Table of Contents1. Value of Voting 2. Mobilization3. Voting Trends4. Nominations5. Caucuses6. Primary Elections7. Gerrymandering8. Member Resources9. Campaign FundsLecture Notes1. Value of Voting A. Free, fair, open elections are a hallmark of democracy B. Turnout much higher recently despite gradual tendancy to drop i. Basing data on Voting Eligible Population (VEP) shows that turnout has not dropped as significantly as a trend (but still dropping) C. Civic Duty: psychological benefit of voting (largest motivator for voting) D. Voter ID deabte: discrimination vs. fraud i. Registration, time, etc. adds to cost, decreases turnout2. Mobilization A. Party efforts tend to increase voter turnout; weaker mobilization efforts lead to lower turnout3. Voting Trends A. More educated individuals have lower costs to voting and vote more4. Nomination process is based on reforms of mid 1900sA. Superdelegates now exist – unlike Delegates in that they usually already have office and allow party some control over nomination process i. Superdelegates are not pledged to a certain candidate and can nominate multiple; they lack obligations5. Caucuses restrict participtation A. Caucuses elicit participation from highly partisan people B. Lower participation partially due to cost (3-4 hours) required of voters C. Caucuses ruin notion of secret ballet: your vote is disclosed6. Primary elections A. Favor extremist candidates because more fervid voters vote at primaries7. Gerrrymandering: attempt to establish political advantage in manipulating district boundaries8. Member Resources A. Members have staff to tell them information such as where they are succeeding and failing9. Campaign Funds A. Media influence has increased need for increased campaign spending i. PACs, Super Pacs, Interest groups, etc. exert influence on campaign spending by contributing or lobbying ii. Interest groups get influence and expect support later from politicians iii. Interest groups usually back the incumbent because they expect the incumbent to win; they don't want to waste money B. Challengers that beat incumbents tends to heavily outspend the incumbent i. Snowball effect of spending given that more money, more likely to win ii. Challengers need money more, so money helps them more because challengers are less likely to be known and have less exposure iii. Senators have a harder time winning as incumbents because they can't exploitgerrymandering10. Tenure has increased over time A. The average amount of terms is now 5 terms in office11. Redistricting vs reapportionment A. Redistricting: changing districts B. Reapportionment: changing seats allotted based on population in relation to other states i. There are 435 seats in the house no matter what12. Representative Behavior A. Pork: term used for district service (effort by congress to get fudning for their own district) B. Earmark: legislation that allocates some funds for a specific project (often controversial and irrelevant usage of tax money) i. Relates to pork: congressman use earmarks to get money for their own district ii. Some argue that transparency for earmarks would lead to more earmarks, more selfish legislation since the public would push for more in their
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