Search

Begin New Search Topic Elections Political Geography North America

81. As Israel’s Kingmaker Gets Off the Fence, Gantz Gets a Boost

Author:
David Makovksy
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
Although Benny Gantz’s party lost the head-to-head battle, Avigdor Liberman’s favorable influence on the coalition math has left the general in a stronger position—and taken some diplomatic weight off the Trump administration’s shoulders. Israel’s third round of elections last week seemed inconclusive at first, but the deadlock may now be broken. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu did better this time than in September’s round two, but his gains were insufficient to form a new government. Potential kingmaker Avigdor Liberman jettisoned his previous idea of getting the two top parties to join forces; instead, personal antipathy and policy differences have led him to definitely state that he will not join any government Netanyahu leads. Thus, while centrist Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz may have options to shape a new government, Netanyahu has no pathway on his own. In theory, the center-left bloc has the requisite number of seats for a bare majority in the 120-member Knesset, since anti-Netanyahu forces won 62 seats. In reality, the situation is more complex.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Government, Politics, and Elections
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, North America, and United States of America

82. Reading Trump in Tehran

Author:
Mehdi Khalaji
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Abstract:
A week after Donald Trump was elected president in November 2016, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei played coy, remarking, “I have no judgment on the American election...[Both parties have been] naughty toward us.” Of course, his true reaction was far more complex. On one hand, he saw in the president-elect—who had spoken much of disentangling U.S. forces from the Middle East—a prospect of decreased military pressure on his country. On the other, he heard Trump’s raw vitriol directed at Iran’s leadership and the nuclear deal crafted by President Obama. The eventual U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA demonstrated that the new president could back up his talk with punishing action. In this close analysis of statements by Khamenei and other Iranian leaders, former seminarian Mehdi Khalaji lays out the regime’s current views on President Trump and the United States. He shows that even after the American assassination of Qods Force chief Qasem Soleimani, Iranian leaders could be open to negotiating with Washington if they believe the regime’s existence depends on it.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Politics, Elections, and Donald Trump
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America

83. Predicting United States Policy Outcomes with Random Forests

Author:
Shawn K. McGuire and Charles B. Delahunt
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
Two decades of U.S. government legislative outcomes, as well as the policy preferences of highincome people, the general population, and diverse interest groups, were captured in a detailed dataset curated and analyzed by Gilens, Page et al. (2014). They found that the preferences of high-income earners correlated strongly with policy outcomes, while the preferences of the general population did not, except via a linkage with the preferences of high earners. Their analysis applied the tools of classical statistical inference, in particular logistic regression. In this paper we analyze the Gilens dataset using the complementary tools of Random Forest classifiers (RFs), from Machine Learning. We present two primary findings, concerning respectively prediction and inference: (i) Holdout test sets can be predicted with approximately 70% balanced accuracy by models that consult only the preferences of those in the 90th income percentile and a small number of powerful interest groups, as well as policy area labels. These results include retrodiction, where models trained on pre-1997 cases predicted “future” (post-1997) cases. The 20% gain in accuracy over baseline (chance), in this detailed but noisy dataset, indicates the high importance of a few distinct players in U.S. policy outcomes, and aligns with a body of research indicating that the U.S. government has significant plutocratic tendencies. (ii) The feature selection methods of RF models identify especially salient subsets of interest groups (economic players). These can be used to further investigate the dynamics of governmental policy making, and also offer an example of the potential value of RF feature selection methods for inference on datasets such as this one.
Topic:
Political Economy, Elections, Public Policy, Money, and Political Parties
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

84. How Can We Increase Turnout among Low Propensity Voters?

Author:
Seth Hill, Thad Kousser, Gabriel Lenz, Mackenzie Lockhart, and Elizabeth Mitchell
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
How can we increase voter turnout among low-propensity voters? Researchers and practitioners have found interventions that increase voter turnout, but these interventions tend to increase turnout among individuals already likely to vote, and therefore appear to exacerbate existing inequalities in participation. This project developed and tested an intervention designed to encourage people with a lower prior likelihood of voting into the electorate. First, in summer 2018, we surveyed a diverse sample of voting and non-voting Californians about their political attitudes. We concluded that feeling inadequately informed and feeling inefficacious may contribute to low turnout rates. Based on the results of the survey, we designed messages to address these feelings and tested them in an experiment to increase turnout in two special elections in June 2019 by targeting these sentiments among people with infrequent prior turnout records. Letters with information and encouragement about the voting process did not increase turnout in the subsequent election. We conclude that further work is needed to identify interventions that successfully increase turnout among low-propensity voters.
Topic:
Elections, Voting, Participation, and Turnout
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

85. How Did the Voter’s Choice Act Affect Turnout in 2018?

Author:
Eric McGhee, Mindy Romero, and Laura Daly
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
In its first year of implementation, did the Voter’s Choice Act (VCA) change turnout patterns in the counties – Madera, Napa, Nevada, Sacramento, and San Mateo – that adopted this new reform? How did this reform affect the turnout of groups of Californians – young voters, Latinos, and Asian Americans– who have often participated in elections at lower rates than others? We address these questions by gathering data on turnout rates, voter demographics, and electoral competition from 2002 through the primary and general elections of 2018, comparing trends in the adopting counties to the rest of the state.
Topic:
Demographics, Reform, Elections, Diversity, Voting, Participation, and Turnout
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

86. How Do Californians Want to Cast their Ballots During the COVID-19 Crisis?

Author:
Thad Kousser, Mindy Romero, Mackenzie Lockhart, Seth Hill, and Jennifer Merolla
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
In April 2020, how did Californians of all demographic groups want to cast their ballots during the COVID-19 pandemic, what changes to the electoral process would they support during this critical moment, and how would reforms made in 2020 reshape our state’s electorate in the future? We address these questions by analyzing a statewide survey of a diverse sample of 12,276 eligible voters (adult citizens) conducted April 8-22, 2020. As a whole, California’s eligible voters plan to vote by mail more than ever before in November 2020. Voting by mail is the method that gives them the most confidence in the integrity of election results, and they are strongly supportive of policies that expand access to voting by mail. The level of support for voting by mail differs across California’s diverse racial and ethnic groups. Consistent with past studies, our survey found that Latino and African-American eligible voters are generally less likely to prefer this method of voting than non-Latino whites and Asian Americans. It will be important to consider the potentially disparate impacts that any election administration changes could bring and to conduct broad outreach efforts. When presented with scientific projections predicting a fall peak in the impact of COVID-19, eligible voters were even more likely to prefer voting by mail and to express concerns about waiting in line or working at a polling place that did not adhere to social distancing protocols. Specifying a set of social distancing guidelines for in-perso
Topic:
Elections, Voting, Pandemic, Participation, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

87. Messaging Matters: How Information about Underrepresentation Affects the Political Participation of Racial and Ethnic Groups in California

Author:
Cheryl Boudreau, Jennifer Merolla, and Sono Shah
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
Can racial and ethnic minorities be mobilized to participate in politics at greater rates? We theorize that mobilization messages providing information about a group’s underrepresentation in government may increase participation among racial/ethnic minorities. However, responsiveness to such messages should vary depending on individuals’ prior awareness of their group’s underrepresentation. Using a two-wave panel survey that randomly assigned different get out the vote messages, we find that messages highlighting a racial/ethnic group’s underrepresentation in government do not increase Latinos’, Blacks’, or Asians’ likelihood of voting. We also find that such messages can decrease other forms of political participation among Asians and Latinos who were previously unaware of their group’s underrepresentation. These findings indicate that information about underrepresentation can actually demobilize certain segments of the electorate. Thus, practical efforts to boost participation among underrepresented groups should either communicate information about underrepresentation in other ways or provide a different type of message altogether.
Topic:
Minorities, Elections, Diversity, Voting, Participation, Mobilization, and Turnout
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

88. Early in the Pandemic, There Was No Partisan Divide over Preferences for Voting by Mail in the 2020 Election

Author:
Thad Kousser, Mindy Romero, Mackenzie Lockhart, Seth Hill, and Jennifer Merolla
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
In April, 2020, was there a partisan divide between eligible voters from California’s major parties over whether they preferred to vote in person or through mail ballots in the November election, and what percentage of likely voters from each party said they would not vote if the election were held exclusively through the mail? Did partisans divide over policy proposals about how to conduct this election? We investigate these questions by analyzing a statewide survey of a diverse sample of 12,276 eligible voters conducted April 8-22, 2020. When we asked eligible voters how they wanted to cast their ballots this November, we found no significant divide between the Republican and Democratic eligible voters. More than half of eligible voters in both parties prefer to cast a ballot by mail, with nearly another two in ten voters preferring to drop off a ballot that has been sent to them in the mail. Gaps of eight to twelve percentage points emerge between partisans over support for policies that advance voting by mail, though there is still a strong consensus supporting these changes among all partisan affiliations.
Topic:
Elections, Voting, Public Health, Pandemic, Participation, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

89. Will Concurrent Elections Reshape the Electorate?

Author:
Jonathan Collins, Eddie Lucero, and Jessica Trounstine
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
In 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed the California Voter Participation Rights Act (SB 415) into law. As its title suggests, the bill aimed to increase turnout in local elections by forcing all California jurisdictions to hold elections concurrently with statewide elections (in June or November of even years). Turnout in local elections is significantly lower than national turnout, averaging only 20% by some estimates (Alford and Lee 1968, Wood 2002, Hajnal and Lewis 2003, Caren 2007, Hajnal 2009). Scholars have found that election timing is the most important predictor of differences in aggregate turnout rates across cities (Alford and Lee 1968, Anzia 2014, Anzia 2011, Hajnal and Trounstine 2005). Hajnal and Lewis find that city elections that coincide with presidential elections are associated with a turnout of registered voters 36 percentage points higher than turnout in cities that do not hold elections that coincide with the presidential election (2001, 656). Caren finds that cities holding elections concurrent with the presidential election increase voter turnout by 27% compared to cities that do not (2007, 41). The logic behind SB 415 is that moving local elections to coincide with national elections will improve electoral participation.
Topic:
Elections, Voting, Participation, and Turnout
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

90. The Georgia Risk-Limiting Audit/Hand Tally: A Carter Center Observation Report

Author:
The Carter Center
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Carter Center
Abstract:
Following the November 2020 election, Georgia conducted a risk-limiting audit (RLA) of the presidential race. This audit constituted the largest hand tally of an election race in U.S. history. The Carter Center, which has observed more than 110 elections in 39 countries, was the only nonpartisan organization credentialed by the Office of the Secretary of State to provide an impartial assessment of the implementation of the audit process. The Center had the same access provided to the political party monitors who were present throughout the state. In deploying independent monitors to observe the Georgia RLA, The Carter Center hoped to bolster voter confidence in Georgia’s electoral process by assessing the state’s efforts to improve the transparency of its elections.
Topic:
Corruption, Elections, Voting, Participation, Election Dispute, and Audit
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America