Campaigns & Elections Key Terms
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) – largely banned party soft money, restored a long-standing prohibition on corporations and labor unions for using general treasury funds for electoral purposes, and narrowed the definition of issue advocacy.
Candidate Appeal – the tendency in elections to focus on the personal attributes of a candidate, such as his/her strengths, weaknesses, background, experience, and visibility.
Caucus – a meeting of local party members to choose party officials or candidates for public office and to decide the platform.
Civic Duty - the belief that, in order to support democratic government, a citizen should always vote.
Closed Primary - A primary election in which a voter must declare (or have previously declared) a political party affiliation and vote only in that party's ballot in the primary election.
Coattail Effect – The boost that candidates may get in an election because of the popularity of candidates above them on the ballot, especially the president.
Direct Mail - Method of political campaigning which involves sending information and a request for money to names obtained from lists of people who have supported candidates of similar views in the past.
Electoral College – a group of persons called “electors,” selected by the voters in each state, that officially elects the president and vice president. The number of electors in each state is equal to its number of representatives in both houses of Congress. Although the Electoral College vote usually reflects a popular majority, the winner-take-all rule gives clout to big states.
Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 - Congressional legislation which established the goal of tightening reporting requirements for contributions and limiting overall expenditures. It additionally created the bipartisan Federal Election Commission (FEC), an independent agency, to administer campaign finance laws and enforce compliance with their requirements.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) - a commission created by the 1974 amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act to administer election reform laws. It consists of six commissioners appointed by president and confirmed by the Senate. Its duties include overseeing disclosure of campaign finance information and public funding of presidential elections, and enforcing contribution limits.
General Elections – an election to fill public offices.
Hard Money – donations made to political candidates, party committees, or groups which, by law, are limited and must be declared.
Independent Expenditures – money spent by individuals or groups not associated with candidates to elect or defeat candidates for office.
Interested Money – Financial contributions by individuals or groups in the hope of influencing the outcome of the election and subsequently influencing policy.
Issue Advocacy – promoting a particular position or an issue paid for by interest groups or individuals but not candidates. Much issue advocacy is often electioneering for or against a candidate, and until 2004 had not been subject to any regulation.
Legitimacy - a characterization of elections by political scientists meaning that they are almost universally accepted as a
fair and free method of selecting political leaders; when legitimacy is high, as in the U.S., even the losers accept the
results peacefully.
Machine - A hierarchically organized, centrally led state or local party organization that rewards members with material benefits (patronage).
Mandate Theory of Elections - the idea that the winning candidate has a mandate from the people to carry out his or her
platforms and politics; politicians like the theory better than political scientists do.
Motor Voter Act (1993) - this Act went into the effect for the 1996 election; it requires states to permit people to
register to vote at the same time they apply for driver’s licenses; this should lessen the bureaucratic hassles of voter
registration, though critics charge that it may also increase registration fraud.
Name Recognition – incumbents have an advantage over challengers in election campaigns because voters are more familiar with them, and incumbents are more recognizable.
National Party Convention – a national meeting of delegates elected by primaries, caucuses, or state conventions who assemble once every four years to nominate candidates for president and vice president, ratify the party platform, elect officers, and adopt rules.
National Tide – the inclination to focus on national issues, rather than local issues, in an election campaign. The impact of the national tide can be reduced by the nature of the candidates on the ballot who might have differentiated themselves from their party or its leader if the tide is negative, as well as competition in the election. Oftentimes, local & state elections are heavily influenced by national politics - I.e. If people are upset with the current presidential administration, they may not only elect the opposite party into the executive office, but may also vote for the same party in local elections and/or vote for issues favoring the party they are voting into power.
Nomination - The political party's official endorsement of a candidate who will seek political office. It is important in the electoral process mostly because nominations set real limits to the choices that voters can make.
Nonpartisan Primary - A primary in which candidates are not labeled by political party. Nonpartisan primaries are mostly held in municipal, i.e., city, elections.
Office-Block Ballot - A ballot listing all candidates for a given office under the name of that office; also called a “Massachusetts” ballot.
Party-Column Ballot - A ballot listing all candidates of a given party together under the name of that party; also called an “Indiana” ballot.
Political Efficacy - the belief that one’s political participation really matters – that one’s vote can actually make a difference.
Policy Differences - the perception of a clear choice between the parties; those who see such choices are more likely to
Vote.
Policy Voting - voting that occurs when electoral choices are made on the basis of where the candidates stand on policy
issues; for the voter, policy voter is harder work than voting based on candidates’ personalities or through party loyalty.
Precinct - A local government subdivision for organizing the voting process, typically containing less than a thousand voters. Each precinct has only one polling place, i.e., a place to vote.
Primary Elections – an election prior to the general election in which voters select the candidates who will run on each party’s ticket. Primaries are also used to choose convention delegates and party leaders, and may be open or closed.
Open Primary - an election that permits voters to choose on Election Day the party primary in which they wish to vote. They may vote for candidates of only one party. (A blanket or “free love” primary is a type of open primary. In the voting booth you mark a ballot that lists the candidates for nomination of all the parties, and thus you can help select the Democratic candidate for one office and the Republican candidate for another.
Closed Primary - The selection of a party’s candidates in an election limited to registered party members. Prevents members of other parties from “crossing over” to influence the nomination of an opposing party’s candidate.
Presidential Primary - a primary used to pick delegates to the presidential nominating conventions of the major parties.
Proportional Representation – election system in which each party running receives the proportion of legislative seats corresponding to its proportion of the vote.
Referendum - a state-level method of direct legislation that gives voters a chance to approve or disapprove proposed
legislation or a proposed constitutional amendment.
Retrospective Voting - a theory of voting in which voters essentially ask this simple question: “What have you done for
me, lately?”
Safe Seat – elected office that is predictably one by won party or the other, so the success of the party’s candidate is almost taken for granted.
Selective Perception - Political phenomenon in which voters tend to pay the most attention to positions they already agree with and interpreting events according to their own predisposition.
Single-member District – an electoral district in which voters choose one representative or official.
Smith v. Allwright - United States Supreme Court decision which held that primaries are an "integral part of the election process" thereby protecting the rights of minorities to vote in state primary elections.
Split-Ticket Voting - Voting for candidates of different parties for various offices in the same election. For example, voting for a Republican for senator and a Democrat for president.
Soft Money – contributions to a state or local party for party-building purposes.
State Convention - Convention process at which delegates are chosen to go to the national convention.
Straight-Ticket Voting - Voting candidates who are all of the same party. For example, voting for Republican candidates for senator, representative, and president.
Super Tuesday - A presidential primary election day in March in which many states participate to downplay the earlier Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary.
Voter Registration - A system adopted by the states that requires voters to register well in advance of election day;
although a few states permit election day registration for presidential elections, advance registration dampens voter
turnout.
Winner-take-all System – An election system in which the candidate with the most votes wins.
527 Organizations – Interest groups organized under section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code may advertise for or against candidates. If their source of funding is corporations or unions, they have some restrictions on broadcast advertising. 527 organizations were important in recent elections.