CHAPTER 7: THE ELECTORAL PROCESS

Section 1: The Nominating Process

Section 2: ElectionsSection 3: Money & Elections

Terms

General Elections – regularly scheduled elections at which voters make the final selection of officeholders.

Caucus – a group of like-minded people who meet to select the candidates they will support in an upcoming election.

Direct Primary – an intraparty election and is held in order for a party to pick candidates for the general election.

Closed Primary – a nominating election in which only declared party members can vote.

Open Primary – a party’s nominating election in which any qualified voter can cast a ballot.

Terms

Blanket Primary – a different version of the open primary sometimes called the “wide-open primary”

Runoff Primary – an election that is held if no one wins a majority in a race.

Nonpartisan Elections – elections in which candidates are not identified by party labels.

Ballot – the medium by which a voter registers a choice in an election.

Absentee Voting – a process by which voting can take place without going to the polling place on election day.

Terms

Coattail Effect – occurs when a strong candidate running for an office at the top of the ballot helps attract voters to other candidates on the party’s ticket.

Precinct – a voting district Polling Place – the place where voters vote

within their precinct. Political Action Committees (PACs) – the

political arms of special interest groups and other organizations with a stake in electoral politics.

Terms

Subsidy – a grant of money, usually from the government.

Hard Money – those contributions that are given directly to candidates for their campaigns.

Soft Money – funds given to parties or to other political organizations , in unlimited amounts, to be used for “party-building activities”.

Nominations

Self-Announcement – Oldest form of the nominating process. A person who wants to run for an office simply announces that fact.

Caucus – A group of like-minded people who meet to select the candidates they’ll vote for in an upcoming election.

Convention – Took the place of the collapsing caucus method. How all Presidents have been picked. Best suited for representative government.

Nominations

Direct Primary – Intraparty election held within a party and used to elect the party’s candidates for the general election.

Petition – Candidates for public office are nominated by means of petitions signed by a certain number of qualified voters in the election district.

The Australian Ballot

4 main components:1. Is provided at public expense.2. Lists the names of all candidates in

an election.3. Is given out only at the polls, one to

each qualified voter.4. Can be marked in secret.

Ballot Characteristics

“Bed-Sheet” Ballot – The typical ballot in America is very lengthy and therefor referred to as this.

“Ballot Fatigue” – The drop off in voting that can occur as voters get to the end of a lengthy ballot.

Campaign Spending

No one really knows exactly just how much money is spent on political campaigns in the United States.

Money for campaigns usually comes from 2 sources: 1. private contributors and 2. public treasury.

Federal Election Committee

A.K.A. – FEC Administers all federal law dealing with

campaign finance. Set up by Congress in 1974 & is made up

of 6 members who are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Located in the executive branch.

FEC

The laws that the FEC enforces cover 4 broad areas: 1. They require the timely disclosure of

campaign finance data. 2. They place limits on campaign

contributions. 3. They place limits on campaign

expenditures. 4. They provide public funding for several

parts of the presidential election process.

Super PACs

Independent political action committees that are unaffiliated with any political party.

They are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts, although they must reveal their donors and cannot work directly with a candidate’s campaign.