Govt. 2306 Chapter 4 - Voting and Elections Professor Seymour EPCC

1. Chapter 4 – Voting and Elections

2. Chapter 4: Voting and Elections
Learning Objectives
4.1 Explain the process of registering and voting in Texas.
4.2 Assess how the expansion of franchise has impacted Texas
politics.
4.3 Evaluate how different factors affect voter turnout.
4.4 Describe how candidates campaign in Texas.
4.5 Analyze factors that influence election outcomes in Texas.

3. Dear Young People: Don’t Vote
https://youtu.be/t0e9guhV35o
Click Here to Play the Video Above

4. Why Vote?
4
Click Here to Play the Video Above
https://youtu.be/qDQbw1m5mRA

5. Voting in Texas
Voting in Texas: Registering and Voting
• Voters are required to register
– You can register in person or by mail.
– The Motor Voter Law is a statue that mandates the state
governments provide voter registration opportunities to individuals
applying for or renewing their driver’s license.
• You can look up your eligibility to vote at www.votetexas.gov
• Form of picture identification is needed to vote or a sworn
statement of citizenship and non-photo proof of residency

6. How to Vote in Texas
https://youtu.be/90FTo0wBKns
Click Here to Play the Video Above

7. Voting in Texas
Types of Election: Primaries
Primary Election: an election in which each party selects its
nominees for office
Open Primary: an election in which any registered voter
can vote for a party’s candidates
Closed Primary: an election in which only voters registered
with a party may vote for the party’s candidates

8. Voting in Texas
Types of Elections: Texas Primaries
• Texas technically has closed primaries because participants
declare a party affiliation before voting, but this declaration is
nonbinding for future elections
• Practically, Texas has open primaries
• Open primaries encourage crossover voting, in which a voter
might vote for candidates from the other party who are
weaker or more ideologically extreme so that their own
party’s candidates have a better chance of winning

9. Primary Elections Explained
9https://youtu.be/_95I_1rZiIs
Click Here to Play the Video Above

10. A Closer Look at the Primary Elections
in Texas for 2018
10https://youtu.be/fFyBLtyVtpw
Click Here to Play the Video Above

11. Voting in Texas
Types of Elections: Special Cases
Runoff Election: an election where, if no candidate receives
a majority of the votes, the two top vote-getters run again
Special Election: an election contest held as needed to fill
vacancies created by death, resignation, or removal from
office

12. Who should pay for a special election?
12
https://youtu.be/UA87Id0flr0
Click Here to Play the Video Above

13. Voting in Texas
Types of Voting: Where to vote
Early Voting: voters are able to cast a ballot in Texas two
weeks before Election Day
Mobile Voting: “rolling voting,” polling place is moved to
different locations
Split Ticket Voting: choosing candidates from different
parties for different offices

14. Voting in Texas

15. Voting in Texas
Types of Voting: Casting the ballot
Straight Ticket voting: checking one box to vote for every
candidate a specific party has on the ballot
Split Ticket Voting: choosing candidates from different
parties for different offices

16. Voting in Texas
Types of Voting: Polling Locations
Neighborhood Precincts: Each county designates neighborhood
polling locations, which must be located within twenty-five
miles from the home of each voter in the precinct on Election
Day
Vote Centers: In 2005, the Texas legislature approved county-
level decisions to move from traditional, neighborhood precinct
polls to “vote centers.” All voters in counties that allow it can
vote in these centers in the general election, regardless of their
address, so they can choose the most convenient location

17. How Do Presidential General Elections
Work?
17https://youtu.be/cfblxsktgCE
Click Here to Play the Video Above

18. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Voting Barriers
• Disenfranchise: deprive individuals of the right to vote
• Beginning in the 1890s, southern states began to adopt
literacy tests –an impromptu examination of an individual’s
ability to speak and pronounce specific legal passages or a
short quiz pertaining to facts of state or US government.
• Poll taxes were also used to restrict access to the ballot
• A poll tax was an unconstitutional tax that required those
desiring to register to vote to pay a fee

19. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Voting Barriers
• White Primary
– Only whites could participate in primary elections
– 1927 US Supreme Court ruled states could not hold white
primaries
– State turned primaries over to political parties, who reinstated
– Excluded African Americans and Latinos
– 1944 ruled unconstitutional

20. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Voting Barriers: Hispanics
• “Ambiguous racial identity”: not Anglo but not African American
• “White” for school integration, not for political inclusion
• Allowed to vote in some counties but not others
• Voting Rights Act (1965) prohibited discrimination against racial
minorities
– language minorities ambiguous
• Conflicts worked into court system, Latino vote diluted
• Redraw electoral district lines
– single-member districts: electoral unit that elects only one member of a
political body

21. Hispanic Voting Turnout (2009?)
https://youtu.be/UXGwwivdDFM
Click Here to Play the Video Above

22. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Voting Barriers: African Americans
• Texas Reconstruction Constitution extended full voting rights
to African Americans
• The fifteenth amendment, passed in 1870, prohibited the
denial of voting rights on the basis of race
• After the Civil War and the end of the Union’s military rule in
the South, Anglos were able to keep African Americans
economically subservient and reinforce discriminatory voting
practices through intimidation
• The Republican Party in Texas, champion of African American
voting rights, found itself relatively powerless to help

23. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Voting Barriers: African Americans
• Congress passed a landmark piece of federal legislation that
outlawed racial discrimination in voting
– Voting Rights Act 1965
• Increased voter turnout
• Redistricting in 1970 helped elect African Americans
– Districts drawn with more African American communities within
boundaries

24. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Turnout Rates

25. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Voting Barriers: Women
• Women not involved in politics
– Politics would make women “course and crude”
– Involvement of women would endanger the social order
• Women won the right to vote through ratification of the
Nineteenth Amendment
• Women often relegated to “housekeeping” chores

26. Suffrage Struggles and
Their Consequences
Voting Barriers: Asians
• “Outsiders” in politics
• First Asian immigrants to arrive in Texas
• Chinese Exclusion Act 1882 (Federal)
– Asians ineligible for citizenship
– Asians ineligible to vote
– Repealed 1943
• Fastest growing minority group in Texas

27. Voter Turnout in Texas
Why Texans Don’t Vote
The Rational Voter: Many scholars believe that voters
weigh the costs and benefits of voting. Voting doesn’t
cost money, but it does take time to get informed about
the candidates, find the polling station, wait in line, and
fill out the ballot
– Approximately 28% of Americans say that they don’t
vote because they are “too busy.”

28. Why Do People Under 30
Tend to Vote Less Often?
https://youtu.be/p25BMBVGd0E
Click Here to Play the Video Above

29. Voter Turnout in Texas
Why Texans Don’t Vote
Political Efficacy: The belief that your participation can
influence the political system
• Some don’t vote because they don’t see a benefit.
They lack political efficacy
• Although a single vote does not usually make a major
difference, several recent elections have been decided
by small margins (example: a Texas house district
decided by 64 votes in 2016)

30. Voter Turnout in Texas
Why Texans Don’t Vote
Expected Vote Differential: voters do not see any
difference between parties or candidates
• Past success of current party in power compared to
the other party
• More successful party gets the vote
• No difference in party – no vote

31. Voter Turnout in Texas
The Voting Decision
Political Socialization: the process in which individuals
acquire political values and behaviors that have a strong
influence on future voting behavior
• Family, friends, media, religion, region, and other sources
of political socialization impact not only whether
someone will vote but also how they vote
• Family is often pointed to as the primary influence in the
development of a young person’s political orientations
• School is another major agent of political socialization

32. Think your vote doesn’t matter? Look at this
video about “close” elections.
32https://youtu.be/qQ0mbqD_W0E
Click Here to Play the Video Above

33. Voter Turnout in Texas
Voter Turnout by State, 2016

34. Voter Turnout in Texas
Voter ID
• In recent years, Texans waged a war in the legislature and
the courts over whether to institute a voter ID requirement
that might suppress voter turnout while reducing voter
fraud
• Voter fraud has a long tradition in Texas. Lyndon Johnson is
believed to have stolen the 1948 Democratic primary
runoff for US Senate when “Box 13” was “discovered” in an
uncounted precinct
• 2011 bill passed that required voters to show government
issued photo identification, ruled unconstitutional

35. John Oliver on Voter ID Laws
https://youtu.be/rHFOwlMCdto
Click Here to Play the Video Above

36. Does Texas Voter ID Law Deter Voters?
https://youtu.be/eg6BXeW-XqY
Click Here to Play the Video Above

37. How to Campaign, Texas Style
Building Campaign Infrastructure
• Campaign staff are the engine of the campaign
• Political consultants
• Campaign manager
• Fundraising director
• Field director
• Volunteers
• Main goal – get candidate’s message to voters
• Public opinion polling
• Battery of survey questions asked of a representative
sample of individuals

38. How to Campaign, Texas Style
Image, Limelight, and the Media
• Name Identification: familiarity with a candidate’s name
• Voters unfamiliar with candidates tend to pick those
whose names they have heard
• Incumbents: candidates who are also the current
officeholder
• Name identification advantage

39. How to Campaign, Texas Style
Negative Campaigning
Negative Campaigning: a campaign that highlights the
flaws of their opponent over the virtues of their own
candidates
• Voters claim to dislike negative advertising, but it often
works
• Can backfire
• Negative campaigning works by decreases political efficacy
and reduces support for candidate who is target
• Increasing with rise of external groups and political
polarization

40. How to Campaign, Texas Style
Courting the Base
• Key to electoral success
• Difficult to persuade members of opposition party
• Electorate is too polarized to cross party boundaries
• Campaigns spend time courting voters likely to vote for
them
• “Get Out the Vote” (GOTV): tactic to get friendly voters
to the polls

41. How to Campaign, Texas Style
Microtargeting
• Court new voters
• Identify supporters online and in the real world
• Develop campaigns based on voter information
Surfing National Trends
• National-level trends drive much of state-level politics
• Popularity of party in control of US Congress shifts
voter sentiment
• Popularity of president can shift voter sentiment

42. How to Campaign, Texas Style
Funding Elections
• Major component of getting message out
• Money known as the “mother’s milk” of politics
• Money pays for professional campaign staff, media,
marketing, research
• Record amounts have been raised and spent recently

43. How to Campaign, Texas Style
Funding Elections
Political Action Committees (PACs): an organization that collects donations
from donors and uses these funds to donate to candidates, parties, or other
political causes
Super PACs: independent expenditure committees that are legally
permitted to raise and send unlimited funds from individuals, corporations,
unions, or other groups to advocate on behalf of their causes but are not
permitted to give to candidates directly
Rules and Limits: Federal election funding regulated by the Federal Election
campaign Act, state election funding regulated by the Texas Ethics
Commission

44. Who Wins and Why
Money and Election Outcomes
• Candidates need money Hire campaign staff
• Activate base
• advertise
• Money is not always the most significant factor in winning
elections
• Political donations do not necessarily influence legislation
• Do buy access to an elected official’s time
• Many interest groups and PACs donate to multiple
candidates to hedge their bets

45. Who Wins and Why

46. Who Wins and Why
Parties and Straight Ticket Voting
• Helps both parties gain and maintain power
• Parties exploit advantage
Incumbents and Voter Turnout
• Incumbents are more likely to win a general election
• Name identification higher
• Ability to raise more money, spend more money

47. Who Wins and Why
Electoral System
• How votes counted impacts the outcome
• Candidates elected tow ways
• Districts
• At-Large: all citizens in a county can vote
Will Texas Turn Blue?
• Growth of Hispanic population can change party strength
• Not likely
• Many Hispanics are not citizens
• Turnout among Hispanics lags
• Migration from other southern states
• Democratic Party has large deficit of voters