Chapter 15
Elections and Voting
Section 1
Election Campaigns
Essential Questions
-What are the basic elements of a presidential campaign?
What are the basic elements of a presidential campaign?
Running for a political office is expensive. Office holders spend significant time and effort raising campaign funds. It’s not just the president who is concerned with reelection. Representatives, Senators, even the local mayor has to worry about collecting money for elections. While getting elected as mayor is not nearly as expensive as running for president, the candidate still must take time away from other aspects of the job in order to raise funds. The presidential campaign is not only expensive but also is a lengthy and complex process.
Candidates for president begin organizing a campaign years before the election. Some will throw their name in the hat and see what public reaction is before deciding to run. Others just say they’re going to run and we’re left to wonder what the country will look like. The real work begins about a year to 15 months before the election. There are speeches and debates all over the country. This is a lot of work and has to be exhausting. Once the candidate is decided for each party, the REAL election begins. The general election usually comes down to the republican and democratic candidates. This is the election we usually think about. It is very exciting and most Americans will pick a side. During the final 8 weeks before the election, candidates will spend long hours traveling from state to state to tape ads, shake hands, kiss babies, make speeches, give interviews, and other necessary duties.
To be elected president, a candidate must win at least 270 or 538 available electoral votes. The candidate who wins the greatest number of popular votes in any state usually receives all of that state’s electoral votes. This places greater importance on larger states and candidates will spend a majority of time focusing on the larger states. California, Texas, Florida, and New York become hotbeds for political speeches. Candidates must appeal to a large range of voters. A candidate who runs on a single issue or only appeals to a certain region doesn’t stand much of a chance. This need for broad popularity works against third parties as their interests are typically much more focused. They will find it difficult to win the necessary number of votes. They might poll well in 1 region but usually can’t put together a national campaign.
How do you win an election? It’s not simply random luck. There are a number of important decisions that a potential president and his advisors have to make. Should the candidate wage an aggressive, all-out attack on his/her opponent, or should the campaign be more low-key? What should the theme or slogan be? Some of these stick out and are memorable. What issues should be stressed? How much money should be spent?
A strong organization is essential to winning an election. Most candidates hire a campaign manager who is responsible for the overall strategy and planning of the campaign. In national office, there is usually someone on the staff that serves as the spokesman for the office holder. The president’s spokesperson is called the White House Press Secretary and he or she will handle all press conferences. The most important communication tool the president has is television. Television coverage is how many citizens find out how a campaign is progressing. The image, or mental picture, of a candidate is very important to public opinion and television is a quick way to display that image. Political commercials provide a means of shaping a candidate’s image as well. We can argue about the effectiveness of political ads. Attack ads are fairly unpopular as both candidates come out looking bad. Televised debates provide a great forum for candidates. Debates are becoming increasingly popular because they pit candidates against each other and the viewer gets to decide who wins.
Candidates need money to finance elections. They need money for things like office space, staff salaries, consultants, pollsters, travel, campaign literature, and advertising. This gets expensive and is make more expensive when you consider that they need for 1.5 to 2 years before they even take office. So where does the money come from? The bulk of campaign funding comes from private sources, such as individual citizens, party organizations, corporations, and special interest groups.
Many candidates have PACs, or political action committees, that support them. These organizations are established by interest groups to collect money and provide financial support to a favored candidate. There are limited by federal law on how much money they can give directly to a candidate but parties have found loopholes. PACs can give money to issue advocacy advertising which is exactly what it sounds like. They give money to support certain issues that their favored candidate supports. This doesn’t give money directly to the candidate but serves the same purpose. Super PACs are an offshoot of PACs. They do basically the same thing but are forbidden from giving money directly to candidates. They can raise and spend an unlimited amount of money. Political parties have also worked around finance laws through the use of soft-money donations which are contributions given directly to a political party by PACs or individuals for general purposes.
Section 2
Expanding Voting Rights
Essential Questions
-Why did it take so long for African Americans and women to receive voting rights?
-What did each of the voting rights acts achieve?
Why did it take so long for African Americans and women to receive voting rights?
The right to vote, or suffrage, is the foundation of American democracy. Read that sentence again. It is imperative that people vote and participate in the government. Voting gives Americans the power to select more than 500,000 government officials at all levels of government. Those people are not put in office without a vote. Today all citizens over 18 years of age are eligible to vote. That has not always been the case. Let’s dive into the expansion of voting rights in this country.
Before the Revolution, colonies placed their own restrictions on the right to vote. Women and most African-Americans could not vote. In many states, white males who didn’t own property were not given the right to vote either. In the colonies, about 5 to 6 percent of the population was unable to vote. That doesn’t sound like democracy to me. Why the restrictions? Many of the educated decision makers of the time did not believe in mass democracy. They thought that property owners and tax payers should be the only voters. As John Jay, first chief justice of the US put it: “The people who own the country ought to govern it.” During the 1800s, state legislature began to relax the restrictions on voting by abolishing property rights and religious restrictions. By the mid 1800s, all men were able to vote in the US. The issue of female suffrage had not been addressed.
The fight for woman suffrage dates from the mid-1800s. Woman suffrage groups grew in number and effectiveness in the last half of the 19th century and by 1914 women had earned the right to vote in 11 states. All 11 were west of the Mississippi River where population was relatively scarce. All women were finally given the right to vote after World War II with the passage of the 19th Amendment.
African-Americans had a longer and perhaps more difficult fight for suffrage. When the Constitution went into effect in 1789, African-Americans, both slave and free, made up about 20% of the US population. Slaves were never allowed to vote and free African-Americans could only vote in a few states. The first push to allow blacks to vote was capped by the 15th Amendment. The last of the Reconstruction Amendments, the 15th Amendment said that no state could deprive any citizen of the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” On its face it seems fairly obvious what the intent of the amendment is- all people should be able to vote. But many states weren’t going to simply take that and be ok with it. Southern states set up a number of roadblocks to limit and discourage the participation of black voters.
One roadblock was the grandfather clause which stated that only voters whose grandfathers had voted before 1867 were eligible to vote without paying poll taxes or passing literacy tests. It’s very obvious what southern lawmakers were doing here. Since blacks did not have the right to vote before 1867 it was impossible for newly eligible blacks to have had a grandfather who voted. About 7 states ended up using some form of a grandfather clause to disenfranchise black voters. Grandfather clauses were eventually outlawed by the Supreme Court in Guinn v. United States.
If your grandfather was unable to vote in 1867 you could still vote in some states if you passed a literacy test. Many states gave literacy tests to whites as well but often would pass them if they could write their names. In the time period we are talking about the national literacy rate was between 10% and 20%. The idea behind literacy tests isn’t a terrible one. I would say that it would be good for you to know how to read so you know what you are voting for. The problem with literacy tests in southern states in the 1800s and early 1900s was that before the Civil War it was illegal to teach slaves how to read and write. The thought was teaching them to read would allow them to read literature from those who might want to free slaves. This would lead to uprising. Literacy tests varied from state to state. Some states simply had testers read a passage of information. Other states would have testers explain complicated portions of the state or national constitution. I teach government and I can’t quote the entire US Constitution and certainly can’t quote the SC Constitution. Unfair practices such as literacy tests restricted the rights of groups who deserved the right to vote because they are citizens. The Voting Rights Acts of 1965 and 1970 would outlaw literacy tests.
Another device used to discourage black suffrage was the poll tax. A poll tax was an amount of money- usually one or two dollars- which a citizen had to pay before he or she could vote. Poll taxes had to be paid for the current year and any previous year in which you were eligible to vote. Back pay for a privilege you weren’t given caused a financial burden on people of all ethnicities. Often poor whites could not afford multiple years of poll taxes and were barred from voting as well. In addition, poll taxes had to be paid months in advance of Election Day and a receipt had to be presented before you could vote. If you lost your receipt, you were not allowed to vote. In 1964, the 24th Amendment outlawed poll taxes in national elections but state poll taxes were not overturned until 1966.
There is still debate about “effective poll taxes” in the form of voter identification cards and similar identification. This issue has been in the news lately and comes to light during almost every election. The GOP sees identification cards as a way to prevent fraud. Democrats see it as a poll tax because it could require a voter to purchase something before they vote. As recently as 2014 there was an article in a respected publication that asked, “Should the Poor be Allowed to Vote?” From the linked article:
“Acquiring that free ID requires showing another form of identification—and those cost money. In the states with voter-ID laws, notes a report by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law School, ‘Birth certificates can cost between $8 and $25. Marriage licenses, required for married women whose birth certificates include a maiden name, can cost between $8 and $20. By comparison, the notorious poll tax—outlawed during the civil rights era—cost $10.64 in current dollars.’”
What did each of the voting rights acts achieve?
Despite the elimination of many discriminatory practices in the early 1960s, African-American participation in election, especially in the south was limited. The civil rights movement of the 1960s resulted in national legislation that enabled larger numbers of blacks to participate in the electoral process. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was one of the most effective suffrage laws ever passed in the US. Later laws in 1970, 1975, 1982, and 2006 added to the effectiveness of the law. The 1965 law allowed the federal government to register voters in districts where less than 50% of African-American adults were on the voting list. The government could also step in and take control of registering voters in districts where it appeared discrimination was occurring.
The law provided for poll watchers whose job was to ensure that the votes of all qualified voters were properly counted. Literacy tests were abolished. The laws also require that ballots be printed in Spanish for Spanish-speaking communities. Other minority groups from different language families were given similar rights. The Voting Right Act resulted in a dramatic increase in African-American voter registration. In 1960 only 29% of all blacks in the South were registered to vote. By 2000 the figure had risen to more than 64%.
The increased opportunity to vote has obvious positive consequences. Minority populations are now encouraged to vote rather than discriminated against at the polls. The numbers of blacks, Hispanics, and Asians in elected positions in the US has increased dramatically since the 1960s. Election of African-American mayors in large cities can be traced to the Voting Rights Acts, even in the north. In 2008 the US elected its first black president. That would have been a foreign thought before the Voting Rights Act. Politics is shifting in a more open and inclusive direction.
The final hurdle for voting rights was the voting age. For many years the minimum voting age was 21. In the 1960s, when many young Americans were fighting in Vietnam, a movement to lower the voting age to 18 began. The basic argument was that if individual were old enough to be drafted and fight for their country, they were old enough to vote. The 26th Amendment ended this debate by lowering the voting age to 18. Thus more than 10 million citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 gained the right to vote. What should the voting age be? Some want to change it back to 21 or even 25. Others will make fun of those people.