Voter Registration
The only state with no registration required.
What is North Dakota
Often a reason for voters staying home when they are tired of voting.
What is voter fatigue?
In many states voters may vote many times per year on ballots filled with candidates and issues to research. The less time there is between elections, the lower the turnout.
This form political organization play a vital role in campaign finance.
What is a PAC (Political Action Committee)
These organizations were created to raise and spend money to influence politics and contribute to candidates’ campaigns.
Early Money Is Like Yeast. This precursor gives many candidates a head start.
What is fundraising?
Even with a carefully planned and orchestrated presidential run, money helps them win, and the ability to raise money identifies those who are viable.
This common form of direct democracy allows voters to propose and pass laws or amendments.
What is initiative, or proposition?
Initiatives requires the collection of signatures from voters, approval of the measure by state government, and a ballot election.
This key legislation prohibited state laws that denied voting rights based on race.
What is the Voting Rights Act (1965)
As a result the Supreme Court determined grandfather clauses and other restrictions (poll taxes, literacy tests) were unconstitutional.
A process that makes it easier for voter to find time to cast their ballot.
What is early voting?
Although voters have more time to navigate work, school, childcare and the casting their ballots, one argument against early and mail-only voting is that those who vote early cannot change their minds during the final days of the campaign.
The two ways of choosing a nominee to run for state or presidential election.
What are primaries and caucus?
Closed primary - only party registered voters choose the party nominee.
Open primary - any registered voter involved in choosing nominee
Top-two primary - two candidates with the most votes, regardless of party, become the nominees for the general election
Caucus - townhall style nomination process
These are usually run without coordination with the candidate.
What are shadow campaigns?
Run by political action committees (PACs) and other organizations, these campaigns use negative ads to reach voters; often focused on attacking the political opponent.
This asks citizens to approve certain government decisions.
What is referendum?
This form of direct democracy gives citizens a limited amount of power, but it does not allow them to overhaul policy or circumvent the government.
This piece of legislation is often referred to as Motor Voter.
What is The National Voter Registration Act (1993)?
This legislation was enacted to expedite the registration process and make it as simple as possible for voters.
This group of people often have little to no impact on presidential election outcomes.
What is the chronic minority?
These citizens think they will never change the outcome of state-level elections, as well as those who vote for third parties like the Green Party or the Libertarian Party.
These contentious events typically garner the most media attention during general election season.
What are presidential debates?
Debates are an important element of the general election season, allowing voters to see candidates answer questions on policy and prior decisions. Gubernatorial and U.S. Senate are televised in most states but most voters think only of presidential debates.
Voters often use this method when casting their ballots.
What is straight-ticket voting?
Citizens will use party identification to make decisions—choosing every Republican or Democratic Party member on the ballot. Straight-ticket voting does cause problems in states that include non-partisan positions on the ballot.
Government official can be removed by this form of direct democracy.
What is recall?
Recall is one of the more unusual forms of direct democracy; it allows voters to decide whether to remove a government official from office. Removal by voters is less common.
This law was passed to deal with phantom voters.
What is The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA)?
States were required to update voting equipment, make voting more accessible to people with disabilities, and maintain computerized voter rolls that could be updated regularly
This is a constant concern for campaign managers.
What is voter turnout?
There are many ways to measure voter turnout depending on whether we calculate it using the total population, the voting-age population (VAP), the voting-eligible population (VEP), or the total number of registered voters.
These states are outliers in the district system of the electoral college.
What are Nebraska and Maine?
The candidate who wins the state gets two electoral votes, but the winner of each congressional district also receives an electoral vote.
This occurs when the voter looks at the candidate’s past actions and the past economic climate and makes a decision only using these factors.
What is retrospective voting?
Pocketbook voting occurs when voters look at their personal finances and circumstances to decide how to vote.
Prospective voting occurs when the voter applies information about a candidate’s past behavior to decide how the candidate will act in the future.
This state made a recall star the governor.
What is California?
The recall of California Governor Gray Davis in 2003 saw him replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. One of his notable movies is "Total Recall".
This Supreme Court case gutted the Voting Rights Act.
What is Shelby County v. Holder (2013)?
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision and left election policy to the states' and localities' discretion.
This Supreme Court case deemed voter ID as constitutional.
What is Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008)
Opponents of photo identification laws argue that these restrictions are unfair because they have an unusually strong effect on some demographics. One study, done by Reuters, found that requiring a photo ID would disproportionally prevent citizens aged 18–24, Hispanics, and those without a college education from voting.
This Supreme Court case uncapped corporate spending on politics.
What is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC), which operates independently of government and enforces the elections laws.
The court ruling also allowed corporations to place unlimited money into super PACs, or Independent Expenditure-Only Committees.
This Act forces candidates to stand by their ad campaigns.
What is the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, or McCain–Feingold?
In reaction to ads becoming more negative and manipulative, this legislation included a requirement that candidates stand by their ad and include a recorded statement within the ad stating that they approved the message. Candidates can no longer dodge responsibility for them.
This Supreme Court ruling confirmed the U.S. government's authority to criminalize the use of marijuana.
What is Gonzales v. Raich (2005)?