PS 444: Campaigns & Elections
Midterm Exam
Spring 2006
Answer each of the following five short answer questions (12 points each).
1. Define electoral formula. Give three examples of different electoral formulas.
Electoral formulas manage the translation of votes into seats.
Three examples are: Plurality rule (candidate who gets one more vote than the runner-up gets the seat), majoritarian rule (candidate who gets a solid majority of votes wins the seat), proportional rule (parties are given seats in proportion to the percentage of the vote they get).
2. Describe the controversy in League of Latin American Citizens v. Perry and explain three major findings in that decision.
The controversy here was that Republicans in Texas re-districted in the middle of the decade, creating a partisan advantage for themselves, and in the process drawing some democratic incumbents out of office, and strengthening the partisan advantage for at least one Republican who might otherwise be voted out of office by a newly organized Latino group in southwest Texas.
The major findings were:
Mid-decade redistricting is not unconstitutional. It doesn’t violate one man, one vote because census figures aren’t that accurate anyway.
Partisan gerrymanders, or at least this partisan gerrymander, is not justiciable.
The gerrymander in southwest texas (Henry Bonilla’s seat) was, in fact, a racial gerrymander that unconstitutionally infringed on a protected minority group’s right to organize itself and elect its own representative.
3. How do Hopkins and Goux argue campaign strategies would change if the Electoral College were eliminated?
Campaigns would be more expensive because they would be national. More importantly, they would be built around media markets instead of states—either around a base strategy of turning out voters in your own partisan areas (which because of the cheaper media markets in Republican areas might benefit Republicans); or around a swing voter strategy that would prioritize Florida, and still leave many parts of the country with no campaign presence.
4. List four principles that could be embodied in a redistricting plan. For each of those four principles, list one positive and one negative outcome of a plan drawn with it in mind.
Protecting communities of interest
Pro: Makes districts more homogenous, easier to represent
Con: Makes districts more homogenous, doesn’t force representatives to balance interests, may violate compactness rules, may cross local boundaries
Promoting competition
Pro: Increases voter turnout and interest, makes votes count
Con: More expensive campaigns, nastier campaigns
Protecting incumbents
Pro: They’ve done a good job, been re-elected, know the job
Con: They already have big advantages with money and name recognition, and will not face real competition except from the extremes, forcing them to the ideological poles
Creating or enhancing a partisan advantage
Pro: All’s fair in love and politics; people who don’t vote might be well represented anyway
Con:Unfair to the minority, makes votes not count,
Creating majority minority districts.
Pro: Strengthens the voice of historically oppressed racial minorities.
Con: Can lessen their influence in other districts. Can also offend whites.
5. What are DREs, punchcard ballots, and paper ballots? What is one significant problem with each voting technology?
DRE’s: direct record electronic machines that record votes, one problem is that they can be hacked and no one can know the vote was changed
Punchcards. Punch a hole through a chad. One problem is lots of undervotes and overvotes because of the chads.
Paper ballots: write an x next to a name. Take a long time to count. Have to be counted manually.
Essay. (40 points).
Describe the assumptions and conclusions of the Median Voter Theorem. If you were running John McCain’s presidential campaign, how would you evaluate its assumptions and respond to its incentives? Be sure to weigh your options and explain your reasoning.
Assumptions: single dimensional issue space, single peaked preferences, no abstentions, only two choices, voters have one unique preferred position, preferences are normally distributed in the electorate, parties/candidates maximize chances of winning.
Assumption of voters won’t abstain?
Assumption of voters’ unique preferred position?
Might be called into question.
Should argue for running to center or running to base.