Lobbying, Interest Groups, and Campaign Finance
_____________: A type of organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaign but CANNOT take directly from corporations.
What is a Political Action Committee (PAC)
DOUBLE Points: Which types of organizations CAN take corporate money?
Who presides over the counting of the electoral votes?
Double points: When does this happen?
The US Operates as a _________ Party System
What is a two party system
__________: to manipulate the boundaries of an electoral constituency map (Congressional Districts!) so as to favor one party. Closely related to “redistricting.”
What is gerrymandering?
Name one technique which campaign TV advertisements use to influence their viewers
What is any of the following: emotion, persuasion, "truth," and style?
A ___________ works for or in collaboration with interest groups to promote, oppose, or influence legislation.
A __________ refers to any state that could reasonably be won by either the Democratic or Republican candidate (e.g. is not assumed to safely go for a Democratic or Republican).
What is a swing state?
DOUBLE POINTS: Name at least TWO swing states from the 2024 Presidential Election
What is any of the following: minimal media coverage, denial of ballot access, lack of campaign funds, winner-takes-all systems, the spoiler effect
What is the main distinction between voter fraud and voter suppression?
What is: Voter fraud is intervention in free and fair elections by voters, while voter suppression is intervention by the government
DOUBLE POINTS: Which of these is more prevalent in the United States today?
______________________ are meetings run by political parties that are held at the county or district, and/or precinct level in the months leading up to a presidential election. Each candidate's group gives speeches, holds up signs, and tries to get others to join their group. At the end, the number of delegates given to each candidate.
What is a caucus?
DOUBLE POINTS: Name a state which uses caucuses
Which Supreme Court case allowed for unlimited corporate spending in US elections and the creation of Super PACs?
What is Citizens United vs. FEC (2010)?
DOUBLE POINTS: What was the constitutional argument behind the ruling?
What is the formula for determining the number of electoral college votes for each state?
What is Number of Senators + Number of Representatives / Districts
DOUBLE POINTS: What is the MINIMUM number of electoral college votes a state can have?
The term _______________________ refers to a situation where voters face a choice between two major-party candidates, neither of whom they find particularly appealing, but feel compelled to vote for the one they perceive as less undesirable.
What is lesser evil voting?
What is any of the following: Voter ID laws, purging voter rolls, limiting polling places, poll watching, gerrymandering, felony disenfranchisement
In an _________________ a voter of any political affiliation may vote in the primary of any party. For example, a voter registered as a Democrat can choose to vote in the Republican primary. A voter may only vote in one party’s primary and, in many States, voters are not required to choose a political affiliation when they register to vote.
What is an open primary?
_____________ describes the phenomenon in which members of Congress become lobbyists for special interest groups for much higher salaries after leaving office.
What is the revolving door?
Coalition building and less negative campaign advertisements are seen as benefits of which form of voting?
a. Electoral College
b. Popular Vote
c. Rank Choice Voting
What is c. Rank Choice Voting
The __________: the idea that you’ll help the party you hate by voting third party under a winner-take-all system.
What is the spoiler effect?
DOUBLE Points: How does this relate to Duverger's Law?
___________: the practice of counting incarcerated individuals as residents of the prison's location for political redistricting, rather than their home communities
What is prison gerrymandering?
(This practice distorts representation by artificially inflating the population of districts with prisons, which are often in rural areas, while diluting the voting power of the urban and suburban areas where prisoners actually come from).
The _________ and the ________ are held every four years to announce the presidential nominees for the Democratic and Republican parties
What is the Republican National Convention (RNC) and Democratic National Convention (DNC)?
Super PACs are allowed to collect unlimited money from corporations and advertise on behalf of candidate as long as they what?
What is: as long as they do not coordinate directly with parties or candidates
What is the system called:
The candidate who wins the highest number of a state’s popular vote (cast by the people) wins all its electoral votes.
What is Winner-Takes-All System
Many representative democracies with multi-party systems use __________ when conducting elections. In this system, the number of seats that a party wins in an election is proportional to the amount of its support among voters.
What is Proportional Representation?
Which Supreme Court Case labeled sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional and led to states being able to roll back protections against voting discrimination?
What is Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
DOUBLE POINTS: Which aspects of the Voting Rights Act were considered unconstitutional and why?
In New York City, which voting process do we use in the mayoral primaries?
What is Rank Choice Voting?