Electoral Behavior individual and social choice o Individual Choices The Disjoint between individuals attitudes and behavior What people actually do might manifest itself in voting in a few ways o People who really want to vote but don t and then the opposite o I really like candidate A but then don t vote for candidate A Two Components of the Vote Turnout behavior o People may desire to turnout but it is actually very costly o You have to register not costless the question is who is doing that o Motor voter bill o We ve made voting easier but in some ways have also made it harder o In the US we have the lowest voter turnout of any western democracy o Just over half o Why is that the case We have two parties etc o Who you re voting for o Some people do vote for their sincere preference o Some people vote strategically mainly in primaries Direction attitudinal Vote Choice can be sincere or Strategic Sincere Voting Voting for one s Most Preferred Candidate Strategic Voting Voting contrary to one s ideal preference in order to obtain an advantage in the Long Run By voting for G x Reduces D s Vote share and increases the probability that R Xs least preferred candidate wins Even though in sincere voting x is closer to G than D so wants to vote for G We don t have strong third party candidates less likely o Social Choice in the US Social Choice Theory studies how voting rules aggregate individual preferences into a collective choice In other countries we have voting rules that are pretty complicated They have preference voting tally up the first ones and if someone seems to win a threshold then go to your second preference We have plurality rule not majority rule In these systems the candidate with the most votes wins does not have to be a majority Should be easy to aggregate votes Majority rule provides us with outcomes that are inherently arbitrary they are not stable or unique they are temporary outcomes Arrows Impossibility Theorem o Part of his dissertation o Created a study of the economics of voting and o Three voters A B C three choices to make X how it works Y Z A s goes X Y Z B s goes Y Z X C s goes Z X Y o How do you aggregate the preferences and decide who wins o Majority Rule Pairwise Comparisons Look at order of preferences A has X over Y B has Y over X and C has X over Y so X wins X v Y X X v Z Z Y v Z Y Doesn t provide us with a unique outcome Its unstable why its called impossibility theorem When voters have preferences more than 2 it provides us with an arbitrary outcome When we aggregate preferences all by themselves without any additional rules it doesn t make sense We need some other rules besides the majority rule to make it stable if you change the rule you change the outcome majority rule produces an unstable result purely deductive system o Duverger s Law wins plurality rule the candidate party with the most votes other thing that happens in the US is that we elect people in single member districts means we elect one person from each district not Two senators not elected at the same time different multiple people elections Duverger s Law Plurality rule systems tend to create a two party system Smaller parties tend not to win seats uncompetitive Tendency for strategic voting The US is an example of a Plurality Rule System o Presidential Elections in the U S Two State Competition Nomination Stage and General Election Stage Nomination stage How do the parties determine who their nominees will be In the general election Parties are uniquely American No where is there a discussion about political parties in the constitution Congressional Caucus King Caucus o Great concern with the founding fathers in the term democracy o They really created a republic o What happens is that this caucus dominates who the candidates will be o 1824 Andrew Jackson wanted to be the president but didn t get the caucus nominee ran anyway he gets more electoral college votes and more votes than anyone else henry clay the leader of the house clay doesn t like Andrew Jackson he goes to John Quincy Adams and says ill give you presidency if you give me secretary of state becomes known as the corrupt bargain only people who voted at this time were white land owning males most states don t even have voting at the time Conventions A Jacksonian Reform o Need to be a member go to the meetings elect delegates to the state conventions then state goes to national o Decide who the parties electors are going to be for the electoral college Caucus A meeting of party members o Iowa caucuses is just the meeting of the members of the party of the state o Lasts for hours o HAVE to be a registered member of the party o Highly unusual o Primary an election held by members of a party in order to select a nominee o Relatively modern invention o 1972 it was formed by the democrats o simply elections o who the party is nominating o run and paid for by the parties not by government counties o the party rents voting machines from the o they are very expensive events o usually at the end of the election calendar o the state parties decide whether or not it s a caucus or primary Open v Closed Primaries Open anyone can vote for either parties primary New Hampshire open primary state and it s the first one very important Closed only can vote for the party that you registered to o The Iowa Caucus Since 1972 the Iowa Caucus has been the first major electoral event of the nominating process for President of the United States Starting being pushed back and back now usually in January How does it work Meetings at Iowa s 1 784 precincts typically at schools churches or libraries In addition to the voting attendees propose planks for their party s platform select members of the county committees and discuss issues important to their local organizations o Have to attend the whole entire meeting in order to vote Caucus goers elect delegates to county conventions who elect delegates to district and state conventions where the national convention delegates are selected Supporters STAND in a designated area forming a preference group A viability threshold of anywhere from 15 to 25 of attendees must be met If a candidate s preference group does not meet the threshold supporters have 30 minutes to select a second preference After all viable candidates are determined delegates to the county conventions are allocated The Iowa Caucus is a Low Turnout event high costs long hours boring speeches standing Low turnout events die hards