Voting behaviour

Question 1

What is partisanship?

Answer 1

affiliation to parties

Question 2

What are alignment and de-alignment?

Answer 2

voting with/against your party

Question 3

What is the gender gap in 2008?

Answer 3

POSITIVE Obama won both men and women
1% ahead with men
13% ahead with women

Question 4

What is the new deal coalition?

Answer 4

The alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until approximately 1968, which made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period.

Question 5

Who was in the coalition?

Answer 5

Democratic party, big city machines, labor unions, minorities (racial, ethnic and religious), liberal farm groups, intellectuals, and white Southerners

Question 6

What is democratic overload?

Answer 6

too many elections, can lead to low turnout & abstention

Question 7

What are swing voters?

Answer 7

some states have finally balanced rep/dem supporters in them
some groups within these states are particularly prone to swing their vote. eg old jewish people, liberals from NE, homosexuals in NYC identify with dems on social issues but some have high income so identify economically with the reps

Question 8

Different states have different ________ requirements

Answer 8

voting

Question 9

In Mississippi you have to be (…) to vote

Answer 9

• us citizen
• 18+
• lived in your county in the state for at least 30 days before the election
• not be convicted of certain crimes inc. rape, arson
• not be mentally incompetent as declared by a court

Question 10

Jim Crow laws

Answer 10

• bogus tests inc. literacy
• tax systems
• intimidation

Question 11

what movement campaigned against jim crow laws?

Answer 11

civil rights movement 50s/60s

Question 12

How were Jim Crow laws brought to an end?

Answer 12

amendment 24- outlawed the use of poll taxes to deny right to vote at national elections
1965 VRA voting rights act

Question 13

Until the 60s relatively few african-americans could vote in southern states. what mechanisms denied this right?

Answer 13

jim crow laws- bogus tests, tax systems (pay certain level of tax eg poll tax), intimidation

Question 14

What barrier to voting still exists in many states?

Answer 14

Photo ID - found to penalise whites eg married women who don’t change their name on ID people who registered w/ nickname
Serious offence conviction - Eric Holder says 5.8 million people have lost the vote this way

Question 15

What changes were introduced in the NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION ACT?

Answer 15

Register when applying for/renewing/amending details on drivers license
You can vote by mail and register with postal registration form
Register when buying food stamps

Question 16

What was the change in the proportion of the voting age population who register to vote since the introduction of the NVRA? (1993)

Answer 16

before 1992- 70.8%
1996- 74.4% turnout was increasing but this was of slight significance because by 2000 turnout had only increased by around 6% since 1992
NOT VERY MUCH OF A CHANGE