affairs.
• Platform development still important.
• Choice for Vice President unveiled.
• Could have a deadlock in delegates (no
one with majority) before convention.
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How Representative Are Primaries and
Caucuses?
• Given:
• Participation much lower than in
general election.
• Activists hold stronger, more
ideological views than the general
electorate.
• So does this mean that the primaries and
caucuses are responsible for more
ideologically extreme candidates?
• Answer: No. They draw broadly
enough from party voters that the
results are generally similar to the full
base of supporters’ preferences, but
not the full electorate.
• Partisan electorate may be more
ideological.
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Nominations in Other Countries
• U.S. system’s process: more spontaneous and
unpredictable.
• Political parties in other democracies are more tightly
organized; controlled nominations.
• Looser selection system provides a wider range of
candidates.
• Result: American leaders are different from leaders of most
other democracies.
• Vary more; less experienced
• May bring unusual backgrounds or perspectives to their
office.
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The General Election
• The presidential general elections go into high gear after the
nominating conventions.
• Pivot point: Candidates go from appealing to partisans to a
broader general electorate.
• Convention bump
• Debates
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Congressional Elections
• Determine who will sit in the Senate and House of
Representatives.
• In presidential election years, the party who wins the
presidency usually gains seats in the Senate and
House as well, but more often than not, there is still
divided government.
• Midterm elections: usually bring minor changes to
Congress, but sometimes they can be dramatic as in
2010
• Tea Party and Republican control of House
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Congressional Elections
• Incumbency advantages
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•
•
•
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Control of news
Staff to support constituents
Ability to add “pork” legislation
Easier access to campaign contributions
Experience
• Open seats are more competitive
• Gerrymandering
• Drawing boundaries of congressional or legislative districts
with the deliberate intent to affect the outcomes of elections.
• Difficult to hold members individually accountable for what
they do in office.
• Focus on accountability for the parties
• Contemporary trend: decline of split-ticket voting
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Electoral Systems and Their Effects
• Electoral system: a set of rules used to determine, based on the
outcome of an election, which individuals will hold office.
• U.S. System: Winner-Take-All
• Single-member-district, plurality system (SMDP)
• An electoral system in which the country is divided into districts, each of
which elects a single member to the Congress or parliament. Candidates
required to have a plurality of vote to win.
• Impact of SMDP
• Produces two-party systems
• How does it do this?
• Reduces odds of smaller parties winning
• Most democracies, other than U.S. use proportional representation
• Seats are allocated to parties in proportion to their shares of the vote
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The Electoral College and
Presidential Elections
• Electoral College: system by which presidents are
elected in the United States
• Constitution: Indirect election of president; states choose
electors (equal to the number of House and Senate seats the
state has) and the electors choose president.
• Framers did not specify how electors were to be chosen by
state; they would eventually be by elections.
• Today, when you cast your vote for a presidential candidate,
you are really voting for his or her slate of electors (chosen
by the candidates).
• In most states, the candidate who gets the most votes is the
winner of that state’s electoral college votes.
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The Electoral College and
Presidential Politics
• The Electoral College affects the presidential election in four
ways:
1.
Candidates with the most popular votes will not necessarily win the
election.
• Situation is rare (1888 AND 2000); very close popular vote.
2.
Candidates’ campaign strategies are affected.
• Focus on close states
3.
4.
States with small populations have a slightly exaggerated impact on
the outcome.
Many states do not legally require electors to vote as they had
originally pledged to do before the election.
• What are some suggestions for reform:
• Popular vote model
• Congressional district model
• Pledge electoral votes to whomever wins the national popular vote
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Elections and Representation
Women
• Only 17 percent of the
members of Congress are
women.
• Women are
underrepresented in almost
all democracies.
• Average is 19 percent.
• Sweden & Rwanda: 46, and
56 percent, respectively
• Rules make a difference
• Party list in Italy: require 50%
women.
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Elections and Representation
Minorities
• SMDP systems do not
encourage minority
representation.
• Special device used in U.S.
• Majority-minority districts
• Drawbacks: tends to make
other districts less competitive
if the minority tends to vote for
one party more than the other
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Campaign Finance
• U.S. campaigns are
very expensive.
• “Permanent campaign”
• U.S. Senators: $9K a day
to be competitive in next
election.
• Obligations to
contributors
• How does one limit the
role of money in
electoral politics?
• First Amendment: Court
says limiting campaign
expenditures = limiting
free speech
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Regulating Campaign Finance for
Parties and Candidates
• Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (2002)
• Compliance and disclosure: FEC created in 1974 to monitor and enforce
compliance with campaign finance laws
• Limits on contributions
• 2012: limits - $2500 contribution to any candidate (per election), $5000 to
any PAC, $10,000 to any party committee, and $30,800 to national party
committees.
• Individuals may not give over $117,000 in federal election contributions in a
given year.
• Public financing for presidential candidates
• 2012 limits: If candidate for president took matching public funds, he or she
would be limited to no more than $46 million in spending allowed for the
primaries; accepting public funding for the general election would limit the
candidate to $91.
• Candidates are less likely to accept these limits. Obama in 2008.
• “Stand by your ad”
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Independent Expenditures
• Campaign spending limits focus on political parties and
candidates, but 527 committees have emerged as a loophole.
• Advocacy groups that are allowed to advertise on political
issues and are not subject to regulation by the Federal
Election Commission
• Not formally a part of a campaign so not regulated by the
FEC
• Use “issue advocacy” ad tactic; do not say explicitly vote for
or against a candidate.
• They may take any size donation; not required to disclose
• Spent a great deal of money; one third of all campaign
spending
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Independent Expenditures
• Citizens United decision
• Court expanded the possibilities of independent expenditures
• Hillary: The Movie – sued to have the film not show within 30 days of the
primary due to McCain Feingold – organizations could not broadcast
“electioneering communications” close to election. Found in violation of
the First Amendment.
• Corporations and unions could not be limited in their funding of
independent political broadcasts during elections.
• Super PAC
• FEC established an additional type of independent campaign
organization.
• May raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions, and
individuals, like 527s, they may NOT donate to candidates and they may
coordinate with campaigns. But unlike 527s, they are allowed to support
or attack candidates directly.
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Independent Expenditures: Four
aspects of Super PACS
Flexibility
Degree of dependents
Large donors
Prolonged nomination contests
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