Download or read book Irrelevant Elections written by William Lockley Miller and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1988 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, the most elaborate survey of its kind ever carried out in Britain, examines the controversy surrounding the political and electoral basis for local government. Drawing on extensive interviews with 1100 electors in November 1985 and follow-up interviews with 745 of them just after the local elections of 1986, Miller documents the many factors influencing voter participation and choice in local elections, and their implications for the continued existence of elective local democracy.
Download or read book Democracy for Realists written by Christopher H. Achen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why our belief in government by the people is unrealistic—and what we can do about it Democracy for Realists assails the romantic folk-theory at the heart of contemporary thinking about democratic politics and government, and offers a provocative alternative view grounded in the actual human nature of democratic citizens. Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels deploy a wealth of social-scientific evidence, including ingenious original analyses of topics ranging from abortion politics and budget deficits to the Great Depression and shark attacks, to show that the familiar ideal of thoughtful citizens steering the ship of state from the voting booth is fundamentally misguided. They demonstrate that voters—even those who are well informed and politically engaged—mostly choose parties and candidates on the basis of social identities and partisan loyalties, not political issues. They also show that voters adjust their policy views and even their perceptions of basic matters of fact to match those loyalties. When parties are roughly evenly matched, elections often turn on irrelevant or misleading considerations such as economic spurts or downturns beyond the incumbents' control; the outcomes are essentially random. Thus, voters do not control the course of public policy, even indirectly. Achen and Bartels argue that democratic theory needs to be founded on identity groups and political parties, not on the preferences of individual voters. Now with new analysis of the 2016 elections, Democracy for Realists provides a powerful challenge to conventional thinking, pointing the way toward a fundamentally different understanding of the realities and potential of democratic government.
Download or read book Let the People Pick the President written by Jesse Wegman and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2020-03-17 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Wegman combines in-depth historical analysis and insight into contemporary politics to present a cogent argument that the Electoral College violates America’s ‘core democratic principles’ and should be done away with..." —Publishers Weekly The framers of the Constitution battled over it. Lawmakers have tried to amend or abolish it more than 700 times. To this day, millions of voters, and even members of Congress, misunderstand how it works. It deepens our national divide and distorts the core democratic principles of political equality and majority rule. How can we tolerate the Electoral College when every vote does not count the same, and the candidate who gets the most votes can lose? Twice in the last five elections, the Electoral College has overridden the popular vote, calling the integrity of the entire system into question—and creating a false picture of a country divided into bright red and blue blocks when in fact we are purple from coast to coast. Even when the popular-vote winner becomes president, tens of millions of Americans—Republicans and Democrats alike—find that their votes didn't matter. And, with statewide winner-take-all rules, only a handful of battleground states ultimately decide who will become president. Now, as political passions reach a boiling point at the dawn of the 2020 race, the message from the American people is clear: The way we vote for the only official whose job it is to represent all Americans is neither fair nor just. Major reform is needed—now. Isn't it time to let the people pick the president? In this thoroughly researched and engaging call to arms, Supreme Court journalist and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman draws upon the history of the founding era, as well as information gleaned from campaign managers, field directors, and other officials from twenty-first-century Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns, to make a powerful case for abolishing the antiquated and antidemocratic Electoral College. In Let the People Pick the President he shows how we can at long last make every vote in the United States count—and restore belief in our democratic system.
Download or read book Elections Without Choice written by G. Hermet and published by Springer. This book was released on 1978-06-17 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book How to Rig an Election written by Nic Cheeseman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-23 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An engrossing analysis of the pseudo-democratic methods employed by despots around the world to retain control Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.
Download or read book Fundamentally Flawed written by John Haskell and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1996 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How are the electoral procedures used in presidential nomination campaigns? Haskell provides an overview of the historical developments that led to the presidential nomination process and analyzes the basic elements of public choice analysis as they apply to nomination campaigns. The book serves as a basic text and an introduction to the study of the nomination process as a method of public choice. Haskell argues that the current arrangements in the presidential nomination process are deeply flawed and offers a set of reforms to the existing system, including using approval voting in the earliest primaries and diminishing the effect of frontloading primaries. Fundamentally Flawed will interest scholars and students of American government, political parties, the presidency, and campaigns and elections.
Download or read book Forecasting Presidential Elections written by Steven J. Rosenstone and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes a method for analyzing the forces that influence election results and predicting the outcome of elections for the president of the United States
Download or read book Against Elections written by David Van Reybrouck and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A small book with great weight and urgency to it, this is both a history of democracy and a clarion call for change. "Without drastic adjustment, this system cannot last much longer," writes Van Reybrouck, regarded today as one of Europe's most astute thinkers. "If you look at the decline in voter turnout and party membership, and at the way politicians are held in contempt, if you look at how difficult it is to form governments, how little they can do and how harshly they are punished for it, if you look at how quickly populism, technocracy and anti-parliamentarianism are rising, if you look at how more and more citizens are longing for participation and how quickly that desire can tip over into frustration, then you realize we are up to our necks." Not so very long ago, the great battles of democracy were fought for the right to vote. Now, Van Reybrouck writes, "it's all about the right to speak, but in essence it's the same battle, the battle for political emancipation and for democratic participation. We must decolonize democracy. We must democratize democracy." As history, Van Reybrouck makes the compelling argument that modern democracy was designed as much to preserve the rights of the powerful and keep the masses in line, as to give the populace a voice. As change-agent, Against Elections makes the argument that there are forms of government, what he terms sortitive or deliberative democracy, that are beginning to be practiced around the world, and can be the remedy we seek. In Iceland, for example, deliberative democracy was used to write the new constitution. A group of people were chosen by lot, educated in the subject at hand, and then were able to decide what was best, arguably, far better than politicians would have. A fascinating, and workable idea has led to a timely book to remind us that our system of government is a flexible instrument, one that the people have the power to change.
Download or read book Winning Local and State Elections written by Ann Beaudry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-15 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This straightforward and direct guide to running a political campaign provides insight for the first-time candidate based on the authors’ years of experience in the political sphere. The book features step-by-step instructions for an entire campaign: from the planning stages to the election. Perfect for community-based elections and grassroots campaigns.
Download or read book Decisions and Elections written by Donald Saari and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-10-22 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is not uncommon to be frustrated by the outcome of an election or a decision in voting, law, economics, engineering, and other fields. Does this 'bad' result reflect poor data or poorly informed voters? Or does the disturbing conclusion reflect the choice of the decision/election procedure? Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow's famed theorem has been interpreted to mean 'no decision procedure is without flaws'. Similarly, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen dashes hope for individual liberties by showing their incompatibility with societal needs. This highly accessible book offers a new, different interpretation and resolution of Arrow's and Sen's theorems. Using simple mathematics, it shows that these negative conclusions arise because, in each case, some of their assumptions negate other crucial assumptions. Once this is understood, not only do the conclusions become expected, but a wide class of other phenomena can also be anticipated.
Download or read book Why Do Elections Matter in Africa written by Nic Cheeseman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-18 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical new approach to understanding Africa's elections: explaining why politicians, bureaucrats and voters so frequently break electoral rules.
Download or read book The English Reports written by and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 1622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Revised Reports written by and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 922 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Mathematics of Elections and Voting written by W.D. Wallis and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-10-08 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title takes an in-depth look at the mathematics in the context of voting and electoral systems, with focus on simple ballots, complex elections, fairness, approval voting, ties, fair and unfair voting, and manipulation techniques. The exposition opens with a sketch of the mathematics behind the various methods used in conducting elections. The reader is lead to a comprehensive picture of the theoretical background of mathematics and elections through an analysis of Condorcet’s Principle and Arrow’s Theorem of conditions in electoral fairness. Further detailed discussion of various related topics include: methods of manipulating the outcome of an election, amendments, and voting on small committees. In recent years, electoral theory has been introduced into lower-level mathematics courses, as a way to illustrate the role of mathematics in our everyday life. Few books have studied voting and elections from a more formal mathematical viewpoint. This text will be useful to those who teach lower level courses or special topics courses and aims to inspire students to understand the more advanced mathematics of the topic. The exercises in this text are ideal for upper undergraduate and early graduate students, as well as those with a keen interest in the mathematics behind voting and elections.
Download or read book Asking the Right Questions About Electronic Voting written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2006-04-02 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many election officials look to electronic voting systems as a means for improving their ability to more effectively conduct and administer elections. At the same time, many information technologists and activists have raised important concerns regarding the security of such systems. Policy makers are caught in the midst of a controversy with both political and technological overtones. The public debate about electronic voting is characterized by a great deal of emotion and rhetoric. Asking the Right Questions About Electronic Voting describes the important questions and issues that election officials, policy makers, and informed citizens should ask about the use of computers and information technology in the electoral processâ€"focusing the debate on technical and policy issues that need resolving. The report finds that while electronic voting systems have improved, federal and state governments have not made the commitment necessary for e-voting to be widely used in future elections. More funding, research, and public education are required if e-voting is to become viable.
Download or read book Observations on the Law and Practice in Regard to Municipal Elections and the Conduct of the Business of Town Councils and Commissioners of Police in Scotland written by Sir James David Marwick and published by . This book was released on 1879 with total page 878 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Revised Reports written by Frederick Pollock and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
