Chapter 11 -- Voting, Campaigns, and ElectionsVoting, Campaigns, and Elections we use elections to decide who runs the government lots of offices up for election  federal, state, and local partisan and non-partisan judicial county coroner ballots can be hard to count The Logic of Elections American democracy is representative democracy the sheer size of the new nation made direct democracy impossible collective action problems free riding and coordination problems elections create incentives for organizations to provide information and to mobilizevoters principal agent problem -- citizens can pick their agents and fire those whose performancesfall short regular, free, competitive elections help to check the government elections: they give ordinary citizens a say in who represents them the prospect of future elections gives officeholders who want to keep or improve their jobs amotive to be responsive agents elections provide powerful incentives for the small set of citizens who want to replace thecurrent officeholders to keep a close eye on representatives and to provide criticalevaluations of them to the public at largeHow Do Voters Decide? acquiring information that would decrease uncertainty can require a great deal of effort quick -- what are Paul Broun’s views on stem cell research? most voters economize by using simple cues as cognitive shortcuts and by relying heavily, ifselectively, on the free information delivered by the news media, campaign advertising, and theirown experience to inform their predictions quick -- are Republicans in favor of stem cell research? one way to predict is to assess the past performance of the incumbent candidate or the majorityparty retrospective voting another strategy for predicting which candidate will be the most satisfactory agent is to comparethe future policy options they represent prospective voting single issues voters also make predictions based on the candidates’ personal characteristics competence, experience, honesty, knowledge, and leadership skills however, the most important information shortcut voters use to make predictions is party label (alabel carrying the party’s “brand name,” incorporating the policy positions and past performancevoters attribute to it) party identification (an individual’s enduring affective or instrumental attachment to one ofthe political parties; the most accurate single predictor of voting behavior) is the best singlepredictor of the vote in federal electionsElection Campaigns experienced campaigns are fully aware of voters’ reliance on free information and cognitiveshortcuts, and they devise strategies for winning votes accordingly campaigns are intensely pragmatic, opportunistic affairs highly variable because they must adapt tocircumstances that are highly variable but there are a number of common features found throughout competitive campaignsThe Basic Necessities: Candidates and Messages the basic necessities are: candidate -- a person who can be portrayed as sufficiently qualified and trustworthy for thejob; this is a difficult position to achieve, and many loathe to compete unless they have verygood chances of success; a person who is running for elected office message -- a lot of candidates will come up with focus groups, which are small groups ofpeople that create emphasis on a campaign message; in a political campaign, the centralthematic statement of why voters ought to prefer one candidate over others way to inform voters about both of these thingsThe Challenge of the Image acquiring and maintaining a public image appropriate to the office sought is a particular challengefor presidential candidates frontrunners (the person that is winning) get it the worst debates candidates must meet the expectations of the media and the public in order to maintain animage of being prepared to be presidentInforming Voters ads are used to inform voters biographical ads -- you see these early in a campaign; inform voters about qualifications fear ads -- more common during the Cold War; convince voters that you will keep them safe negative ads -- the most common today; show that the opponent is no goodSuccessful Campaigns a successful campaign comes down to several basics: the goal is to win a majority of votes, not every vote first a campaign has to figure out who is certain to support their candidate, who is “up forgrabs,” and who is “out of the picture” the campaign is designed to appeal to the first two groups, and the campaign finds a way toframe the choice in a way that advantages the candidateThe Other Necessity: Campaign Money a good candidate and a good message are not enough without money, the voters do not see the candidate or hear the message congressional candidates tap four basic sources for funds: individuals political action committees their own pocketbooks party organizationsCongressional Campaign Money contributors tend to favor winners the First Amendment even if campaigns were fully-funded by tax dollars, people and organizations would remainto spend all the money they could gather on independent campaigns supporting or attackingcandidates does money win the election? it dependsWhere Are Campaign Funds Spent On? presidential candidates spend money based on their electoral college strategy since one needs to piece together enough state victories to win at least 270 electoral votes, thestrategy is such… concentrate on the states that the polls indicate could go either way and that are populousenough to be worth winning ignore states that are locked up by either sideThe Logic of Elections: Revisited despite all of the problems with U.S. elections, they work remarkable well in preserving democracy citizens can pick their agents and fire those whose performances fall short elections also create incentives for entrepreneurs and organizations to provide information andoversight and to mobilize voters; this eliminates some of the cost of information gathering for theindividualKey Terms from the Textbook mobilization -- also known as “getting out the vote”; occurs when activists working for parties,candidates, or interest groups ask members of the electorate to vote single-issue