GOVT Unit 2
The territory of Wyoming granted women the right to vote in 1869 and ___ followed as the first state to enfranchise women
Colorado
In modern elections, candidates _____ to learn about voters' interests
Commission public opinion polls
Until 2000, the last time a candidate won most of the popular votes but did not win the presidency was in
1888
Women were granted universal suffrage in
1920
The number of elections votes needed to win a presidency is
270
The typical procedure for an initiative requires petitions to feature the signatures of ___ of the number of registered voters in a state
5-10%
In the 2000 presidential election, after more than a month of ballot counting, recounting, lawsuits, and court decisions, Bush was certified as the winner of Florida's 25 electoral votes by ____ popular votes
537
Of all the social and economic variables affecting political participation, ___ is the strongest single factor
Education
The standard socioeconomic model of participation chiefly refers to
Education, income, and occupation
In the 2004 presidential election, one of Minnesota's 10 electors voted for vice presidential candidate John Edwards for president instead of presidential candidate John Kerry. This is known as a
Faithless elector
For most people, the first agent of political socialization is
Family
The major agents of early socialization in the US are
Family, school, community, and peers
We elect the president via 50 state elections combined into the electoral college; thus, presidential elections are best described as ___ elections
Federal
The ____ Amendment to the Constitution prohibits states from denying the right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude"
Fifteenth
Which of the following arguments has not been raised a defense of the electoral college?
Historically, polls show public opinion in favor of keeping it
A ___ open primary allows independent voters to vote in a party's primary
Modified
Which of the following presidents failed to win a majority of the popular vote?
John F. Kennedy
In the 2008 presidential election
John McCain accepted public funds, but Barack Obama did not
Psychological explanations of turnout suggest that voting will rise if
More Americans believe that the government is responsive
Incumbents in the House of Representatives historically have won
More than 95% of the time
One criterion that must be met for a country to be democratic is that it must have
More than one political party
Which statement is true about most congressional elections today?
Most congressional elections are not very competitive
Researchers have found that political apathy is ____ in the United States compared to almost all other nations
Much lower
Citizen mobilization to stop construction of a nuclear waste facility near their homes would be an example of the ____ phenomenon
NIMBY
____ primaries weaken parties more because it allows voters to float between parties rather than require the voters to participate in the party in which they are registered
Open
In Smith v. Allwright, the Supreme Court found ____ is unconstitutional
Preventing blacks from voting in primary elections
A ____ election is preliminary election conducted within a political party to select candidates who will run for office
Primary
Which of the qualifications for voting was virtually eliminated in all states by the 1850s?
Property ownership
In 2016, 31 states adopted
Proportional rules for Republican primaries
According to the text, with respect to political participation, "_____ is the great equalizer..."
Protest
The collective attitude of the citizens on a given issue is known as
Public opinion
Political differences between the South and the rest of the country today are often rooted in attitudes about
Racial politics and social issues
The ___ was backed by the Progressives as they wanted a mechanism to remove elected officials from office
Recall
The effect of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which enfranchised eighteen-to-twenty-year-olds, was to
Reduce the national voter turnout rate
Which of the following statements is NOT true concerning the 2016 Republican presidential nomination?
Rubio was considered a favorite after winning his home state of Florida
In the modern political system, candidates ___ rely on political parties to conduct a campaign
Seldom
When no incumbent in the White House is seeking reelection,
The presidential nominating process becomes contested in both parties
One critique that Pluralists make of the public as a whole is that
The public seldom demonstrates clear, consistent opinions on daily issues of government
To maintain order, the government has a stake in converting ____ whenever possible
Unconventional participation into conventional participation
Which country was the first to provide for the general election of representatives through mass suffrage?
United States
A primary election in which voters must devalue their party affiliation before they are given the primary ballot is a ___ primary
Closed
Until the 1950s, political campaigns were conducted primarily
through political party organizations.
The text defines suffrage and franchise as the right to
vote
The majoritarian model of democracy favors
voting as the primary means of participation
The current limit for individual contributions to a candidate in an election, as of 2015-2016, is
$2,700
The current limit for PAC contributions to candidates in an election is
$5,000
Typically, what fraction of the voting-age population will vote in a primary election?
1/4
A January 2014 poll showed that __ percent of Americans knew that the Affordable Care Act prohibits companies from denying health insurance to people because of any illness they may have
54
Around the world, the percentage of countries holding regular, free, and fair elections has risen to ___ percent
63%
Women compared to men, and blacks compared to whites, tend to have political participation rates today that are
About the same
By national law, ____ of the seats in the House of Representatives and ___ of the seats in the Senate are filled in a general election held every even-numbered year
All; 1/3
In general today, women politically participate
At about the same rate as men
Some negative ads also promote the positive qualities of the other candidate; however, there are negative ads that advocate nothing positive. These are called ___ ads.
Attack
The fact that ideological conservatives believed even more strongly that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 war after they were informed that subsequent investigations concluded that this was not true is an example of the
Backfire effect
In order to gain campaign information about the voting preferences and issues concerning various groups in the electorate, a candidate would conduct a ___ poll
Benchmark
The literacy tests that were used in the southern states after 1870 worked primarily against
Blacks
Elections, as an institutional mechanism
Bolster the power and authority of the state
Which of the following was the first known act of unconventional political participation in America?
Boston Tea Party
An example of a citizen using "contacting behavior" is
Calling the county animal control office to remove a raccoon from a window well
A method of delegate selection that begins with local meetings and culminates in a state convention is known as the
Caucus method
Beginning with the 2010 election, corporations were free to run ads directly advocating a candidate's election for the first time since 1906, when Congress first banned using general corporate funds in federal election campaigns. This occurred based on which 2010 US Supreme Court decision?
Citizens United v. FEC
According to the text, which of the following is NOT a characteristic of public opinion?
Citizens are typically unwilling to offer opinions on matters outside their experience, even when asked by pollsters
A practical test of whether or not a government is democratic is whether
Citizens can affect its policies by acting through its institutions
A legal action brought by a person or group in behalf of a number of people in similar circumstances is also known as a
Class action suit
An advertisement that criticizes an opponent and advocates policies of the sponsoring candidate is an example of a __ ad
Contrast
Relatively routine behaviors that use the established institutions of representative government such a voting in an election are called ____ participation
Conventional
The standard socioeconomic model recognizes the relationship between socioeconomic status and
Conventional political involvement
When a leader assembles crowds to confront businesses and local governments to demand a hearing, he or she is engaging in
Direct action
The term "electoral college" became known in the US
During the 20th century
A 2013 Supreme Court decisions regarding the Voting Rights Act allowed numerous states to
Enforce new voter identification laws
Campaign finance laws are challenged as a violation of the ___ Amendment
First
A state moves its primary to an earlier date to encourage presidential candidates who would otherwise have skipped that state to campaign there. This is known as
Front-loading
Governments tend to respond to public opinion. In recent years, this has become partially true regarding issues involving
Gay rights
Candidates eventually favored by most party identifiers usually win their party's nomination. There have been only 2 exceptions to this rule: Adlai Stevenson in 1952 and _____ in 1972
George McGovern
Which of the following statements reflects the role public opinion should play according to the majoritarian model of democracy?
Government should do what a majority of the public wants
Which of the following is NOT included in the responsibilities of the Federal Election Commission (FEC)?
Guaranteeing rough equality in fundraising between Republicans and Democrats
A libertarian is most likely to exhibit the characteristics of
High income and high education
Congress and the states moved quickly to pass the Twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the voting age to eighteen, because they
Hoped to channel student energy away from demonstrations and toward more conventional forms of participation
The contemporary political "gender gap" refers to the tendency of women to
Identify more with the Democratic Party than men do
When a citizen contributes money to a candidate's campaign, he or she is engaging in
Influencing behavior
In 2016, Bernie Sanders clearly followed an ___ strategy when he campaigned against Wall Street and wealth inequality
Issues-oriented
Political scientists know less about unconventional forms of political participation because
It's easier to collect data on conventional practices
In 2014, voters approved a number of ballot propositions, including ones in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington that
Legalized recreational marijuana
Typically, a referenda is placed on the ballot by
Legislators
Because it depends on mass participation in politics, majoritarianism tends to
Limit individual freedom
Characteristics frequently associated with nonvoters are
Low education, low income, and being relatively young
Lack of political knowledge among individual Americans makes the ____ model of democracy. More difficult to sustain
Majoritarian
Which of the following statements concerning ideological "moderates" is correct?
Many people identify as "moderate" because they do not understand the alternatives
During the 2016 presidential campaign, some candidates sent messages to the smart phones of selected voters. This is an example of
Microtargeting
In the text the authors assert that the majority of voters are ideologically more ___ than the voting records of members of Congress would indicate
Moderate
According to the text, Americans were ___ politically apathetic in 2012 compared to 1952
Neither more nor less
In the 2016 presidential race, ____ accepted public funds
Neither party's candidate
The amendment granting women's suffrage is the
Nineteenth Amendment
According to the text, if the criterion is ___, America had the best and most democratic government in the workd
Number of elections held
A symmetrical, bell-shaped distribution around a single mode is called a
Normal distribution
Compared with citizens in other democracies, Americans are
Not noticeably apathetic
Someone who asserts that elections "socialize political activity" is contending that elections are mechanisms that maintain
Order
According to democratic theory, the most important factor in determining voter choice in an election should be
Past performance and proposed policies
The process where one becomes aware of politics, learns political facts, and forms political values is called
Political socialization
American political parties operate more in keeping with the ___ model of democracy
Pluralist
The ability of groups to make government respond to their special problems is best related to ____ theory
Pluralist
The acronym PAC stands for
Political Action Committee
The set of values and beliefs that a person holds about the purpose and scope of government is called
Political ideology
The text defines ___ as the actions of private citizens by which they seek to influence or support government and politics
Political participation
Since they were not happy with voting for candidates selected by party leaders, ___ championed the direct primary
Progressives
The goal of the statistical theory of sampling is to
Reflect the views of the population with some predictable degree of accuracy
When sampled, the public strongly favors the death penalty for certain crimes. The graph of such a distribution would characterized as
Skewed
When a political opinion is based on what is considered to be in the best interest of the nation rather than what people think is in their own interest is an example of
Sociotropic responses
The relationship between participation and order is complicated because
Some types of participation promote disorder
According to the text, violent unconventional political participation is
Sometimes worth the risk
A distribution of opinions that shows little change over time is called a ______ distribution
Stable
The 1955 Montgomery bus boycott is an example of a
Successful unconventional political participation
"Independent, expenditures-only political committees" are a legal term by the FEC more commonly referred to as
Super PACs
The SpeechNow.org v. FEC decision legalized
Super PACs
Serving as an election judge in a nonpartisan election or organizing a holiday parade are examples of
Supportive behavior
In an election campaign, ___ determines the content of the messages and the way they are delivered
Synergy
The march from Selma demonstrated to the nation the seriousness of
The civil rights problem
Although terrorism is an unconventional political action, it is generally not counted as unconventional political participation because
Terrorists do not seek to influence a government but to destroy it
The Framers wanted to build public opinion into our government structure by creating
The House of Representatives
One result of ___ was the direct primary, in which candidates must campaign not only for election, but also for the nomination of their party
The Progressive movement in the 1920s
Pressure on an individual to conform to community values or views is strongest when
The community is homogeneous
Perhaps the most significant fact about primary elections in congressional politics today is
The decline in competition for party nominations
The extent of the influence of any socializing agent depends on
The extent of our exposure to it, our communication with it, and our receptivity to it
By law, the US presidential election occurs
The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November
In nearly every other democratic country outside of the US, the burden of registration is placed on
The government
According to psychological explanations, voter turnout in the United States is not likely to increase until
The government does something to restore people's faith in the effectiveness of voting
According to former House Speaker Tip O'Neill, there are 4 party's to any campaign. Which of the following is NOT one of the critical parts of campaigns?
The imcumbent
Which of the following is true about election campaigns?
They have evolved to the candidate being centered
The framers of the Constitution left the issue of voter enfranchisement to
The states
One recent criticism referenda and initiatives is that
They create an expensive "industry" designed around circulating petitions and spending millions
The American emphasis on freedom over equality in political participation work to the benefit of
Those with greater resources
Learning political party identification from parents is known as the ____ model of partisanship
Transmission
The amendment lowering the voting age to eighteen is the
Twenty-sixth Amendment
A voter who voted a Republican for senator and Hillary Clinton for president in 2016
Voted a split ticket
The percentage of eligible voters who actually vote in a given election is callsd
Voter turnout
What's the main way in which citizens control government?
Voting in free elections to choose leaders
Compared with other nations in the world in granting suffrage to women, the United States
Was among the first
A candidate for political office faces 2 important structural factors when planning a campaign: the office the candidate is seeking and
Whether he or she is the incumbent or the challenger
Which of the following statements concerning gender and political beliefs is incorrect?
Women are more likely to face the death penalty
Based on the text, which of these factors does NOT determine the accuracy of the sample?
Year sample is taken
According to the self-interest principle, people tend to
choose what benefits them personally
Each state has one vote in the electoral college for
each of its representatives and senators
In the current American context, a liberal would tend to promote
economic equality ahead of freedom, and freedom ahead of social order
In Oregon, everyone votes by
A direct primary is a
preliminary election to choose party candidates
In 2000, Republican George W. Bush won the presidency despite
receiving fewer popular votes than Al Gore.
If no presidential candidate wins a majority of electoral votes, the election is decided by
the House of Representatives
One notable feature of first-past-the-post elections is that
they produce sizable discrepancies between votes won and seats won.