Voting Turnout and Voting Participation
- Click here for the wiki.
As you probably know - and are thankful for - voting is optional in the United States. And while the ability of different groups to vote has expanded over the course of time, not all do. This is an important - and consequential - fact of American politics. Election results are less due to the popularity of certain candidates and policy proposals in the general population than of their popularity among the portion of the population that turns out to vote. This makes sense of course. The purpose of this section is to walk through the factors leading to the variance in voter turnout and why some groups tend to vote why others do not.
Blog Posts:
- Voter Behavior.
- Voter Turnout.
- Voting.
- Voting Rights.
Campaign Finance and the Federal Election Commission
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The national government has little direct control over elections in the United States. The power to pass laws related to elections - how they are conducted for example - is delegated to the states. The states then delegate the actual conduction of elections to local governments, primarily counties. At least that's how things work in Texas. One of the areas where the national government is active is in rules related to financing campaigns. Beginning in the progressive era, concerns arose that the increased amounts of money pumped into elections was distorting democracy, if not leading to outright corruption. Laws of various types were were passed placing limits on campaign spending. These ultimately led to the establishment of an executive infrastructure overseeing campaign finance and with the power to impose penalties if necessary. This section walks through those laws and rules.
Blog Posts:
- Campaign Finance.
- Campaign Spending.
- Citizens United.
- Dark Money.
- Lobbying.
- Money in Politics.
- Oligarchy.
- Plutocracy.
