Elections in Theory and Practice in the United States

This lecture was given in PS 240 on 9/15.

Possible Exam Questions

1. Nobody has offered any yet.

Lecture Material

Columbia School

Based on The People's Choice 1944 (rare), then in 1948, and the 1960 edition is what you can find on amazon

This study focused on narrow groups, on the theory that sociological influences (family and friends) give a voter their political preferences. Group membership is the sole determiner of voting behavior.

Literary Digest

LD has been correct in their guess of who the next president would be through poles the magazine sent out from 1916-1932. in 1936 they got ahead of themselves and their pole was the largest it had ever been, 10 million. they were horrible off in their prediction that year.

Michigan Model of Voting

Based on The American Voter (1960), which examined the 1948, 1952, and 1956 elections

This model assumes that partisan identification is entirely the result of the social influences of group membership and family influence. Partisan identification in turn determines policy attitudes of voters, their attitudes to group benefits, and their attitudes towards candidates. In short, socialization as a group member (i.e. gender, class, religion, age) combined with family influences determines partisan identification which determines an individual's vote. Their findings concluded that people cast their ballot primarily due to partisan identification. partisan identification-longterm stable psychological affiliation towards a party. one of the authors of the american voter did a study following its publishing where he followed certain people over multiple years and learned that while party support remained constant, policy support swung rapidly.

Critique of the model: It can be adjusted to work no matter the outcome.

Rational Choice Model

Based on The Changing American Voter (1976) and Anthony Downs' An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957)

The Changing American Voter argues that individuals make informed, consistent voting choices based on a cost/benefit analysis. Downs showed that purely rationally, there is no reason to vote, since an individual's chance of affecting an election outcome is near nil, so the cost of voting should far outweigh the benefit. In order to explain voting, Downs introduced the D-term, which stands for civic duty. The D-term is a tautological theory--it is so vague that it cannot be proven wrong.

Secret Ballot

The lecture also noted the necessity of making distinctions between U.S. elections before the 1930s when the secret ballot had fully spread in usage and the elections prior to then, which are not comparable to modern elections due to the absence of the secret ballot. The first major voting studies came after the 1930s.

psephology-scientific study of voting.