Chapter 10: Voting, Campaigns, & Elections Flashcards
What is ballot fatigue?
The exhaustion of voter interest and knowledge in elections caused by election frequency and the length and complexity of ballots.
What are battleground states?
Those states that are highly competitive in the presidential general election.
What is a nominating caucus?
The process in some states for selecting delegates to the national party conventions characterized by neighborhood and area-wide meetings of party supporters and activists.
What is the difference between hard money, soft money, and dark money?
Hard money is regulated by the FEC and is used in campaigns.
Soft money is also used in campaigns but is not regulated and not spent in coordination with a candidate or political party.
Dark money is spent by outside groups to influence an election.
What are the differences between the three voting models?
The electoral competition voting model theorizes parties moving toward the median voter to get the most votes.
The prospective model theorizes voters deciding based on the party/candidate that best represents their own preferences.
The retrospective model looks back at how well the elected party performed and votes based on that.
Who are electors?
Representatives who are elected in the states to formally choose the U.S. president.
What are initiatives and referendums?
Procedures in some states where either citizens or legislature (respectively) propose laws on ballots.
What are the invisible primaries?
Party elites and influential donors throw their support behind a candidate before any votes have been cast, giving that candidate a financial and organizational advantage during the state primaries and caucuses.
What happens at a party convention?
Party delegates gather to nominate their party’s presidential candidate.
Explain the concept of plurality.
A candidate receives more votes than any other candidate in an election but was still less than the majority.
What happens at the primary elections?
Voters elect delegates from their party’s national party conventions.
What is the Electoral College and what does it do?
Representatives selected in each of the states, their numbers based on each state’s total number of its senators and representatives. Vote to elect the president, 270 minimum needed.
What is the responsible party model?
The notion that a political party will take clear and distinct stands on the issues and enact them as policy once elected to office.
What are superdelegates?
Elected officials from all levels of government who are appointed to be delegates to the national convention of the Democratic Party; not selected in primary elections or caucuses.
