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Will Byler

Ms. Jizi

University Writing

07 November 2017

Annotated Bibliography
Lewis-Beck, Michael S., et al. The American Voter Revisited. University of Michigan

Press, 2014.

Chapter five of Michael Lewis-Becks The American Voter Revisited focused a lot on the

motivations behind voting and nonvoting individuals. It also had some focus on reasons why or

why not to always believe surveys done regarding what percentage of people come out to vote.

Some results that show who voted and who didnt are actually quite skewed. While some studies

dont take into account those who are ineligible to vote, other have respondents who lie on their

surveys. If voting is a main form of people civic responsibilities, it makes sense that people

would be willing to lie and say that they did vote when they actually didnt. This book also

helped shed some light on why there are such differences in turnout from year to year. The

stronger someone feels about a cause/candidate, the more likely they are to go out and vote. One

year, someone may really like one of the candidates so they go out and vote but the next year

they dont really have a preference so they dont vote. This is also the case when different topics

are the forefront of debates in elections. If someone is passionate about this topic theyre more

likely to come out and vote if the topic is talked about a lot during the campaign time.
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This book contains a lot of information regarding internal motivations for voting rather

than external influences like my other sources contained. One key thing this book mentioned was

the incredibly miniscule amount of people who admitted to participating in the most basic type

of political engagement; showing which side you support. Whether it was displaying a bumper

sticker or hanging a flag outside their, only about 10% of people were participating. This is a real

indicator of how polarized the US has become Simply referencing your political affiliation

should not be frowned upon in way but it seems that nowadays it can be a deciding factor for if

someone even talks to you. This polarization has at least some effect on whether or not some

people come out to vote. This chapter also spent some time talking about the role the media plays

in our elections. The large media companies such as CNN, Fox, and ABC all give their take on

the news theyre delivering. Each station has their biases and it is vital that citizens do their own

research between sources to determine what is true and what is not. Many people believe

everything they read on tv or the internet and that can lead to a ton of uneducated voters. This

last election, we saw evidence of an outside government messing with the media (Facebook) in

an attempt to disrupt the election results.

The author of this book, Michael S. Lewis-Beck, is an accredited professor at the

University of Iowa. Lewis-Beck got his PhD from the University of Michigan and chose to focus

his main research on comparative elections and election forecasting, giving him extensive

research background in the field I am inquiring about. He was also one of the editors for the

American Journal of Political Science. He has also done a lot of work on the elections in foreign

countries so he is better able to compare US elections to those of similar democracies. He is

currently the Associate Editor of International Journal of Forecasting and French Politics.
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Party Polarization and the Rise of Partisan Voting in U.S. House Elections. American

Politics Research, journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1532673X07305373

The article Party Polarization and the Rise of Partisan Voting in U.S. House Elections,

similar to the previous source, focuses more so on midterm elections than presidential elections.

According to this article, more people are voting strictly based on partisanship rather than for

individual candidates. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that has resurrected as of late,

rather. The polarization of the two political parties starts with the extreme difference of views

within the party elites and those already in congress. In recent years, it is quite evident that

congress and the rest of the government is very polarized. There have been times when the party

opposite that of the president has the majority in congress and they band together and reject all

policies the president puts into place simply because of their affiliation. This causes voters to do

more straight ticket voting in order to help legislation get through.

This article takes a closer look at who people vote for rather than if they vote at all. It

talks some about the drop off in turnout between presidential and midterm elections, but focuses

mostly on the reasoning behind those who vote in the midterm elections. The main thing I took

from this article that will further my inquiry that the increasing number of people who vote for a

party rather than a candidate is due heavily to the polarization of the extremes of each party. The

extremes of each party are almost always a sure-fire vote, so it is not as much a question of if

they vote, rather its a question of what their influence will be on other who may or may not

vote.
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The author of this article, Richard Born, is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of

Technology which is an incredible, highly sought after college. He has both his masters and his

PhD from Stanford University. All of Borns research interests are in the area of congressional

elections. He is continually researching the growing lines between political affiliations and the

consequences that may ensue.

Polsby, Nelson W., et al. Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of American

Politics. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.

The first chapter of Nelson Polsbys Presidential Elections: Strategies and Structures of

American Politics focuses mainly on voter turnout and why people dont come out on election

day. One main reason pointed out in this book is that not as many people vote because they feel

overwhelmed during election time. There are constantly different elections going on for different

levels of officials (federal, state, local) which make it seem like its a never ending cycle.

American election also focus on so many different topics compared to those of Western

European nations. While Americans dont participate in voting as much as other democracies,

they fill that void with other forms of participation. Compared to other countries, Americans

discuss politics in their day to day lives much more. Not only do they discuss it more, but they

are known for trying to persuade others during election season.

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This source was incredibly helpful when diving into my inquiry. This chapter of the book

gives its answer to my exact question; Why dont people vote. This book is also fairly new and

has relevant, up to date research to back up the arguments. Possibly the most helpful information

this book had was that the people in the US that are registered to vote actually do vote at around

the same rate as other democratic nations. In many countries, citizenship grants you the right to

vote and there isnt further action required to register like in the US. There are also more

restrictions for who can register to vote. For instance, if you are a convicted felon, you cant vote

in America. Many people who are not registered to vote are completely ineligible to vote. If you

subtracted the percentage of people who were ineligible to vote then the US voter turnout would

look more like those of western Europe. This source also backed up some of the knowledge I had

before starting this inquiry. In high school I learned that one reason people dont vote as much in

the US was because there are so many elections here and this book did a good job of explaining

that.

The author of this paper, Nelson W. Polsby, is professor at UCLA Berkley. After earning

his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University, he went on to get not only his

masters, but also his doctoral degree at Yale University. On top of that he earned a master's

degree from Brown University. All of those school are well known for having big-name

scientists emerge from there. Polsby has specialized his studies in the US president and the US

congress. In his studies of these subjects, he has done extensive work with the elections that got

the president and congress elected.

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Fiorina, Morris P. The (Re)Nationalization of Congressional Elections.

Https://Www.hoover.org, Hoover Institute, 2016,

www.hoover.org/sites/default/files/research/docs/fiorina_renationalizationofcongressionalelectio

ns_7.pdf.

The essay The (Re)Nationalization of Congressional Elections written by Morris P Fiorina is

essentially about exactly what the titles suggests. The nationalization of a congressional elections

means that the outcomes of the elections on different levels (local, congressional, presidential)

are correlated and you can clearly see that the different elections ran together. This was very

common in elections in the late 19th-mid 20th century so this is not a new phenomenon. In

nationalized elections, citizens tend to vote for a specific political party across the board rather

than voting for the candidate specifically.

This essays shows me that the nationalization of congressional elections actually plays a role in

whether or not the incumbent gets re-elected. Since there isnt as much split ticket voting in the

elections, congressmen/women owe their election victory to the president because of their

affiliation with the same party as them. Since people are more likely to vote straight-ticket, if

they align with the same party as he who wins the presidency, they are more likely to get the

vote. This source served as the base for my inquiry. It gave me background information that is

needed to understand why people are voting the way they do. This essay also helped with

backing up information that I already knew.

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The author of this essay, Morris P. Fiorina, is very qualified to write this piece. He has an

undergraduate degree from Allegheny College and a Ph.D from University of Rochester. Fiorina

focused his studies and writing on elections and those who vote in them. He has taught at many

renowned universities before ending up at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. The

Hoover Institute promotes the success of humans, not only economically, but just overall as

people. While the article was peer reviewed by a variety of Fiorinas colleagues, he specifically

thanked David Brady and John Aldrich for their hard work in helping him finalize his essay.

Campbell, James E. The Revised Theory of Surge and Decline - ResearchGate.

Jstor.org,

www.bing.com/cr?IG=2182E39EAA62426DB1E66AD0A52958F0&CID=1E07D408748E6FA4

2B48DF3275886E43&rd=1&h=Tm50zwi8TD3QQlYTfpOT8n1MV4u91hN3Ke5Wj3ZIbkI&v=

1&r=https%3a%2f%2fwww.researchgate.net%2fpublication%2f272541788_The_Revised_Theo

ry_of_Surge_and_Decline&p=DevEx,5068.1.

The article The Revised Theory of Surge and Decline by James E. Campbell is a bit

different from the other sources used in this inquiry project. This article has more to do with the

dropoff in voter participation from presidential to midterm elections and why the presidents

party almost always loses seats in the midterms following their election. The surge and decline

theory offers an explanation to the different incentives the public sees when looking at

presidential elections compared to midterms. Presidential elections get more media attention and

are much more energized. These elections are much more likely to get the attention of those who
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are usually not interested in politics. Those who arent interested in politics on their own are not

very likely to come out and vote if their isnt much attention surrounding the candidates like in

midterm elections. Presidential elections have a way of pulling independent people who

generally stick to themselves to the polls to cast their vote. These voters surge into the polls and

cast their ballot for the future president and, in the process, tend to vote for that same party when

it comes to congressional seats. These congressional seats are up for the taking two years later

while the president is safe for another two years. Those who were on the fence but came out to

vote for the president arent likely to come out and vote again in the midterms, thus that party

will lose those votes, resulting in a decline in seats for that party.

My inquiry includes but is not limited to presidential elections. This look on the dropoff

of turnout for midterm elections is very helpful when finding the reason people vote at all. The

surge and decline theory backs up my idea that people think the presidency is more important

than congress. Many people dont fully understand the US government and dont know where

the power truly lies. The dropoff of around 9-11% of voters from presidential to midterm

elections is a substantial number of people. My original inquiry was tailored specifically to why

people vote far less in midterm than presidential but I have since broadened the question. This

article gave me a very insightful answer to why people do and dont vote.

The author of this article, James E. Campbell, is a well sought after professor of political

science at the University of Buffalo, SUNY. He earned his PhD from Syracuse University in

New York. On top of being the president of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor

society, he was a congressional fellow for the American Political Science Association. His areas
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of teaching and research include but are not limited to campaigns and elections, voting behavior,

and election forecasting.