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Open Primary
Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open primary", in which all voters are eligible to participate, or a "closed primary", in which only members of a political party can vote. Less common are nonpartisan primaries in which all candidates run regardless of party. The origins of primary elections can be traced to the progressive movement in the United States, which aimed to take the power of candidate nomination from party leaders to the people. However, political parties control the method of nomination of candidates for office in the name of the party. Other methods of selecting candidates include caucuses, internal selection by a party body such as a convention or party congress, direct nomination by the party leader, and nomination meetings. A similar procedure for selecting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Election
A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections typically occur at regular intervals as mandated by a country's constitution or electoral laws, and may include elections for a legislature and sometimes other positions such as a directly elected president. In many jurisdictions, general elections can coincide with other electoral events such as Local government, local, Region, regional, or Supranational union, supranational elections. For example, on 25 May 2014, Belgian voters simultaneously elected their national parliament, 21 members of the European Parliament, and regional parliaments. In Politics of the United States, the United States, "general election" has a slightly different, but related meaning: the ordinary electoral competition following the selection of candid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Independent Voter
An independent voter, often also called an unaffiliated voter or non-affiliated voter in the United States, is a voter who does not align themselves with a political party. An independent is variously defined as a voter who votes for candidates on issues rather than on the basis of a political ideology or partisanship;Sorauf and Beck, ''Party Politics in America,'' 1988. a voter who does not have long-standing loyalty to, or identification with, a political party;Flanigan and Zingale, ''Political Behavior of the American Electorate,'' 1988.Wolfinger, "The Promising Adolescence of Campaign Surveys," in ''Campaigns and Elections American Style,'' 1995. a voter who does not usually vote for the same political party from election to election;Key, ''The Responsible Electorate,'' 1966. or a voter who self-describes as an independent.Campbell, Converse, Miller and Stokes, ''The American Voter,'' 1960. Many voting systems outside of the United States, including the British parliament ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Primary
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South Carolina (1896), Florida (1902), Mississippi and Alabama (also 1902), Texas (1905), Louisiana and Arkansas (1906), and Georgia (1900). Since winning the Democratic primary in the South at the time almost always meant winning the general election, barring black and other minority voters meant they were in essence disenfranchised. Southern states also passed laws and constitutions with provisions to raise barriers to voter registration, completing disenfranchisement from 1890 to 1908 in all states of the former Confederacy. The Texas Legislature passed a law in 1923 that prevented black voters from participating in any Democratic Party primary election. The Supreme Court, in 1927, 1932, and 1935, heard three Texas cases related to white pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
African Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. African Americans constitute the second largest ethno-racial group in the U.S. after White Americans. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States. In 2023, an estimated 48.3 million people self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the country’s population. This marks a 33% increase since 2000, when there were 36.2 million Black people living in the U.S. African-American history began in the 16th century, with Africans being sold to European slave traders and transported across the Atlantic to the Western Hemisphere. They were sold as slaves to European colonists and put to work on plantations, particularly in the southern colonies. A few were able to achieve freedom th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Direct Election
Direct election is a system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the persons or political party that they want to see elected. The method by which the winner or winners of a direct election are chosen depends upon the electoral system used. The most commonly used systems are the plurality system and the two-round system for single-winner elections, such as a presidential election, and proportional representation for the election of a legislature or executive. By contrast, in an indirect election, the voters elect a body which in turn elects the officeholder in question. In a double direct election, the elected representative serves on two councils, typically a lower-tier municipality and an upper-tier regional district or municipality. Examples Legislatures * The European Parliament has been directly elected every five years since 1979. Member states determine how to elect their representatives, but, among other requirement ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonpartisan Primary
A nonpartisan primary, top-two primary, or jungle primary is a primary election in which all candidates for the same elected office run against each other at once, regardless of political party. This distinguishes them from partisan primaries, which are segregated by political party. This is the first round of a two-round system. As opposed to most two-round systems, the "first round" is a primary held ''before'' Election Day, and the "second round" is not optional (most two-round systems skip the second round if the winner of the first one gets more than 50%). A two-round system where the first round is held on Election Day is known in the US as ''runoff voting'' or ''top-two runoff''. Advocates claim two-round systems will elect more moderate candidates, as members of a minority party could vote for a more moderate candidate from the majority party, with some political scientists expressing similar views. However, empirical research on the system have found no effect on candida ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voter Turnout
In political science, voter turnout is the participation rate (often defined as those who cast a ballot) of a given election. This is typically either the percentage of Voter registration, registered voters, Suffrage, eligible voters, or all Voting age, voting-age people. According to Stanford University political scientists Adam Bonica and Michael McFaul, there is a consensus among political scientists that "democracies perform better when more people vote." Institutional factors drive the vast majority of differences in turnout rates.Michael McDonald and Samuel Popkin"The Myth of the Vanishing Voter"in American Political Science Review. December 2001. p. 970. For example, simpler parliamentary democracies where voters get shorter ballots, fewer elections, and a multi-party system that makes accountability easier see much higher turnout than the systems of the United States, Japan, and Switzerland. Significance Some parts of society are more likely to vote than others. As turnou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Polarization
Political polarization (spelled ''polarisation'' in British English, Australian English, and New Zealand English) is the divergence of political attitudes away from the center, towards ideological extremes. Scholars distinguish between ideological polarization (differences between the policy positions) and affective polarization (an emotional dislike and distrust of political out-groups). Most discussions of polarization in political science consider polarization in the context of political parties and democratic systems of government. In two-party systems, political polarization usually embodies the tension of its binary political ideologies and partisan identities. However, some political scientists assert that contemporary polarization depends less on policy differences on a left and right scale but increasingly on other divisions such as religious against secular, nationalist against globalist, traditional against modern, or rural against urban. Polarization is associated w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Science
Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and laws. Specialists in the field are political scientists. History Origin Political science is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political institutions, political thought and behavior, and associated constitutions and laws. As a social science, contemporary political science started to take shape in the latter half of the 19th century and began to separate itself from political philosophy and history. Into the late 19th century, it was still uncommon for political science to be considered a distinct field from history. The term "political science" was not always distinguished from political philosophy, and the modern dis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Approval Voting
Approval voting is a single-winner rated voting system where voters can approve of all the candidates as they like instead of Plurality voting, choosing one. The method is designed to eliminate vote-splitting while keeping election administration simple and Summability criterion, easy-to-count (requiring only a single score for each candidate). Approval voting has been used in both organizational and political elections to improve representativeness and voter satisfaction. Critics of approval voting have argued the simple ballot format is a disadvantage, as it forces a Dichotomous preferences, binary choice for each candidate (instead of the expressive grades of other rated voting rules). Effect on elections Research by Social choice theory, social choice theorists Steven Brams and Dudley R. Herschbach found that approval voting would increase voter participation, prevent minor-party candidates from being spoiler effect, spoilers, and reduce negative campaigning. Brams' researc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington (state)
Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from Washington, D.C., the national capital, both named after George Washington (the first President of the United States, U.S. president). Washington borders the Pacific Ocean to the west, Oregon to the south, Idaho to the east, and shares Canada–United States border, an international border with the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia to the north. Olympia, Washington, Olympia is the List of capitals in the United States, state capital, and the most populous city is Seattle. Washington is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 18th-largest state, with an area of , and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 13th-most populous state, with a population of just less than 8 million. The majority of Washington's residents live ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Proposition 14 (2010)
Proposition 14 is a California ballot proposition that appeared on the ballot during the June 2010 state elections. It was a constitutional amendment that effectively transformed California's non-presidential elections from first-past-the-post to a nonpartisan blanket primary (a two-round system). The proposition was legislatively referred to voters by the State Legislature and approved by 54% of the voters. It consolidated all partisan primaries for a particular office into an election with one ballot that would be identical to all voters, regardless of their party preferences. The two candidates with the most votes in the primary election would then be the only candidates who would run in the general election, regardless of their party affiliation. Background Proposition 14 was a proposal to amend Sections 5 and 6 of Article II of the California State Constitution relating to elections. It is officially known as the Top Two Primaries Act. It was authored by State Senator ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
