Just elections: creating a fair electoral process in the United States

2003 ◽  
Vol 40 (10) ◽  
pp. 40-6102-40-6102
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electoral Process

3. Party organizations: What do they look like? What do they do?

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Sandy Maisel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal System ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
Party Organizations

‘Party organizations: What do they look like? What do they do?’ examines each of those questions and reveals that political party organizations in the United States reflect the nation's federal system. The party is organized at each electoral level. The main purpose of the party is to assist their candidates to get into office. The party organization does not define party policy nor do its leaders exercise much authority of those elected under the party label. This is a situation that has changed quite markedly over the last century as changes have taken place in the electoral process.

America in Comparative Perspective

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chad Vickery ◽  
Heather Szilagyi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
Developing Democracies ◽  
Administrative Framework ◽  
The Will

Chapter 10 highlights a confluence of factors in the United States that produce a high percentage of wasted votes and a system of governance that largely fails to reflect the will of the majority of voters, widely considered a cornerstone of democracy. This study judges the fundamental integrity of key elements of the electoral process in the United States by applying the same standards used to evaluate developing democracies around the world. Several acute challenges to the U.S. electoral process are identified: boundary delimitation for the House of Representatives, the role of the Electoral College in presidential contests, processes of voter registration, and the decentralized administrative framework. The chapter concludes that despite obvious vulnerabilities, the United States is resistant to acknowledging these problems, to reform its electoral process in line with international standards, or to learn from the comparative experience of other countries that have strengthened their elections over time.

“Our Voter Rolls Are Cleaner Than Yours”: Balancing Access and Integrity in Voter List Maintenance

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 560-570
Author(s):  
Thessalia Merivaki
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Variation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
Election Administration ◽  
History Information ◽  
Registered Voter

Accurate voter lists facilitate access to the electoral process, indicate efficient voter list maintenance, and reinforce electoral integrity. Errors in voter records often result from variation in practices that are difficult to avoid given the decentralized structure of election administration in the United States. In many states, localities lack capacity to efficiently complete voter list maintenance, especially when pressured to keep “clean” voter rolls. I argue that local challenges remain when maintaining voters’ registration and voting history information, which undermines the quality of voter lists and the integrity of the electoral process. I analyze Mississippi’s Statewide Election Management System (SEMS) records and find that voter registration and voting history errors are linked to the county’s active and inactive registered voter rates and demographic characteristics. These findings confirm that local variation in voter list maintenance can impact voters depending on their voter registration status and can result in premature voter list removal.

The Effect of Ballot Characteristics on the Likelihood of Voting Errors

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Nicholas D. Bernardo ◽  
Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz ◽  
Gretchen A. Macht
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Resource Allocation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Wait Times ◽  
Scanner Data ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
Analytical Technique ◽  
Election Results ◽  
Allocation Decisions ◽  
Resource Allocation Decisions

Abstract In the United States, people are asked to vote on a myriad of candidates, offices, and ballot questions. The result is lengthy ballots that are time intensive and complicated to fill out. In this paper, we utilize a new analytical technique harnessing ballot scanner data from a statewide midterm election to estimate the effects of ballot complexity on voting errors. We find that increases in ballot length, increases in the number of local ballot questions, and increases in the number of candidates listed for single offices significantly increase the odds of encountering ballot marking and scanning errors. Our findings indicate that ballots’ characteristics can help election administrators make Election Day planning and resource allocation decisions that decrease ballot errors and associated wait times to vote while increasing the reliability of election results and voter confidence in the electoral process.

American Political Parties and Elections

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Sandy Maisel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Advocacy Organizations

American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction examines the electoral process in the United States and explains why it is widely misunderstood. Why is participation in elections so much lower in the United States than in other mature democracies? What role do the political parties play in the electoral process? And why do unregulated groups such as 527 advocacy organizations have as much, if not more, influence than candidates' campaign organizations? This VSI examines these and other issues to provide an insider's view of how the system actually works and why there remain only two main political parties, despite the fact that many citizens claim allegiance to neither and think badly of both.

Election Time: Normative Implications of Temporal Properties of the Electoral Process in the United States

2004 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
DENNIS F. THOMPSON
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Democratic Values ◽  
Electoral Process ◽  
Electoral Outcome ◽  
Early Voting ◽  
Temporal Properties

Elections take place at intervals, most citizens vote on the same day, and the electoral outcome is irrevocable until the next election. Each of these temporal properties—periodicity, simultaneity, and finality—is grounded in fundamental democratic values. Analyzing the properties shows how and why several anomalies in electoral theory and practice in the United States should be eliminated. Together the properties mark off electoral politics as a sphere that requires different and often more stringent standards than the rest of political life outside of government. Periodicity requires that the control of redistricting be independent of legislatures. Simultaneity opposes publishing the results of exit polls, expanding the use of early voting, and granting legislatures the authority to select presidential electors on their own schedule. Finality justifies more stringent regulation of campaign practices, such as electioneering ads.

Correlative microscopy in distrubuted (client/server) computing environments: tools for catalyzing the rapid dissemination of information about the cell biology of the human prostate

1995 ◽  
Vol 53 ◽  
pp. 682-683
Author(s):  
A. Hakam ◽  
J.T. Gau ◽  
M.L. Grove ◽  
B.A. Evans ◽  
M. Shuman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cell Biology ◽  
Tissue Bank ◽  
The United States ◽  
Prostate Adenocarcinoma ◽  
Correlative Microscopy ◽  
Client Server ◽  
Critical Elements ◽  
Transplant Organ

Prostate adenocarcinoma is the most common malignant tumor of men in the United States and is the third leading cause of death in men. Despite attempts at early detection, there will be 244,000 new cases and 44,000 deaths from the disease in the United States in 1995. Therapeutic progress against this disease is hindered by an incomplete understanding of prostate epithelial cell biology, the availability of human tissues for in vitro experimentation, slow dissemination of information between prostate cancer research teams and the increasing pressure to “ stretch” research dollars at the same time staff reductions are occurring.To meet these challenges, we have used the correlative microscopy (CM) and client/server (C/S) computing to increase productivity while decreasing costs. Critical elements of our program are as follows:1) Establishing the Western Pennsylvania Genitourinary (GU) Tissue Bank which includes >100 prostates from patients with prostate adenocarcinoma as well as >20 normal prostates from transplant organ donors.

Digital image acquisition, processing, and analysis in a polymer microscopy laboratory

1994 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 454-455
Author(s):  
Vinod K. Berry ◽  
Xiao Zhang
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Image Analysis ◽  
Digital Image ◽  
Image Acquisition ◽  
Image Transmission ◽  
The United States ◽  
Quantitative Image Analysis ◽  
Quantitative Image

In recent years it became apparent that we needed to improve productivity and efficiency in the Microscopy Laboratories in GE Plastics. It was realized that digital image acquisition, archiving, processing, analysis, and transmission over a network would be the best way to achieve this goal. Also, the capabilities of quantitative image analysis, image transmission etc. available with this approach would help us to increase our efficiency. Although the advantages of digital image acquisition, processing, archiving, etc. have been described and are being practiced in many SEM, laboratories, they have not been generally applied in microscopy laboratories (TEM, Optical, SEM and others) and impact on increased productivity has not been yet exploited as well.In order to attain our objective we have acquired a SEMICAPS imaging workstation for each of the GE Plastic sites in the United States. We have integrated the workstation with the microscopes and their peripherals as shown in Figure 1.

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