US Government and Politics:

Elections and Political Participation

Zim Nwokora
Deakin University
1. Voter Rights

2. Explaining Election Outcomes

(including partisan ID, economic voting, turnout trends, and
incumbency
advantage)

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Background: What is an “Election”?
A competition for office, decided by a voting population

The usual method for filling public offices in a democracy

Alternatives to election: selection, lottery

Varieties of election, depending on population, electoral system,

and frequency of elections
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US Elections: Basic Institutions
Electoral formula: Plurality (i.e., first-past-the-post) rule

District magnitude: Single-member districts (for House); 2

senators per state

*Electoral College* used for presidential elections

Voluntary elections
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Voter Rights
Constitutional Amendments
15th Am. (1870): “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color,
or previous condition of servitude.”

19th Am. (1920): “The right of citizens of the United States to votes shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

26th Am (1971): “The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen
years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States
or by any state on account of age.”

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Voter Suppression
The constitution and the amendments were inadequate to ensure
equality of access for minority groups, especially African Americans

The right to vote was increasingly infringed upon by the 1900s:

• Literacy tests
• Poll taxes
• Knowledge tests

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Civil Rights Movement
Organising/Marching for Voting Rights in the 1960s, led by Martin
Luther King

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn6uQBDAr_U

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Voting Rights Act (1965)
Suspends literacy tests

Federal supervision of voter registration in some jurisdictions

(especially in the South)

Voter registration in the South doubled in four years

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Voter Suppression Today?
Between 2010 and 2012 alone, eight of the 11 states of the Confederacy passed restrictive
voter laws, including:
• Voter ID laws
• Remove early voting (African-Americans in Florida were twice as likely to vote early
than white citizens)
• Residence requirements
• Remove registration for 16 and 17 year olds
• Limitations on voter registration drives (African Americans and Hispanic citizens are
twice as likely to register)
• Stricter laws related to those who have served time (E.g., Florida disenfranchised
200,000 convicted of non-violent crimes from voting; African-Americans make up 13
percent of citizens in Florida, but 23 percent of disenfranchised former criminals)

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Voter Suppression Today?
In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election:

• Continued contentiousness of voter participation

• E.g., Florida – overturning of ban on previous felons voting, but Republican legislature
eliminated 775,000 of these voters by deeming ineligible anyone with outstanding court
fees.
• E.g., Georgia – disqualification of 50,000 voters due to “signature matching” requirements

Following the 2020 presidential election:

• Trump’s claims to have “won” the election grounded in arguments about fraudulent voters
• Electoral integrity a major issue for reform and issue of partisan division.

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 The Sequencing of US (Federal) Elections

Year 0 Year 2 Year 4 Year 6 Year 8

President 435 Representatives President 435 Representatives President

435 Representatives Class II, Senate 435 Representatives Class I, Senate 435 Representatives
Class I, Senate Class III, Senate Class II, Senate

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Explaining Election Outcomes
Importance of partisan identification

“Do you think of yourself as a Democrat or a Republican?”

67% of Americans are partisan identifiers; 22% are independent

“leaners”; 11% are pure independents

85% of partisan identifiers vote with PID, so do 80% of independent

leaners
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Explaining Election Outcomes
Economic voting

2 possibilities:

(a) Pocketbook voting: driven by personal economic situation

(b) Sociotropic voting: driven by economic state of the nation

Most evidence suggests that (b) > (a)

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Example: Sociotropic Voting
Job Growth in a Presidential-Election Year

Year President Jobs Created Popular Vote

(per month) Margin (%)
1980 Carter -26,000 -9.7
1984 Reagan 487,000 18.2
1988 Reagan 332,000 7.7
1992 Bush 98,000 -5.6
1996 Clinton 261,000 8.5
2000 Clinton 160,000 0.5
2004 Bush II 188,000 2.4
2008 Bush II -208,000 -7.3

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Who Votes?
Voluntary Voting (compared with Australia)

Turnout is higher in “high stakes” elections (e.g., president)

Turnout in presidential elections is declining over time (80% in 1864;

today 55-60%)

Turnout low compared to other countries (e.g., Australia = 85%; UK,

Germany, Spain = 65%)
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Why Turnout is relatively Low?
No penalties

Frequency of elections

Registration requirements (not automatic, frequently require time off work)

Prison and parole (7m, roughly 3%)

Declining “civic culture”

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“Bowling Alone” (Robert Putnam)

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Incumbency Advantage

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Explaining the Incumbency Advantage
Political financing

Government perks (e.g., Franking)

Name recognition

Redistricting / Gerrymandering

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Massachusetts Senate 1812

Governor Gerry’s “Salamander”

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Source: By M.boli - Own work. Derived from an image
by Steven nAss, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64
401739

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