Book Information / Buy the book
Chapter 10: Elections
Click to skip to different sections
Flash Cards
These Flashcards have been decomissioned and are no longer supported.
Practice Quiz
Critical Thinking and Learning Exercises
- Visit the following site and find your state legislative district: http://www.followthemoney.org/?gclid=COOvnc_W8LgCFUgV7AodFnwA_g. Who provided the most funds to your state senators and your representative? Google the top five donors to investigate their background.
- Examine turnout and registration data from the following website: http://smpbff1.dsd.census.gov/TheDataWeb_HotReport/servlet/HotReportEngineServlet?reportid=767b1387bea22b8d3e8486924a69adcd&emailname=essb@boc&filename=0328_nata.hrml. Select a state. Predict the percentage of the electorate that voted in the 2008 presidential election. Compare this percentage to other states. Are there any differences between your state and other states? What attributes to these differences? Where are the states with the best turnouts and why do you think that is?
- Multi-member districts have been found to increase the number of women to legislative bodies. However, these structures have been found to dilute minority representation. How can one resolve this issue so that there is an increase in both women and minority representation? How do winner-take-all elections dilute minority representation? Use the following link: http://www.fairvote.org/list/category/fair-voting-proportional-representation#.UgVnxdLYhHY.
-
Go to the following link: http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/. Provide responses to the following questions derived from the site:
- What images did you see? Ask students to be as descriptive as possible (e.g., if they mention the mother, ask about her age, facial expression, etc.).
- Why do you think the ad uses these images?
- Does anything you see remind you of the images you associated with “war” or “peace” in the brainstorming activity? Why or why not?
- What feeling(s) do you get from these images? Why?
- How are the images cut together? Does the ad put images of different people, places, or events next to each other? If so, what effect does that have?
- Is the ad in color or black and white? What effect does that have?
- What do you think the ad is about? Why?
Links to further Resources
Vote for Me: An Illustrated Essay by David Gillette
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNVv4IOSUL0
Why do people run for elected office in the first place? Gillette suggests that running for office is not a “normal” thing to do, and this may affect the kind of government we have. Your text discusses the concept of the “invisible primary” as the process of individual candidates deciding to run for office. What effect does the “invisible primary” have on the candidate pool? Does the increased role of money, advertising, and mass media have a detrimental effect on who decides to run?
A Cartoonist’s View of the 2008 National Party Conventions
In 2008, political cartoonist David Gillette attended both of the major party national conventions and provided illustrated essays providing a summary of each day’s activities and events. Do the national conventions serve a practical, substantive purpose for the parties or are they primarily pep rallies designed to excite and mobilize the party in the electorate?
Preparing for the Conventions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsIJegu-tSM&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=33
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RISjpAFeCyI&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=31
The Democratic National Convention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmnmqFN6vCI&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxdgqRmp8WQ&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGZZKhrTmdE&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGZZKhrTmdE&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=28
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMIH0EtmWwQ&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=27
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsP2w8lSmp8&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=26
The Republican National Convention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMUD2dfhL80&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF8cvRo6ZNk&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9iD5zxqceM&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=23
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQLsCjL1mZM&list=PLD25C263A4EF0B343&index=22
The Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission is the agency that administers and enforces federal campaign finance laws.
The Electoral College
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/
This website from the National Archives provides information on the history and function of the electoral college. The “Historical Election Results” section allows you to compare how the national popular vote and the electoral vote differ. How many times has the electoral vote winner actually lost the popular vote?
FiveThirtyEight.com
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/
Statistician Nate Silver has produced the most accurate electoral forecasts in the last two presidential elections. Silver’s blog, fivethirtyeight.com, offers a wide range of forecasts in addition to the presidential election, including congressional races, state political races, and even sports predictions (Silver’s original passion was baseball statistics, and his current approach to political projections is an extension of methods he originally developed for forecasting the future success of baseball players).
The Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting
http://www.brennancenter.org/publication/citizens-guide-redistricting
The Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law is the premier source of information for citizens who want to learn more about the process of legislative redistricting and how it affects elections.
Overrepresentation of Small States in the Electoral College and the Senate
Small states like Wyoming highly distort the vote in both the electoral college and the Senate (recall that a state’s electoral vote is equal to its congressional representation—that is, even the smallest states get a minimum of three electoral votes because they are guaranteed two senators). How does the overrepresentation of these small states affect political equality in the United States? Does it undermine majority rule in any way?