Dabney notes- 7/12/2010

Jordan Conway

 Australian ballot
 Secret ballot
 Initiated split-ticketing (you could vote for different parties for different jobs)
 Who votes?
 Educated people
 Those who’ve developed political efficacy over a period of time
 Know how the system works and how to get their voices heard
 White citizens election turnout
 White collars (professionals) (regular voting)
 Unionized people
 Non-southerners (regional)
 Interest groups
 When do people vote?
 Times of crisis
 Presidential elections vs. midterm elections Points of higher voter
 Coattail- far more important than voting for local representatives/ turnout rate
congressional representative
 Landmark president (obama)
 Incumbency advantage- hardly any competition
 Battlefield states, when winner is unforeseen
 Very competitive election
 Models of Vote Choice- voting behavior is defined by several behavioral models
 Michigan Model
 Party I.D. (there’s psychological attachment to party)
 Platform a series of issues so voters will vote according to the party
 Informational shortcut for voters
 Image (namely the image of the candidate, but sometimes the image of the political
party)
 Candidate personality and appearance
 The prejudice of electoral politics: pretty or charismatic people win!
 Issues (most important, but least influential factor in vote)
 Polition issues and valence issue
 Position issues: war in Iraq, abortion, school prayer, school vouchers, gun
control, stem-cell research, GMOs
 Valence issues: job-creation, disease research (AIDS, Alzheimers), education
(no child left behind), public safety, environment
 Columbia model- sociological explanation of voting behavior
  Network of people who affect your vote
 Group identification
 Primary reference group(s) (family, peers, co-workers). Relying on these people
 Cross-pressure/ compound-pressure (convergence of multi-directional pressure from
reference groups)
 Information networks (getting voting direction from opinion leaders)
 Rational choice model (“economic” explanation of
 Prioritizing who we vote for
 Utility maximizing (attention to policy interests are maximized by voting for “Candidate
X”)
 Ordered preferences
 Nader =Issues ABC, Obama = Issues CDE, McCain= FGH
 Though Obama and Nader are similar, not all issues are aligned
 McCain is completely different from other choices, but might win because
Nader is taking votes from Obama
 Why do people abstain from voting?
 Ignorance
 Political indifference
 Lack of political efficacy (one might be interested in the issues, but don’t feel their opinion
matters)
 Confliction about candidate/ party
 NO difference in choice
 Uninformed/ incompetent
 Voting fatigue
 Voter registration
 No time/ too busy
 Work
 Forgot
 Inconvience
 Illness
 Decline in political parties
 3rd party choices
 Since 1950, average voting turnout rate is 52-55% for presidential elections
 Midterm elections: 33%- 35% voting turnout
 Is it bad that not many people vote?
 Conservative viewpoint
 Effective operation of democracy includes apathy and complacency
 People not interested in politics, it’s ok if turnout is low, don’t need 100% turnout
 Elitist viewpoint- bringing in “sleepwalkers” to the election
 Radical viewpoint