Abstract Several measures of partisan bias are reviewed for single member districts with two dominant parties. These include variants of the simple bias that considers only deviation of seats from 50% at statewide 50% vote. Also included are equalization of losing votes and equalization of wasted votes, both of which apply directly when the statewide vote is not 50% and which require, not just partisan symmetry, but specific forms of the seats-votes curve. A new measure of bias is introduced, based on the geometric area between the seats-vote curve and the symmetrically inverted seats-votes curve. These measures are applied to recent Pennsylvania congressional elections and to abstract models of the seats-votes curves. The numerical values obtained from the various measures of bias are compared and contrasted. Each bias measure has merits for different seats-votes curves and for different elections, but all essentially agree for most cases when applied to measure only partisan bias, not conflated with com...
{"title":"Measures of Partisan Bias for Legislating Fair Elections","authors":"F. NagleJohn","doi":"10.1089/ELJ.2015.0311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/ELJ.2015.0311","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Several measures of partisan bias are reviewed for single member districts with two dominant parties. These include variants of the simple bias that considers only deviation of seats from 50% at statewide 50% vote. Also included are equalization of losing votes and equalization of wasted votes, both of which apply directly when the statewide vote is not 50% and which require, not just partisan symmetry, but specific forms of the seats-votes curve. A new measure of bias is introduced, based on the geometric area between the seats-vote curve and the symmetrically inverted seats-votes curve. These measures are applied to recent Pennsylvania congressional elections and to abstract models of the seats-votes curves. The numerical values obtained from the various measures of bias are compared and contrasted. Each bias measure has merits for different seats-votes curves and for different elections, but all essentially agree for most cases when applied to measure only partisan bias, not conflated with com...","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"11 1","pages":"346-360"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/ELJ.2015.0311","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60997883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Election Law in Theory and Practice","authors":"E. GottliebStephen","doi":"10.1089/elj.2015.0340","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2015.0340","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":"292-294"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/elj.2015.0340","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60998863","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Using the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) database on political finance regulations for 82 countries, we found that a contribution limits index increased corruption, after controlling for a standard list of explanatory variables. This result remains consistent employing an array of robustness checks intended to minimize the risk of a bias due to potential reverse causality and endogeneity. In contrast, the level of perceived corruption is lower in countries with higher indices of public funding and transparency requirements but these effects are rarely significant. Interestingly, we show that the mix of more generous public funding and less stringent regulations of private contributions is associated with lower corruption.
{"title":"The Regulation of Political Finance and Corruption","authors":"Ben-BassatAvi, DahanMomi","doi":"10.1089/ELJ.2014.0296","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/ELJ.2014.0296","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Using the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) database on political finance regulations for 82 countries, we found that a contribution limits index increased corruption, after controlling for a standard list of explanatory variables. This result remains consistent employing an array of robustness checks intended to minimize the risk of a bias due to potential reverse causality and endogeneity. In contrast, the level of perceived corruption is lower in countries with higher indices of public funding and transparency requirements but these effects are rarely significant. Interestingly, we show that the mix of more generous public funding and less stringent regulations of private contributions is associated with lower corruption.","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"1 1","pages":"190-206"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/ELJ.2014.0296","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60996795","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Voters are often trusting of elections, but distrustful of government. We test whether voter confidence represents a different measure of system support from trust in government and external efficacy. Theoretically, we describe the inherent differences in these measures as one reason to suspect they are so. Empirically, we consider frequency distributions, crosstabs, exploratory factor analysis, reliability tests, and regression analysis to determine the independent validity of each system support measure. We find strong theoretical and empirical evidence to support that voter confidence is different from other system support measures previously studied and examined. As such, it is an important new area of scholarship.
{"title":"Voter Confidence: How to Measure It and How It Differs from Government Support","authors":"L. Atkeson, R. M. Alvarez, T. Hall","doi":"10.1089/ELJ.2014.0293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/ELJ.2014.0293","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Voters are often trusting of elections, but distrustful of government. We test whether voter confidence represents a different measure of system support from trust in government and external efficacy. Theoretically, we describe the inherent differences in these measures as one reason to suspect they are so. Empirically, we consider frequency distributions, crosstabs, exploratory factor analysis, reliability tests, and regression analysis to determine the independent validity of each system support measure. We find strong theoretical and empirical evidence to support that voter confidence is different from other system support measures previously studied and examined. As such, it is an important new area of scholarship.","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":"207-219"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/ELJ.2014.0293","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60997124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Unlike many other statutes, the Voting Rights Act authorizes no administrative agency to issue implementing rules with the force of law. This essay nonetheless argues that guidelines issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) through the notice-and-comment process could play a critically important role in persuading the Supreme Court not to construe the Voting Rights Act into quiescence—an outcome that otherwise seems quite likely. Though DOJ guidelines would not bind anyone outside of the agency, they could have a substantial impact on the Supreme Court's assessment of the costs and benefits of alternative statutory constructions. The guidelines I suggest would clarify the relationship between statutory and constitutional violations, while bolstering the manageability of racial vote dilution law and reducing its dependence on strong racial assumptions. This evolution in voting rights law would be difficult for the Court to bring about on its own, unaided by agency rulemaking.
{"title":"Advisory Rulemaking and the Future of the Voting Rights Act","authors":"S. ElmendorfChristopher","doi":"10.1089/elj.2015.0315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2015.0315","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Unlike many other statutes, the Voting Rights Act authorizes no administrative agency to issue implementing rules with the force of law. This essay nonetheless argues that guidelines issued by the Department of Justice (DOJ) through the notice-and-comment process could play a critically important role in persuading the Supreme Court not to construe the Voting Rights Act into quiescence—an outcome that otherwise seems quite likely. Though DOJ guidelines would not bind anyone outside of the agency, they could have a substantial impact on the Supreme Court's assessment of the costs and benefits of alternative statutory constructions. The guidelines I suggest would clarify the relationship between statutory and constitutional violations, while bolstering the manageability of racial vote dilution law and reducing its dependence on strong racial assumptions. This evolution in voting rights law would be difficult for the Court to bring about on its own, unaided by agency rulemaking.","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":"260-277"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/elj.2015.0315","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60997983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act has spurred a search for measures of election performance that extend beyond race-based registration and turnout rates. We contribute to this endeavor by studying patterns of precinct congestion in Florida during the 2012 General Election. With precinct closing times as proxies for congestion, our study covers 5,302 total Election Day precincts in Florida. We show that there was tremendous variance in closing times in Florida on Election Day in 2012 and that precincts with greater proportions of Hispanic voters closed disproportionately late. This finding holds even controlling for the number of pollworkers per precinct. Broadly speaking, voting place congestion in the 2012 General Election appears not to have affected all Floridians equally, and most notably the post-Shelby electoral environment in the United States continues to reflect racial disparities. With the loss of the Voting Rights ...
{"title":"Precinct Closing Times in Florida During the 2012 General Election","authors":"C. HerronMichael, A. SmithDaniel","doi":"10.1089/ELJ.2013.0234","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/ELJ.2013.0234","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act has spurred a search for measures of election performance that extend beyond race-based registration and turnout rates. We contribute to this endeavor by studying patterns of precinct congestion in Florida during the 2012 General Election. With precinct closing times as proxies for congestion, our study covers 5,302 total Election Day precincts in Florida. We show that there was tremendous variance in closing times in Florida on Election Day in 2012 and that precincts with greater proportions of Hispanic voters closed disproportionately late. This finding holds even controlling for the number of pollworkers per precinct. Broadly speaking, voting place congestion in the 2012 General Election appears not to have affected all Floridians equally, and most notably the post-Shelby electoral environment in the United States continues to reflect racial disparities. With the loss of the Voting Rights ...","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":"220-238"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/ELJ.2013.0234","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60995205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This essay addresses the thorny politics of enacting voting rights policy in legislatures. Electoral survival is a key concern of legislators, so election reforms set high stakes when their likely results are well known to those who must enact them. The challenges to organize legislative majorities are therefore heightened in this context. To illustrate the point, the Article reviews the chain of events leading to the various enactments of the Voting Rights Act starting in 1965. President Johnson completed a radical and swift change in the electoral system for the entire country, particularly in the Southern States. Key to his original success (and later enactments of the law) was his awareness of and responsiveness to the multiple electoral concerns in Congress. I argue that the law's passage must be viewed as the product of satisfying the electoral incentives of legislators. The statute's contours (specifically what it addresses and what it does not) are explainable at least in part by the comp...
{"title":"Legislative Politics and the Politics of Legislatures","authors":"CraytonKareem","doi":"10.1089/elj.2015.0323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2015.0323","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This essay addresses the thorny politics of enacting voting rights policy in legislatures. Electoral survival is a key concern of legislators, so election reforms set high stakes when their likely results are well known to those who must enact them. The challenges to organize legislative majorities are therefore heightened in this context. To illustrate the point, the Article reviews the chain of events leading to the various enactments of the Voting Rights Act starting in 1965. President Johnson completed a radical and swift change in the electoral system for the entire country, particularly in the Southern States. Key to his original success (and later enactments of the law) was his awareness of and responsiveness to the multiple electoral concerns in Congress. I argue that the law's passage must be viewed as the product of satisfying the electoral incentives of legislators. The statute's contours (specifically what it addresses and what it does not) are explainable at least in part by the comp...","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":"241-259"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/elj.2015.0323","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60998529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Underlying both the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder and congressional inaction in renewing the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is the claim that the Voting Rights Act has already succeeded and is therefore no longer necessary. These claims ignore enduring challenges to voter participation and miss the steep drop off in participation by historically excluded groups in mid-term elections and the persistent participation gap for Latinos in all elections, especially in jurisdictions that have historically been covered by the VRA. In responding to these enduring challenges of voter participation, universal approaches to expanding voter registration and participation are increasingly important. Fifty-one million eligible Americans still cannot participate in voting because they are not registered to vote, and these potentially eligible voters are disproportionately African American and Latino. Universal responses to expanding voter registration such as Election Day Registration and automati...
{"title":"The Voting Rights Act and the Enduring Challenge of Participation","authors":"GartnerDavid","doi":"10.1089/elj.2015.0319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2015.0319","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Underlying both the Supreme Court's decision in Shelby County v. Holder and congressional inaction in renewing the Voting Rights Act (VRA) is the claim that the Voting Rights Act has already succeeded and is therefore no longer necessary. These claims ignore enduring challenges to voter participation and miss the steep drop off in participation by historically excluded groups in mid-term elections and the persistent participation gap for Latinos in all elections, especially in jurisdictions that have historically been covered by the VRA. In responding to these enduring challenges of voter participation, universal approaches to expanding voter registration and participation are increasingly important. Fifty-one million eligible Americans still cannot participate in voting because they are not registered to vote, and these potentially eligible voters are disproportionately African American and Latino. Universal responses to expanding voter registration such as Election Day Registration and automati...","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":"278-281"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/elj.2015.0319","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60997765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Review of The Politics of Voter Suppression","authors":"RushMark","doi":"10.1089/ELJ.2015.0297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1089/ELJ.2015.0297","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45644,"journal":{"name":"Election Law Journal","volume":"14 1","pages":"186-188"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2015-06-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1089/ELJ.2015.0297","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"60997246","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：