Section 3 Flashcards
Political Participation
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act
a 2002 law to limit “soft money” donations to political parties.
primary election
an election among members of the same political party, designed to narrow the field or identify the person who will ultimately be the party’s nominee for a particular office; also called “primaries”.
general election
an election where candidates for elected office are formally chosen, or where the allocation of presidential electoral votes is decided.
political action committees
groups organized to collect funds from donors and distribute them to political candidates.
incumbent
a candidate for office who presently holds that office and is running for reelection.
seat
the office for which a candidate is running.
electoral votes
Electoral College votes which, according to the Constitution, are the votes that elect a president.
caucus
a meeting of party members where delegates are selected to support a candidate for a party’s presidential nomination or other party issues are discussed; occurs at local, state, and national levels.
electors
persons selected by each state to cast Electoral College votes.
independent voters
voters who indicate no preference for one political party or another.
swing states
states with a history of voting for both political parties in recent presidential elections, considered by both sides as an opportunity for persuading.
state delegation
the group of individuals selected through the primary process that will represent the state at the national party convention.
winner-take-all
a system of voting in which the candidate who wins a plurality of the popular vote is elected; in U.S. presidential campaigns, most states use this system, awarding all their Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins 50.01% or more of the popular vote.
public funding
when candidates receive government funding to help finance their campaigns.
congressional district
one of 435 legally established areas of a state represented by one member of the House of Representatives; each congressional district is approximately equal in population to all other congressional districts.
brokered convention
national party convention where no candidate for the party’s presidential nomination enters with a majority of the convention’s delegates, resulting in negotiating by “power brokers” to agree on a nominee.
district method
method of allocating the Electoral College votes of a state in a presidential election among candidates according to the popular vote in each congressional district; the district method is rare, with most states using the winner-takes-all method.
faithless electors
name for electors who violate their pledge to vote for a particular presidential candidate by instead voting for someone else.
safe state
a state with historically strong leanings toward a particular political party, requiring relatively little effort from that party to win campaigns; the opposite of a safe state is a “swing state”.
interest groups
a public or private association of individuals or organizations that attempt to influence government decision-making and/or public policy.
association
an interest group that includes many groups or institutions with similar interests.
lobby
to try to influence a politician or public official.
lobbyist
a representative of a particular interest or organization, usually paid, who attempts to influence legislators.
particularized
benefits that are specific to an individual or group and from which others can be excluded.
public interest groups
a group that pursues policies or collective goods that members feel are useful for most or all citizens.
legislative liaison
an individual who represents a government institution to other governmental decision-makers.
inside lobbying
attempting to directly influence governmental officials, such as legislators or their aides.
outside lobbying
attempting to influence governmental officials such as legislators or their aides, indirectly by influencing public opinion,
Buckley v. Valeo
a landmark court case that ruled that spending money in an election was essentially equivalent to free speech; the case also upheld hard-money donation limits to candidates.
bundling
a fund-raising strategy in which individuals (“bundlers”) collect individual private campaign donations and submit them as a single contribution; the bundler, sometimes an interest group, achieves greater political influence in this way.
super PAC
political action committee (PAC), created to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence an election, that becomes “super” when it relinquishes the right to coordinate its activities with its desired candidate.
amicus briefs
legal written argument (that is, a “brief”) filed with a court by an individual or group who is not a party to a case but has an interest in the case’s outcome.
Obergefell v. Hodges
a landmark 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage; this case had many amicus briefs filed in its support.
cast their ballots
the act of voting.
ballot
means “a vote” or a list of candidates running for office.
registration
the process of demonstrating to state election officials that an individual meets the qualifications to participate in an election.
polling place
a building where voting takes place; this is usually a building that has another function, such as a school.
literacy tests
a detailed exam on reading ability and civic knowledge, historically used to prevent Black people in the South from voting; during the 1960s, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and several Supreme Court decisions put an end to this practice.
disenfranchise
being denied the right to vote.
poll taxes
historically in the United States, a fee was required to prevent Black people from voting; the 24th Amendment banned poll taxes.
online voter registration
a voter registration process that can be completed online without a paper application or signature.
Motor Voter Law
a 1993 law, officially named the National Voter Registration Act but commonly called the Motor Voter Act or Law, that allows voters to register when they sign up for a driver’s license or some other government services.
voting-eligible population (VEP)
the percentage of citizens who, whether registered or not, are eligible to vote because they meet age and citizenship qualifications and are mentally competent and not imprisoned.
compulsory voting laws
laws in some countries (not the United States) that require citizens to vote in elections.
straight-ticket voting
an approach to voting where a voter selects all candidates on the ballot from a single party.
ballot fatigue
the tendency of a voter to select a candidate in an important office and then stop voting before selecting candidates for lower offices.
retrospective voting
a vote cast by a citizen based on events that have happened in the past.
prospective voting
a vote cast by a citizen based on what a candidate is expected to do in the future.
incumbency advantage
the tendency of voters to re-elect the candidate who is currently serving in a position or to select candidates who have previously served.
