Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-94d59 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T01:35:09.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Goal for Reform: Make Elections Worth Stealing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2007

Todd Donovan
Affiliation:
Western Washington University

Extract

Election reforms have attracted substantial attention since the troubled elections of 2000. Some address problems in the administration of elections. Others aim to regulate the conduct of elected officials and lobbyists. A third category affects the structure by which elections are conducted. It is not clear whether the same over-arching problem motivates interest in these reforms. One common theme may be that public confidence in representation suffers as a result of actual or perceived deficiencies in the conduct of elections and elected officials. The failure to count votes accurately, the fact that eligible voters find they are unable to vote, the inability of minor parties to access ballots, revelations of scandalous relations between representatives and lobbyists, the power of wealthy donors, the lack of “civility” in political discourse, the uncompetitive nature of many elections, may all somehow act together to erode public trust, and reduce participation and engagement with representative democracy.

Type
SYMPOSIUM
Copyright
© 2007 The American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amy, Douglas. 2002. Real Choices/New Voices: How Proportional Representation Elections Could Revitalize American Politics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Anderson, Christopher J., and Christine Guillory. 1997. “Political, Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy.” American Political Science Review 91 (February): 6681.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, Steven, James M. Snyder, and Charles Stewart III 2001. “Candidate Positioning in US House Races.” American Journal of Political Science 45 (1): 13659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2002. “Partisanship and Voting Behavior: 1952–1996.” American Journal of Political Science 44 (1): 3550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Earl, and Merle Black. 2003. The Rise of Southern Republicans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Blais, André, and Kenneth Carty. 1990. “Does Proportional Representation Foster Voter Turnout?European Journal of Political Research 18 (2): 16781.Google Scholar
Bowler, Shaun, Todd Donovan, and David Brockington. 2004. Election Reform and Minority Representation. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
Bowler, Shaun, and Todd Donovan. n.d.Barriers to Participation for Whom? Regulations on Voting and Uncompetitive Elections.” In Mobilizing Democracy, eds. Margaret Levi, Jim Johnson, Jack Knight, and Susan Stokes. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. In review.Google Scholar
Bowler, Shaun, Todd Donovan, Jeffrey Karp, and David Lanoue. 2006. “Independent's Day: Critical Citizens among the US Voting Public.” Manuscript.Google Scholar
Burden, Barry C. 2004. “Candidate Positioning in US Congressional Elections.” British Journal of Political Science 34: 21127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burden, Barry C. 2007. “Ballot Regulations and Multiparty Politics in the States.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (October): 66973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, Angus, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald Stokes. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Clinton, Joshua D., Simon Jackman, and Doug Rivers. 2004. “The Most Liberal Senator? Analyzing and Interpreting Congressional Roll Calls.” PS: Political Science and Politics. 37 (October): 80511.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary, and Jonathan Katz. 2002. Elbridge Gerry's Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary, and M. C. Munger. 1989. “Closeness, Expenditures and Turnout in the 1982 US House Elections.” American Political Science Review 83 (1): 21731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donovan, Todd, Janine Parry, and Shaun Bowler. 2005. “O Other, Where Art Thou? Support for Multi-Party Politics in the United States.” Social Science Quarterly 86 (1): 14759.Google Scholar
Donovan, Todd, and Caroline Tolbert. 2007. “State Electoral Context and Voter Participation: Who is Mobilized by What?Presented at the State Politics and Policy Conference, Austin, TX.Google Scholar
Donovan, Todd, and Shaun Bowler. 2004. Reforming the Republic: Democratic Institutions for the New America. Boston: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1977. “On the Decline of Competition in Congressional Elections.” American Political Science Review 71: 16676.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris, Samuel J. Adams, and Jeremy C. Pope. 2005. Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. New York: Pearson Longman.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1980. “The Decline of Collective Responsibility in American Politics.” Daedalus 109 (summer): 2545.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris. 1973. “Electoral Margin, Constituency Influence and Policy Moderation: A Critical Assessment.” American Politics Quarterly 1: 47998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gronke, Paul, Eva Galanes-Rosenbaum, and Peter A. Miller. 2007. “Early Voting and Turnout.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (October): 63945.Google Scholar
Groseclose, Tim, Steven Levitt, and James M. Snyder. 1999. “Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the US Congress.” American Political Science Review 93 (1): 3350.Google Scholar
Hetherington, Marc. 2001. “Resurgent Mass Partisanship: The Role of Elite Polarization.” American Political Science Review 95 (3): 61931.Google Scholar
Hibbing, John, and Elisabeth Theiss-Morse. 2002. Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs About How Government Should Work. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Issacharoff, Samuel, and Jonathan Nagler. 2006. “Protected From Politics: Diminishing Margins of Electoral Competition in U.S. Congressional Elections.” Manuscript.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Gary. 2005. “The Structural Basis of Republican Success.” In The 2004 Election, ed. M. Nelson. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.Google Scholar
Keith, Bruce, David Magleby, Candice Nelson, Elizabeth Orr, Mark Westlye, and Raymond Wolfinger. 1992. The Myth of the Independent Voter. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
King, David. 1997. “The Polarization of American Parties and Mistrust of Government.” In Why People Don't Trust Government, eds. Joseph Nye, Jr., P. Zelikow, and D. King. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layman, Geoffrey C., and Thomas Carsey. 2002. “Partisan Polarization and Conflict Extension in the American Electorate.” American Journal of Political Science 46 (4): 786802.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayhew, David. 1974. “Congressional Elections: The Case of the Vanishing Marginals.” Polity 6 (3): 295317.Google Scholar
McCarty, Nolan, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. 2006. Polarized American: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
McDonald, Michael P. 2007. “Regulating Redistricting.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (October): 6759.Google Scholar
Polsby, Nelson. 1983. The Consequences of Party Reform. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Poole, Keith T., and Howard Rosenthal. 1997. Congress: A Political-Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rhode, David W. 1991. Parties and Leaders in the Post Reform House. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sinclair, Barbara. 2006. Party Wars: Polarization and the Politics of National Policymaking. Norman: Oklahoma State University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Daniel, and Caroline Tolbert. 2004. Educated by Initiative. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Sullivan, John L., and Eric M. Uslaner. 1978. “Congressional Behavior and Electoral Marginality. American Journal of Political Science 22: 53653.Google Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin. 1991. The Rise of Candidate-Centered Politics: Presidential Elections of the 1980s. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wattenberg, Martin. 1998. The Decline of American Political Parties: 1952–1996. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Werner, Timothy, and Kenneth R. Mayer. 2007. “Public Election Funding, Competition, and Candidate Gender.” PS: Political Science and Politics 40 (October): 6617.Google Scholar