The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788-1790

Is the United States polarized? In order to address this question, this dissertation explores three dimensions of political polarization. Three related, but independent, essays on political polarization provide information on questions concerning polarization, First, the studies on polarization themselves appear to be polarized. Chapter 2 focused on reviewing past studies on polarization. Still, one side argues that American citizens are severely polarized, while the other side argues that polarization is an illusion (Abramowitz and Saunders 2008; Abramowitz 2010; Fiorina 2014, 2017; Mason 2016). A sample is carefully chosen from the sociological and political science SCIMAGO rankings. Since almost all measures of polarization used in earlier works can be classified as a single type of polarization, all measures of polarization are coded into four types: issue consistency, issue divergence, affective polarization, and perceived polarization. Based on the systematic review and meta-analysis in Chapter 2, no strong evidence supports the idea of a "polarized America." One interesting finding is that the majority of the studies that produced significant results used ANES data, with a secondary group using the GSS. While there are many differences between the two surveys, the key distinction is the timing of the field surveys. Second, Chapter 3 begins with the premise that political interests will be deeply related to political action, and so will political polarization. For example, recent studies present evidence that political interest can vary depending on the political context (Prior and Bougher 2018). Political interest also ebbs and flows with politically salient events, especially federal elections. In Chapter 3, the focus is whether polarization is a stable characteristic of the electorate, like political interest or partisanship. Previous scholarship emphasizes the "situational" characteristics of interest for change and adaptation to a new environment as opposed to the "static" characteristics of interest (Featherman et al. 1994; Prior and Bougher 2018). Therefore, the research question centers on political polarization, as under the same presumption, the degree of political polarization within the general public is influenced by political interest and electoral circumstance. Using data from two nationally representative surveys, the ANES and the GSS, the level of issue polarization increases similarly in both sets of data, but the patterns of sorting are different. The level of sorting in the ANES fluctuates, whereas instability shows a more dramatic increase in the GSS. In contrast, the overall level of sorting in the ANES is higher than in the GSS. Thus, the difference in the level of polarization between two surveys comes from the timing of the surveys. While the ANES is typically conducted from August to December in the midst of the election campaign, the GSS is typically conducted from February to May. Since the GSS and the ANES surveys do not conduct surveys in non-election years, it is difficult to isolate the effect of elections on the level of polarization. The Pew Research Center conducts annual political polls. Using Pew political surveys, I investigated the difference in the level of polarization between election years and non-election years and between presidential elections and midterm elections. The findings demonstrate that the timing of a survey has a significant effect on the level of polarization (i.e., sorting) in general. This finding suggests that elections are a key determinant of the intensity of the level of polarization, partisan strength, and political views. The level of polarization, like measures of political interest and party affiliation, is not stable. There are fluctuations in the level of polarization that are associated with points in time within the electoral cycle, and citizens are more likely to show more polarized attitudes as a function of the proximity of an election. Chapter 4 focused on the level of polarization at the state level. Studies of polarization have received more attention at the national level due to the difficulty of collecting enough samples. The CCES provides enough samples of between 30,000 and 50,000 individuals every year to make it possible to examine the state level of polarization. In particular, Chapter 4 investigates the relationship between state swing in a presidential election and state polarization. The fourth chapter examined the potential relationship between the phenomenon of state swing or state competitiveness in presidential elections and the state's level of polarization. By concentrating on sorting, the connection between polarization at the state level and swing states, including those that are competitive in presidential elections, is analyzed. Swing states should have more polarization than safe states like California and Texas. Using an independent sample t-test, the degree of polarization between swing states and safe states is significantly different. The effects of polarization on the potential for state swing, or the likelihood that the state will be competitive in presidential elections, are examined. Sorting has a sizable magnitude and significant impact on the probability that a state will change its support in presidential elections, using a logistic model. States are more likely to change their support in presidential elections as the degree of polarization within those states rises or falls. The impact of partisan composition within a state is one of the chapter's more intriguing findings. The findings show that a more balanced partisan composition within a state increases the likelihood of switching support from one party candidate to another in presidential elections and makes the state's presidential elections more competitive. In addition, possible connections might exist between a swing state and a person's degree of polarization. Using the same four categories of swing states, there might be differences in which groups of citizens are more likely to be polarized than others, depending on the state in which they live and the circumstances surrounding the state election. Based on an OLS model, mixed results were obtained regarding the prediction of the impact of the state's electoral circumstances (competition, TV ad spending, and campaign events) and the swing experience on the degree of polarization. The three essays on political polarization in the United States suggest several implications. First, based on meta-analysis in chapters 2 and 3, I concluded that Americans are still not polarized as Fiorina (2018) recently contended. While some types of polarization are, arguably, on the rise and pervasive in the mass public, scholarly findings still do not reach a consensus. It is too early to conclude that the United States is polarized. One of the most challenging aspects of previous and recent research on polarization is that it is almost entirely based on survey data collected in the midst of presidential or midterm elections (i.e., the ANES, the GSS). The campaign season accentuates partisan polarization for the average citizen in a way other times do not. The findings in Chapter 3 follow this notion and suggest that the level of polarization among the mass public can be influenced by external factors such as electoral circumstances. Future research should evaluate the reasons behind each type of polarization and how the political circumstances and the survey instrument may influence measures of political polarization. Also, it should be examined how these conditions affect different political outcomes. Second, scholars should be careful when evaluating polarization at the sub-national level, as shown in Chapter 4. It is easy to conflate the concepts of geographical polarization and state polarization. There are two distinct ideas here. This dissertation shed some light on the distinction between state-level and geographic polarization. It also contributed to clarifying the difference between the state-level concept of polarization and the national one. In conclusion, polarization is a complex concept that demands careful discussion. This dissertation presents several original perspectives and ideas that will be helpful for future studies on political polarization in the United States and other democratic societies.

In preparation for the 2012 presidential election, members of the Pennsylvania GOP have been considering changing the way the state awards its electoral votes. Under the current system, the candidate who wins the greatest number of votes statewide receives all twenty of the state's votes in the Electoral College. In recent years, heavy Democratic voting in urban areas such as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh has offset Republican victories in rural parts of the state. In order to build on their strength in the less-populated areas, Republicans are considering having Pennsylvania award electors based on a district method. While this approach is technically constitutional, political commentators have been quick to condemn the proposal as unethical and potentially dangerous.1 This is not, however, the first time a political party has attempted to change election laws to their advantage. The manipulation of election law dates back to the first elections under the Constitution.Concern over the lack of representation in the British Parliament was one of the major reasons the colonists decided to declare independence.2 The Revolution established the principle of actual representation—that all regions of a state or the nation ought to be represented in the legislature, and that federal representation ought to be apportioned by population in the House of Representatives—but there were still many questions about what that meant in practice. As the country went through the process of establishing a government, representation remained a divisive subject. Specifically, there was disagreement over how to elect a federal representative and whether the electoral votes a state cast for president ought to be divided by district or given completely to the statewide winner.Historians who have discussed representation and election law in the early Republic tend to focus on ideology. The standard narrative is that Federalists supported at-large elections because only the most qualified, well-known candidates had a chance at winning. Additionally, large election districts ensured that no single interest group had too much influence. Anti-Federalists, and later Republicans, advocated district elections to ensure that representatives remained tied to local interests. Whereas Federalists wanted the “best” men to serve in office, Anti-Federalists and Republicans believed a representative should be one of the people.3 There is certainly truth to this account, but a straight ideological explanation fails to explain why Pennsylvania changed the way it elected representatives four times in the first four congressional elections even though Federalists held a majority in the state legislature the entire time.The federal Constitution left it to each state to select a method for electing representatives. In 1788 the Pennsylvania legislature passed a law providing for at-large elections for the commonwealth's allotted eight seats in the House of Representatives. Each voter wrote the names of eight different men on a piece of paper, and the eight men receiving the greatest number of votes were elected. Although Federalists remained in control of the state legislature, an election law passed in 1791 divided the state into districts for elections to the Second Congress. Then, in 1792, the legislature narrowly voted to return to at-large elections. Finally, in 1794, the state settled on a district system. While Federalists and Anti-Federalists/Republicans clearly had ideological disagreements, a review of the debates surrounding the framing of election laws reveals that political strategy played a decisive role in the decision to select a particular mode of electing representatives. Strategically, Federalists favored the at-large system because, while they had a numerical advantage over their opponents, most of their supporters were concentrated in the more populous eastern part of the state, in and around Philadelphia. Anti-Federalists, on the other hand, favored a district system because their supporters were dispersed throughout the state. Federalists could easily dominate at-large elections, but a state divided into election districts could lead to the election of a number of western Anti-Federalists.In addition to illuminating the ways in which partisans manipulated election laws to get the upper hand, a close study of the change between at-large and district elections sheds light on the development of political parties in Pennsylvania. Parties emerged from the crucible of ongoing electoral experimentation, geographic tensions, and shifting attitudes toward the federal government. The process of switching back and forth between at-large and district elections forced politicians to develop communication networks throughout the state, hone methods of nomination, and devise new ways of campaigning.After losing the majority of seats in the first elections, opponents of the Federalists began to organize. Their efforts led to the legislature dividing the state into districts for the second congressional elections and the defeat of a few Federalists. Due to confusion over the number of seats allotted to Pennsylvania in 1792, the state returned to the at-large system for the third congressional elections. Despite preferring districts, Republicans used this opportunity to dramatically increase intrastate cooperation and improve their methods of campaigning. This party building resulted in a number of gains throughout the state. The realization that they were not equipped to compete with the Republican organization led Federalists to abandon at-large elections in 1794. There is, therefore, a clear relationship between the state's election laws and the rise of political parties.4The fault lines that would divide Federalists from Anti-Federalists and later Republicans date back to long-standing geographic and socioeconomic tensions. On the eve of ratification, Pennsylvania was a socially and economically diverse state. With a population of 28,522 according to the federal census of 1790, Philadelphia was the second-largest city in the country and home to a diverse group of merchants, manufacturers, laborers, artisans, and a few slaves.5 It was a center of both economic and intellectual life and very much a part of the larger Atlantic community. The eastern counties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Berks, York, and Lancaster tended to vote with the city. Overall, the eastern parts of the state were ethnically diverse, with the largest groups being English and Germans. Those who lived west of the Alleghenies tended to live in isolated, rural areas. Despite encompassing more than half of the state's size, only 75,000 people, less than 20 percent total population, resided in the western counties of Allegheny, Fayette, Westmoreland, and Washington. Most westerners engaged in agricultural pursuits, although a few of the larger towns had attorneys and artisans as well. Populated primarily with recent immigrants, the two largest ethnicities were Scots-Irish and English.6The United States experienced a painful economic downturn at the end of the War for Independence, and Pennsylvanians from all walks of life were in desperate need of relief. Many farms in the west were devastated during the war; the price of land bottomed out, leaving westerners on the brink of ruin. The east suffered as well, just for different reasons. A surge in British imports in 1783 and 1784 drove down the price of goods, crippling many merchants. Laborers and artisans found themselves out of work for the first time in years. Rising taxes threatened to break people throughout the state.7These conditions help explain some of the disagreements over the ratification of the federal Constitution. Although not a monolithic group, Philadelphia merchants believed the Constitution offered a solution to their economic woes. Similarly, many of the urban laborers and artisans favored ratification as a way to bring about fiscal stability. A strong central government could ensure the collection of taxes and provide protection against foreign markets. Many in the west disagreed. The proposed Constitution, they believed, only favored the merchants and the rich. Farmers and small merchants feared the imposition of heavier taxes and worried that a stronger federal government would weaken state and local institutions. Although patches of Federalism existed in the west, the vast majority of westerners sided with the Anti-Federalists.8With the majority of Philadelphia and its environs supporting the new Constitution, Federalists clearly had the upper hand. Most of the state's wealth and nearly two-thirds of the population resided east of the Alleghenies. Even with this advantage, Federalists were not willing to leave anything to chance. During the ratification debates, Pennsylvania Federalists proved well organized and easily outmaneuvered their opponents. In fact, the majority of the debate surrounding the Constitution took place after the state convention had ratified the document.9 Federalists moved with such precision and speed that Anti-Federalists, whose supporters were dispersed throughout the west, were simply unable to mount an effective opposition in time. Anti-Federalist leaders in Philadelphia did their best to stall ratification (including hiding to prevent the calling of a quorum in the convention), but on December 12, 1787, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the federal Constitution.10After the necessary nine states ratified the Constitution, both sides turned their focus to the first federal elections. Pennsylvania Federalists had the momentum, but they did not take success for granted. In the late summer of 1788, Thomas Fitzsimons, a well-known Federalist and wealthy merchant from Philadelphia, decided that his party needed to seize the initiative. He wrote to a friend on August 20 that “the representation of this state in the new Congress will in a great measure depend upon the plan that may be adopted for choosing them. A good mode might now, I believe, be obtained, which in another Assembly would not be practicable.”11 Federalists outnumbered the Anti-Federalists thirty-seven to twenty-seven in the 1787–88 General Assembly.12 Federalists, therefore, had the numbers to pass an at-large election law that favored the more populous, Federalist, eastern part of the state.In the Assembly, the Federalist-sponsored bill providing for at-large elections came up for discussion on September 24, 1788. William Findley, a leading Anti-Federalist from Westmoreland County, led a weak effort to promote district elections, arguing that they were the only way “that eight men could have a particular knowledge of the local and common interests throughout the state.” He saw it as “almost impossible in so large a state as Pennsylvania, to have an actual representation in Congress.” James McLene, an Anti-Federalist from Franklin County, was the only other member to express support for the district method, but both McLene and Findley acknowledged that such a bill had no chance of getting passed. Findley did, however, manage to ensure that the language of the at-large bill did not apply to future elections. Clearly he viewed this debate as the first battle in a longer war. After Findley withdrew his measure, the at-large representation bill passed without a recorded vote.13 Elections were set for November 2, 1788.At-large elections for representatives were not part of the national Federalist program. Instead, Federalists supported the mode of election most likely to ensure a Federalist majority. Pennsylvania Federalists supported at-large elections because they had a numerical but not geographic advantage.14 In South Carolina the situation was reversed. Low country Federalists supported district elections because of the large number of Anti-Federalists residing in the backcountry.15 Likewise, although Pennsylvania Anti-Federalists supported district elections, their counterparts in other states fought for at-large elections. Though ideology certainly mattered, it appeared that modes of election were often contingent on political conditions.Both Pennsylvania Federalists and Anti-Federalists held nominating conventions in preparation for the first federal elections. These coalitions were not parties in the modern sense of the word. In 1788 Federalists and Anti-Federalists had organized for one purpose—either to support or oppose the federal Constitution. The first federal elections were an extension of this conflict. Although the Constitution had been adopted, Anti-Federalists held out hope that members of the First Congress would adopt structural amendments to weaken the central government. For this purpose, a group of Anti-Federalists from across the state met at Harrisburg in early September 1788. Although the primary motivation was to draft a set of amendments, the men also agreed on an eight-man ticket to run statewide in the upcoming election. The convention occurred a month before the election law passed, suggesting that Anti-Federalists knew beforehand that the state would not be divided into districts. The ticket included a mixture of loyal Anti-Federalists, moderates, and two Federalist-leaning Germans.16 Four of the candidates came from the eastern counties and three resided in the west. Designed to appeal to a broad base, this eclectic group of candidates hailed from a variety of different social and economic backgrounds.At first, Federalists responded to the Harrisburg convention with outrage. According to one Federalist writer, the goal of “the Antifederal conclave” in creating a ticket had been to “save all the trouble of free elections in the future.”17 Federalists claimed the Anti-Federalists were attempting to deprive the people of Pennsylvania the right to vote for whomever they pleased. Despite their public outcries, some Federalist leaders were concerned that the Harrisburg ticket would prove successful and decided to hold their own convention in Lancaster on November 3, 1788. The ticket Federalists adopted at Lancaster was less varied than the Harrisburg ticket. Half of the men nominated by the Federalists resided in or near Philadelphia, and only one lived in the west. Because the vast majority of their supporters lived in the eastern parts of the state, Federalists had little incentive to nominate men from the west.Geographic voting in the first election led to a decisive victory for Pennsylvania Federalists. The Federalists' statewide election strategy worked perfectly. Even with members of the Harrisburg ticket outpolling the Federalists almost six to one in some western areas, only two of the state's eight seats went to Anti-Federalists.18 Federalist majorities in the heavily populated eastern counties more than offset whatever advantage Anti-Federalists had in the west. The two Anti-Federalists elected, Daniel Hiester and J. Peter Muhlenberg, were of German heritage and likely owed their victory to the tendency of Pennsylvania Germans to vote as an ethnic bloc. William Findley later recalled that, in effect, the 1788 election had been “carried wholly by one side of the state.”19Anti-Federalists did not put much effort into the first federal election.20 During the campaign season, backcountry leaders focused more on the upcoming fight over the state Constitution than on the election of federal congressmen.21 Besides the Harrisburg convention, no evidence exists that the Anti-Federalists made any concerted attempts to organize. Because the majority of their support was in the west and rural areas, without at least some organization the Anti-Federalists simply could not compete with the Federalists.Because the election law of 1788 applied solely to that year, the second set of federal elections could not occur without new legislation. But even as other states took steps to conduct elections in 1790, the Pennsylvania legislature was mired in debates over a new state Constitution and showed no signs that they were thinking about federal elections. With elected officials distracted, the debate over the means of electing representatives moved into the public sphere. Hoping to generate a discussion, William Irvine had penned a series of articles under the pseudonym “Juniata Man” beginning in January of 1790.22 A native of Ireland, Irvine moved to Cumberland County in 1764. Elected to the Confederation Congress in 1786, he allied himself with the conservatives and emerging Federalists. Although he had endorsed ratification of the federal Constitution, Irvine became disenchanted with the Federalist administration during the 1790s and drifted toward the Republican camp.23Irvine's political journey is reflective of a larger phenomenon. The new national government had inherited a fiscal disaster. During the Revolutionary War, the government lacked specie and had to pay soldiers in promissory notes. These notes quickly depreciated in the years following the Treaty of Paris. Poor veterans sold their notes to speculators for a fraction of their face value. The majority of the national debt was therefore owned by a small number of people. States also carried significant debt from the Revolutionary War. In 1791 Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton proposed that the federal government fund the notes at their original value, assume state debts, create a national bank, and levy excise and custom duties. The plan clearly benefited speculators, many of whom lived in the east, at the expense of veterans. Assumption of state debts and the establishment of a national bank pointed to a centralized, powerful national government. The direct taxes Hamilton proposed on distilled spirits fell particularly hard on poor western farmers who were still struggling to recover from the downturn after the war. The end result was that Hamilton's plan drove many moderates and lukewarm Federalists to the opposition and convinced the former Anti-Federalists of the need to organize.24In the “Juniata Man” letters, Irvine warned that the next Congress was about to “fund an immense public debt” and “will have a power to impose direct taxes.” The next congressional delegation, he insisted, must consist of men who would have the people's interest in mind. He argued that district elections were the best way to achieve this goal. Irvine blamed much of the state's problems on the men of Philadelphia who had been “in the habit of nomination at least, if not appointing, every officer of note.” In the last “Juniata Man” letter, which appeared on April 17, 1790, Irvine lashed out at the men in the east. “Let them rant, rave, or assume an air of gravity,” he sneered. “It is high time for the people of the middle and back countries to take themselves out of leading the of Philadelphia, Bucks, and part of Chester, the they have made in not them to put a into the of an election some politicians took steps to for the next elections. many former Anti-Federalists to a of 1788. Federalist Thomas to in early that the next elections “will be in districts and in that I it that the of be without a In members of an emerging Republican had out a August had that “the people to with a high less than a total of the in and that in future the have but one On September 2, 1790, the state adopted its new Constitution, potentially leaving time to hold elections. the Assembly the next without an election law and the new House of did not the second congressional elections December of 1790, after most states had held their the legislature in a of westerners and former Anti-Federalists narrowly in a district bill in the Pennsylvania House by a vote of to The bill included a that districts to elect men who resided in other parts of the three Federalists sided with the and just two Republicans voted against its In addition to a the voting also showed a clear geographic with the representatives from the west the bill and from the east party lines interests often In the the bill passed nine to with all the from Federalists in the the elections were held in districts, party needed to hold a state nominating were in a with a few the a situation that led to declare that “in to the that and the congressional of 1791 was and This may be the just at the actual elections, but the over election laws are the elections are just as and as any of the second congressional elections were not as for the Federalists as had but the opposition did the eight Federalists Republicans and one or was of the Federalists victories came in the eastern part of the state. Despite Republicans a few eastern the only Republicans elected came from the western part of the state. Daniel Hiester in the of Berks, and of the second congressional election to a few the state was still with the eastern voting Federalist and western areas with former Anti-Federalists and emerging The also that opponents of the Federalists had to organize. the first election, western leaders William Findley put more time and into the second congressional elections. Overall, the elections that most Pennsylvanians remained Federalists. Republicans had their strength in the west, but the populated eastern areas were still in the Federalist It would take more than a change in election law for the Republicans to a majority of the congressional the second congressional elections were held so only a time remained before the Pennsylvania legislature needed to draft an election law for the third congressional elections. But before they could they needed to out how many representatives Pennsylvania would be to Congress. The Constitution a census to help the of federal representatives the census the federal Congress much of the of the of representatives. The census that Pennsylvania had a population of it the second-largest state House and passed a bill on 1792, that would divide the total population of the country by and the representatives based on their population, with one representative for every people. This would have into congressional seats for Pennsylvania. under the that this bill would the Pennsylvania legislature discussion of a new election On a Republican representative from County, made a to divide the state into districts. representative from the west and all but one Republican voted in but it was not Republicans and supporters of the district method had seats in the Pennsylvania House and was by two votes. The state to be toward at-large elections became even more on April a proposed federal of at-large elections upon this and forced a vote on the election law that, with the number of representatives still at-large elections were the only The vote on the bill providing for an at-large election in the Pennsylvania House was to In the Republicans and made a to pass a law district elections. But the of Republican from the district resulted in an that was by the of Philadelphia, who supported at-large elections meant that Republicans would have to increase their intrastate cooperation with the that eastern Federalists would select the majority of Republicans set out to build an at-large campaign William William Findley, and in with Philadelphia Republicans James and Alexander In addition to the of letters, western and eastern of the of the Franklin of the General and of the Republicans with of to their to the These communication networks proved in the process of party of the surrounding the election of from methods of nominating Most Federalists advocated a whose members were to as while the majority of Republicans, or favored out a to their supporters for for Federalists the method because it was more a select few with could to take time work and to Republicans, on the other hand, were an effort to create a The could people who would be from as the build communication networks that could be in future different means of candidates emerged following a strategy on which both parties that were the way to support in Philadelphia. The to that the people of Philadelphia were well of the of federal 1792, Republicans in the House to develop an election In the they made a appeal to artisans, and The was set for in order to their the time the more than two people had into the House it the largest public in Pennsylvania Thomas a Federalist and of the Pennsylvania was to the the The group agreed to a series of that established a to draft and a to of the sense of the people in different parts of the state, the to be nominated as of Congress.” Those to draft the included Republicans and and Federalists and one of the state's On August 3, of the were The goal was a of the whom of every and in every part of the state, to be This was a from weak effort in responded by their own the following The was to at a time Republicans claimed was to prevent and from In Republicans the city with and that on their supporters to leave work Republicans turned out that the Federalists were unable to votes to elect a As the more and more Republicans through the they would be a group of Federalists to the western part of the a few from the and to select Federalist as the Republicans quickly on and the Federalists. A nearly and in the the and were order was both parties withdrew from the A that was with of a more were clearly that Republicans were equipped to so Federalists simply that there would be a nominating in Lancaster on September nine of the state's twenty counties and the city of

The year 2024 was marked by an unprecedented confluence of elections around the world, with more than 50% of the world’s population called upon to vote on the future of their governments; perhaps most important of these was the presidential election in the United States in November 2024, which saw Donald Trump returned to the Presidency – an outcome whose immense consequences are already being felt strongly around the world, mere months into the new administration’s term. In particular, Trump’s victory and his immediate upending of the rule of law at home and world order abroad impacts directly on major subsequent elections elsewhere in the world, including in closely allied nations like Germany (whose federal election took place in February 2025) and Australia (where a federal election is scheduled for April or May 2025). The resurgence of Trumpism emboldened extreme right parties like Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which attracted over 20% of the popular vote in the 2025 election; and Trump’s threats of import tariffs and wavering support for international alliances are emerging as a key topic in the 2025 Australian election campaign. These developments are further exacerbated by substantial changes in online campaigning environments and strategies. Social media platform operators like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have closely aligned themselves with the Trump administration (or in Musk’s case, joined it outright), in part to seek protection against European Union and other regulations that require action against disinformation, abuse, and hate speech, and enforce transparency and researcher data access; they have dismantled their content moderation and fact-checking teams; and (in Musk’s case) are actively disseminating disinformation, hate speech, and extremist content. This has also opened the door for other political agitators and influence operators to push problematic materials, including conspiracy theories and AI-generated disinformation. Finally, the changing platform landscape – marked by the gradual decline of Facebook, a steady exodus from X under Musk’s leadership, the rapid rise of TikTok, and the emergence of federated Twitter alternatives like Mastodon and Bluesky – also necessitates substantial changes in electoral campaigning on the one hand, and in campaign research methods on the other. This panel brings together five papers from major research teams that trace these developments through the US, German, and Australian elections of 2024 and 2025. They provide new insights into the changing electoral campaigning environments of the present moment, and offer new approaches for how we can conduct such research under these changed circumstances. Paper 1 addresses the 2024 US presidential election, and explores in particular how the digital advertising funded by Elon Musk engaged in targeted disinformation of key voter groups. Scraping data from the Meta Ad Library and Google Ad Transparency Center, it documents substantial efforts to pollute the information environment with such content. Paper 2 shifts our attention to the 2025 German election. It explores the strategies of political campaigners for embracing TikTok, and especially the interlinkage between political talk show appearances and the talking points presented in campaign videos on TikTok – a platform which serves both to trial such talking points for use in talk shows, and to redistribute television clips of talk show appearances afterwards. Paper 3 continues our focus on the role of TikTok in the German election, but shifts the emphasis to the experience of ordinary users. Drawing on more than 300 data donations from German TikTok users, it examines their exposure to political content on the platform, explores the role of TikTok’s algorithms in pushing users towards specific videos, and investigates whether such algorithmic amplification is asymmetrical across parties. Paper 4 extends a long tradition of research into the use of social media in Australian elections. Traditionally, Twitter and Facebook served as key campaigning spaces, but this has diversified considerably now, and the paper therefore presents an ambitious cross-platform data gathering and analysis agenda for the 2025 election. It also employs the novel practice mapping technique to examine campaigning patterns in the election. Paper 5 concludes the panel. Building on concepts from semiotic theory, it combines topic modelling, named entity recognition, part-of-speech tagging, and dependency parsing methods to systematically identify the discursive and semionarrative structures of Facebook posts by and comments to the leading candidates in the 2022 and 2025 Australian elections, exploring differences between candidates and changes over time. In combination, then, these five papers examine election campaigning on social media across three major national elections, drawing on innovative conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches and applying them to a wide range of platforms and practices. They offer critical new insights into the state of social media campaigning, and important impulses for future research agendas in a rapidly changing world. Individual extended abstracts for these five papers are included in the PDF submission.

The Legality of Ranked-Choice Voting

“Bettering Our Circumstances”Settler Colonialism in Ohio During the 1780s Daniel R. Griesmer (bio) Through the Treaty of Paris after the conclusion of the American Revolution in 1783, Great Britain ceded vast tracts of land to the United States that extended from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. As a result of this munificence, the United States Confederation Congress, under the auspices of the Articles of Confederation, wanted to populate these regions, which included the Ohio Country, as quickly as possible with American settlers. Although the Confederation Congress worked diligently to open Ohio for legitimate settlement during the 1780s, the national government could neither control nor secure American expansion into the Ohio region during this decade. The Confederation Congress faced two daunting problems as it attempted to gain firm control of the Ohio territory in the years after the conclusion of the American Revolution. First, many of the Native groups living in Ohio were upset that the British relinquished lands they believed was rightfully theirs to inhabit. To make matters worse, the United States government insisted that since the Natives sided with the British during the American Revolution, they had been on the losing side of the war and now had no right to try and claim any of the lands ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Paris. Not surprisingly, the Indians believed that they had won the majority of the battles they engaged in with the American army. Because of this these groups did not see themselves as a defeated entity. Over the course of the next decade, the Americans “constructed a national mythology that simplified what had been a complex contest in Indian country, blamed Indians for the bloodletting, and [End Page 22] justified subsequent assaults in Indian lands and cultures.”1 To address this issue, the American government engaged in a series of treaties with the Indian nations in order to gain firm title to their lands in Ohio. However, most of these agreements were dictated to smaller bands of Indian nations that had no right to agree on any contract without the consent of the larger Indian confederacy. Because of the dubious nature of these settlements many of these Indian groups, including the Miami and Shawnee nations, reacted violently toward American settlers who attempted to invade their space. Second, Congress had very little control over the squatters, or illegal settlers, who came to Ohio during this decade before and after the negotiations of the treaties with the Indian nations in Ohio. These individuals were unwilling to give up their land claims to the federal government. Despite repeated attempts by the national military to remove these squatters, the trespassers remained in Ohio. Eventually, these squatters aligned with legitimate speculators from the Ohio Company of Associates to try and remove the Natives from Ohio. As the Indians counterattacked to protect their lands, the settlers and the investors from the Ohio Company pleaded with their federal government to protect them from repeated Indian attacks. Eventually, the new stronger federal government, under the leadership of President George Washington and Secretary of State Henry Knox, agreed to send federal troops to Ohio in order to engage the Natives in battle and remove them as a threat to American settlement in that region. Despite the fundamental problems faced by the United States government during the 1780s, the American greed for Native lands in Ohio after the conclusion of the American Revolution reflected settler colonialism, a term that refers to a history in which settlers drove Native inhabitants from the land to construct their own ethnic and religious communities. At the heart of settler colonialism is the ability for the colonizing power to gain vast tracts of land at the expense of the indigenous populations. In addition, racial hierarchy—the depiction of Native peoples as savage and inferior—inhered in settler colonialism. Settler societies include Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the United States, among others.2 In Australia, they believed in the idea of terra nullius, which means “land [End Page 23] belonging to no one.” As a result of this, the Natives living within their domains were British subjects rather than sovereign individuals, which meant that...

In what circumstances should there be a private right of action to sue for violations of federal election statutes. Lying at the intersection of federal courts and election law, this question has arisen in several recent cases, as private litigants have increasingly called upon federal courts to resolve election disputes. The question was before the U.S. Supreme Court in Brunner v. Ohio Republican Party (“Brunner”) which alleged that a state chief election official had failed to follow the requirements of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (“HAVA”) pertaining to statewide voter registration lists. In a one-paragraph, unanimous per curiam opinion, the Court held that a political party could not sue, reversing the lower courts’ conclusion that there was a private right of action. The brevity of the Brunner decision masks the significance and complexity of the larger question. To be sure, the issue in Brunner was a straightforward one under existing private-right-of-action doctrine, which requires an “unambiguously conferred” individual right. The problem is this doctrine fails to account for the vital role that federal courts play in overseeing elections in the United States, especially in pre-election litigation. The availability of a private right of action is especially critical in election cases – and the existing doctrine especially ill-fitting – for both conceptual and practical reasons. On a conceptual level, election cases typically involve non-individuated or collective interests. It follows that the Court’s insistence on an unambiguously conferred individual right makes little sense in election cases. Existing doctrine is also problematic from a practical perspective, given the absence of any institution besides the federal courts with the ability to ensure consistency in the interpretation of federal law. The ultimate consequence is to leave the interpretation of federal election law in the hands of state and local officials, except in those rare instances when the U.S. Attorney General decides to sue. This is particularly troubling given the partisan affiliation of most state and many local election officials, which creates an inherent conflict of interest and makes federal judicial oversight especially important. The Court’s stringent approach to private rights of action is therefore ill-suited to federal election law disputes, because they involve quintessentially public rights for which a federal judicial forum is essential. In Brunner, the Court failed to consider the distinctive character of election controverises. In fact, both the lower courts and the Supreme Court got it wrong in this case – even though they arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions. The lower courts incorrectly applied existing precedent, which foreclosed private enforcement of HAVA’s matching requirement. But the Supreme Court was also incorrect, in failing to reconsider this precedent to account for the especially important role the federal courts play in electoral disputes. Though faithfully applying existing doctrine, the Court missed an opportunity to correct – or at least limit – a line of precedent that has unfortunate consequences in the realm of election law. The Article concludes that, in the appropriate case, the Court should revisit Brunner and relax the standard for private enforcement of federal election statutes under Section 1983.

Identifying and Minimizing the Risk of Election Subversion and Stolen Elections in the Contemporary United States

The legal structure governing modern presidential and congressional elections in the United States was formed in the first decades of its political history. While the use of plurality rule or ‘winner-take-all’ elections in selecting presidential electors and single-member districts in House elections are now the universal norm, this was not the case during the first fifty years of US history. States varied widely in the mode of selecting both presidential electors and members of the House of Representatives. In this chapter, I examine the initial rules structuring federal elections, and the political reforms that led to the basic system that has governed federal elections since the 1840s. The story is one of diversity in electoral laws giving way to uniformity.

This chapter proceeds by first surveying learned opinion of the significance of 'things religious', for the founders and their generation. It turns to contemporary evidence showing the nature and depth of religious views at the time, paying detailed attention to such representative documents as the Continental and Confederation Congress' official proclamations, to the texts of the sermons preached by leading churchmen, and to some of the other pamphlet literature. The chapter suggests the appeal to the spiritual order of the Constitution's central structures of assuring liberty under law, thereby arguing that this is the ultimate theoretical grounding in American consciousness. It provides evidence for the fact that there was indeed a substantial spiritual dimension to the founding of the United States of America and to sketch the character of the debt of the Constitution and its order to that dimension. Keywords: American Republic; churchmen; Constitution; pamphlet literature; sermons

The independent state legislature theory provides that state legislatures are not constrained by their respective state constitutions in exercising the authority that the U.S. Constitution delegates to states over federal elections. In its most extreme form, the doctrine permits state legislatures, in overseeing the mechanics of federal elections, to disregard state court interpretations of state constitutions. Scholars have offered a number of criticisms of this doctrine, noting that it runs counter to the Founding Generation’s concerns about the lawlessness of state legislatures; is contrary to historical practice at the Founding; and undermines the constitutional structure in which the more democratically accountable Congress, rather than the states, is vested with final say over federal elections.
 This Article contributes to this growing literature by pointing to the constraints, centered in the constitutional text and history, that limit the ability of legislatures to disregard their state constitutions. Specifically, the Electors Clause of Article II, Section 1 provides, “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . .” This text explicitly raises the question: Who is the “state” on behalf of which the legislature deploys power?
 Using this language as its jumping off point, this Article argues that the “state” referenced in Article II, Section 1 refers to its citizens, whose preferences are conveyed to the state legislature through the state’s electorate and in the state constitution. Within a decade of the Founding, the selection of officials by the state’s electorate became central to the theory of republicanism underlying the Guarantee Clause of Article IV, which predicated the legitimacy of government on majority support. By the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment, which changed the structure of presidential elections, political elites viewed republican government as requiring that state legislatures and, to a lesser extent, federal officials, be accountable to the people who elected them, accountability that prevented state legislatures from exercising their authority over federal elections in blatant disregard of the people’s wishes.
 The Article concludes that the independent state legislature theory, particularly in its strongest iteration, runs counter to the democratizing effect that the Twelfth Amendment was intended to have on presidential elections. The theory allows the state legislature to disregard the preferences of the people at a juncture in which they are exercising the oversight and accountability at the core of our system of republicanism: during the election of federal officials. Any version of the doctrine, if adopted, has to respect majoritarian preferences.

There is no capitalist conspiracy and the rich are not all‐powerful

Making the ‘Trump Emoluments Suits’ Into a 2018 Bi-Partisan Engine for Change: Using the Emoluments Suits to Examine Pritzker and Kerry As Well As Trump, and Stop the Emoluments Taint in All Parties

Postponing Federal Elections Due to Election Emergencies

There is an unresolved dispute lingering just beneath the surface of a host of laws regulating our elections: Does Congress have power under Articles I and II of the Constitution to legislate the nuts-and-bolts rules governing presidential elections? The issue exists because of a textual gap in congressional authority. Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to override a state’s choices about the “times, places, and manner” of congressional elections held in the state. Article II, Section 1 gives each state legislature the power to determine the “manner” in which its presidential electors are appointed but grants no additional authority to Congress or the states to regulate presidential elections themselves. Congress plainly has the power to regulate many aspects of these elections under the enforcement clauses of the Reconstruction Amendments. But what power, if any, does Congress have under the original Constitution to regulate those elections once a state legislature has opted to use popular elections to appoint the state’s presidential electors? The Supreme Court has upheld congressional authority to regulate presidential elections under the original Constitution in several contexts, but the issue has gained new salience in recent years because of a long running dispute in Arizona about whether the state can require voter registrants to present documentary proof of citizenship, contrary to federal law. This dispute has presented the current Court with an opportunity to reconsider those earlier opinions and reshuffle the division of power between states and Congress in this realm. This Essay approaches this issue through a new lens. It begins by exploring the conflict in Arizona that has brought the issue back to the Supreme Court. It then explains the background or “default” rules governing the distribution of power between Congress and the states, and why those rules are inapplicable in this context. It does so by examining both the 1787 Constitution’s division of power over federal elections and several judicial opinions discussing and applying the resulting constitutional provisions. It concludes by arguing that this history, as well as multiple precedents of the Supreme Court, affirm that Congress has ample authority to regulate presidential elections once a state has chosen that method of appointing its electors.

O F ALL POSSIBLE POLITICAL ACTIONS the voting decision has received the most attention from behavioral political scientists. Probably we have compiled and analyzed more data on candidate choice and turnout than on any other form of political behavior. Of course, this heavy emphasis comes as no surprise. The voting act is the fundamental political act in a democracy. It is the most widespread political act. Furthermore, on the surface, at least, the voting act would appear to be one of the simplest (and therefore, most understandable) political acts. A heavy scholarly focus on the voting act follows naturally from these considerations. While our data base expands, however, our theoretical superstructure remains far from finished. It is fair to say that political science has relied chiefly on models rooted in the sociological, and later the social-psychological tradition.' These models hold that