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91. The Ballot Initiative Transparency Act: Examining its Impact on Legislative Compromise in California

Author:
Mindy Romero and Jennifer Puza
Publication Date:
01-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
In 2014, California passed the Ballot Initiative Transparency Act (SB 1253, or BITA) which provided some of the biggest changes to California’s ballot initiative process in recent decades. BITA went into effect for the first time during the 2016 election cycle and was designed to provide more opportunities for legislative compromise and to allow for more public involvement in the ballot initiative process. Our study examines BITA and its impact on the ballot initiative process. Specifically, we sought to understand the extent of BITA’s impact on influencing the state legislature and the initiative proponents to seek legislative compromise. Furthermore, we examine the implementation of the new mechanisms BITA put in place and offer suggestions for how to potentially improve their effectiveness for future elections.
Topic:
Elections, Democracy, Legislation, and Voting
Political Geography:
United States and California

92. Candidate Ethnicity and Latino Voting in Co-Partisan Elections

Author:
Sara Sadhwani and Matthew Mendez
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
The adoption of the top two primary system in California is resulting in a rising number of general elections in which candidates from the same party compete. Incidentally, California is also home to a large and diverse Latino community. When party identification is no longer a reliable cue, do Latino voters turn to the race or ethnicity of a candidate in selecting whom to support? We examine co-partisan Republican general elections in California’s state assembly from 2012‒2016. Using surname-matched precinct-level voter data, we conduct ecological inference analysis to estimate support for candidates based on the ethnicity of voters. Taking the case of Latino voters, we find a strong level of support for Latino Republican candidates, suggesting that a candidate’s ethnicity may inform voters’ strategic decision making in partisan elections.
Topic:
Politics, Elections, and Voting
Political Geography:
United States and California

93. The California Voting Rights Act and Local Governments

Author:
David C. Powell
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
California Journal of Politics and Policy
Institution:
Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley
Abstract:
On July 9, 2002, Governor Gray Davis signed the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) into law. The intent of the CVRA was to build upon the voting rights protections embodied in the Federal Voting Rights Act (FVRA) by enhancing the influence of minority populations in local government elections. The CVRA has led to multiple legal challenges of at-large electoral systems in dozens of governments in California. This paper explores the impacts of the CVRA on local governments as well as potential impacts of recent changes to the CVRA.
Topic:
Government, Elections, Democracy, Voting, and Voting Rights
Political Geography:
United States and California

94. The Economic and Social Roots of Populist Rebellion: Support for Donald Trump in 2016

Author:
Thomas Ferguson, Benjamin I. Page, Jacob Rothschild, Arturo Chang, and Jie Chen
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
This paper critically analyzes voting patterns in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Using survey data from the American National Election Survey and aggregate data on Congressional districts, it assesses the roles that economic and social factors played in Donald J. Trump’s “Populist” candidacy. It shows the hollowness of claims that economic issues played little or no role in the campaign and that social factors such as race or gender suffice to explain the outcome. While agreeing that racial resentment and sexism were important influences, the paper shows how various economic considerations helped Trump win the Republican primary and then led significant blocs of voters to shift from supporting Democrats or abstaining in 2012 to vote for him. It also presents striking evidence of the importance of political money and Senators’ “reverse coattails” in the dramatic final result.
Topic:
Political Economy, Populism, Economic Policy, Free Trade, Money, Voting, Donald Trump, Political Parties, and Presidential Elections
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

95. The Clarity Incentive for Issue Engagement in Campaigns

Author:
Chitralekha Basu and Matthew Knowles
Publication Date:
02-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
Although parties focus disproportionately on favourable issues in their election campaigns, it is also the case that parties spend much of the ‘short campaign’ addressing the same issues – and especially salient issues. This is surprising from the perspective of the theoretical literature, which has focused on parties’ incentives to campaign on ‘owned issues’ in order to increase the importance voters attach to these issues. We explain this behaviour by proposing that parties face an additional incentive to emphasise issues that are salient to voters: the need to clarify their positions on these issues for sympathetic voters. Leveraging the surprise election victory of the British Conservative Party in 2015—which prompted a hitherto unexpected referendum on EU membership—we show that, consistent with this hypothesis, voter uncertainty is especially costly for parties on salient issues. We formalise this argument using a model of party strategy with endogenous issue salience.
Topic:
Elections, Voting, and Campaigning
Political Geography:
Britain, Europe, and Global Focus

96. Policy Experimentation, Redistribution and Voting Rules

Author:
Vincent Anesi and T. Renee Bowen
Publication Date:
08-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
Abstract:
We study conditions under which optimal policy experimentation can be implemented by a committee. We consider a dynamic bargaining game in which committee members choose to implement either a risky reform or a safe alternative with known returns each period. We find that when no redistribution is allowed the unique equilibrium outcome is generically inefficient. When committee members are allowed to redistribute resources (even arbitrarily small amounts), there always exists an equilibrium that supports optimal experimentation for any voting rule with no veto players. With veto players, however, optimal policy experimentation is possible only with a sufficient amount of redistribution. We conclude that veto rights are more of an obstacle to optimal policy experimentation than constraints on redistribution.
Topic:
Politics, Reform, Voting, and Redistribution
Political Geography:
Global Focus

97. The Reasons of Electoral Stagnation of the CHP in the Light of the 2015 Turkish Parliamentary Elections

Author:
Dr. Mehmet Bardakçı and A. Kadir Yıldırım
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Academic Inquiries
Institution:
Sakarya University (SAU)
Abstract:
It is the intention in this article to explain the electoral stagnation of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the light of the 2015 parliamentary elections in Turkey. Drawing on theories of voting behavior, the article uncovers the organizational shortcomings within the party and the problem of credibility that have emerged as significant impediments to the party in addressing long-term historical-structural issues, mainly the division of Turkish society between the religious periphery and the secular center. Furthermore, the strong identification between the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its partisans have made party-switching difficult, having been achieved, above all, through the provision of economic benefits and public services and the consolidation of party identification through growing polarization and division in Turkish politics. Last but not least, the changes to the political environment between the June 7 and November 1, 2015 elections, pushed stability and security to the top of the agenda, as well as AKP’s electoral adjustments in the run-up to the November 1 elections inhibited any possible flow of votes to the CHP.
Topic:
Politics, Elections, Voting, Behavior, and Parliament
Political Geography:
Turkey and Middle East

98. Dossier 4: The People of Venezuela Go to Vote

Author:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Publication Date:
05-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Abstract:
The Venezuelan people will go to the polling stations across the country on Sunday, May 20th. This dossier looks at what is at stake in these elections. We provide an overview of the regional and national context in which the elections will take place and explore the forms and consequences that the U.S. intervention has had in Venezuela. Lastly, this dossier looks at the experiences, tensions, and alternatives that have developed in the past and that characterize today’s Bolivarian revolution and perspectives towards the future.
Topic:
Politics, Elections, Revolution, and Voting
Political Geography:
South America and Venezuela

99. Public Referenda and Public Opinion on Olympic Games

Author:
Wolfgang Maennig
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
Abstract:
Public referenda on Olympic bids have drawn considerable interest in the recent past, also because – with few exceptions – the voters decided against the Olympic ambitions of the local governments and/or local bid committees. For example, within the last five years before the finalizing of this text, voters in Vienna and Hamburg decided against bids for Olympic Summer Games in 2028 and 2024, respectively. Ambitions for Olympic Winter Games have been ended by referenda in Graubünden 2026 (Switzerland), Munich 2022 (Germany), St. Moritz / Davos / Graubünden 2022, and Krakow 2022 (Poland). Table 1 presents the data of the history of Olympic referenda and clarifies that Olympic referenda are by no means an innovation of recent times: The oldest reported referenda are from the 1960´s. All public referenda were held on Olympic Winter Games, with the exception of the two Summer Games referenda for Vienna 2024 and Hamburg 2024 mentioned above. There was a balance between positive and negative referenda for Olympic Games bids up to the 1970s. Since the 1980s, the number of negative referenda has clearly outperformed the number of positive referenda.
Topic:
Economics, Sports, Olympics, Voting, and Referendum
Political Geography:
Global Focus

100. IFES Experts Contribute to American Bar Association Book on International Election Remedies

Author:
Katherine Ellena and Chad Vickery
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES)
Abstract:
The right to an effective remedy is well established in international law, and stems from the fundamental rights of political participation and universal suffrage. It is the violation of these rights – intentional or otherwise – that necessitates a remedy to restore them. Election experts from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) were invited to contribute four chapters to a publication of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Standing Committee on Election Law, entitled International Election Remedies, published in November 2016. In “Measuring Effective Remedies for Fraud and Administrative Malpractice,” Senior Legal Specialist Katherine Ellena and Center for Applied Research and Learning Director Chad Vickery take on the difficult task of addressing what are effective remedies where fraud and malpractice affect the election. They emphasize the need for electoral remedies that protect the integrity of the process and electoral rights. In "Voter Registration," Michael Yard, a former chief of party in Kenya and Uganda, explains that registration of eligible voters is one of the most time-consuming activities undertaken by many electoral management bodies. To further explore this critical component of election administration, Yard explains the difference among passive, man¬datory and optional registration systems. IFES Indonesia Chief of Party David Ennis and former U.S. Elections Adviser Cameron Quinn describe in “Voting and Election Day” the balance between due process and the need for timeliness in addressing problems on Election Day.
Topic:
Elections, Voting, Participation, and Suffrage
Political Geography:
Global Focus