For Wednesday and Thursday's coverage in 2305 of elections - a few points I want to make sure we highlight, some of these we've covered before in other sections in this class:
- Elections are central features of democratic systems. They are meant to connect the government with the preferences of the electorate (which is the word I use to describe not only the people who can vote, but the people who do vote). Not only are elections intended to make governing decisions follow the preferences of the majority, they are intended to ensure that government is considered to be legitimate.
- The Bill of Rights ensures that some decisions are not subject to majority rule. Elections, purposely, cannot determine all decisions.
- Each governing institution in the US - each branch of government - has its own unique mode of election. This is on e of the factors that separates them from each other.
- All elections on the national level are indirect - that's because we are a republic. We covered the reason for this when we read through Federalist #10. Many features of American government are designed to be removed from the direct influence of the electorate. This creates tension, and sometimes calls to question the legitimacy of the governing system. Many states and local governments allow for direct elections such as initiatives, referendums and recalls.
- While most governing systems - even totalitarian systems - have elections, not all are legitimate. In order to be so, elections have to be free, fair, open and frequent.
- Elections are political affairs and involve conflicts over values, interests and power.
- Elections in the United States are winner take all. This means that most are designed to allow for the election of one person for one position. Most other democracies around the world feature proportional representation. This allows for legislative positions to be allocated to different parties based on the percentage of votes they receive in each election. Proportional representation allows for the development of multiple political parties. Winner take all elections create incentives for the development of two large political parties. This explains why we have had two large parties for the bulk of our history.
- With the exception of local elections, political parties dominate elections at the national and state level.
- Elections in the US are two stage affairs. The first stage is the primary election - candidates compete to be the parties nominee in the general election, which is the second stage.
- The electorate in primary elections is very different than the electorate in general elections. Primaries tend to have much lower turnout than general elections, and the electorate in each party's primary tend to be more ideologically driven than that in the general election.
- The outcomes of elections can be manipulated by gerrymandering and by determiningwho can vote, as well as who is likely to vote.
- Gerrymandering and primary elections have bee argued to help drive increased polarization in the US Congress.
- The design of elections was originally fully up to the states. Beginning with the 14th and 15th Amendment, the national government began overseeing elections and placed limits on the ability of states to design elections on their own. Some states engaged in discriminatory behavior. One of the more well known such efforts involved the Voting Rights Act, which was passed in 1965 and made certain states subject to having all of their election laws precleared by the Justice Department before they could go into effect. Covered states tend to not like that and have challenged the need for preclearance. Last week's court case Shelby v Holder was the most recent challenge to the law.
