Additional Votes Research Articles

Mobilization, Social Networks, and Turnout: Evidence from Japan

The strategic elites model of turnout argues that elites mobilize more when the probability of their effort deciding the electoral outcome is greater. Although the literature assumes that this probability depends solely on how close the election is, logically it depends jointly on how many votes are needed to affect the outcome (closeness)andon how many additional votes elite efforts are likely to garner (vote yield). Because the vote yield of mobilizational effort varies with the social capital of the district that elites face, the level of elite mobilizational effort (hence turnout) should dependinteractivelyon closeness and social capital. The authors test their predictions using datafromJapanese lower house elections for the years 1967–90. Japan is an interesting test case both because its (former) electoral system differs from that for which the model was first developed and because the literature clearly stresses the role of elite mobilization through social networks but does not examine the particular hypotheses advanced here.

Use of the World Wide Web in the 1996 US election

The role of the World Wide Web in the 1996 US election was analyzed from three perspectives: receiver, source, and effects. A test Web site was set up to provide political information, and the pattern of use indicates that users seemed more interested in seeking news than in deciding how to vote. An analysis of campaign characteristics and subsequent votes indicates that the higher the office being sought, the more likely a campaign is to have a supporting Web site, and that having a Web site was also associated, for one reason or another, with a statistically significant number of additional votes on the average.

Time-constrained scheduling during high-level synthesis of fault-secure VLSI digital signal processors

Advances in VLSI technology are making it feasible to pack millions of transistors on a single chip. A consequent increase in the number of on-chip faults as well as the growing importance of quality-metrics such as reliability and fault-tolerance are making on-chip fault-tolerance mandatory. On-chip realization of a computation is fault-secure if an observable error in the computation is detected. Components used in life-critical systems should be secured against all faults. While fault-security can be realized by duplicating the computation on disjoint hardware and voting on the result(s), such straightforward strategies entail appreciable hardware overhead. This paper presents computer-aided behavioral synthesis of fault-secure microarchitectures which require less than proportional increase in hardware. The strategy selects intermediate computations for additional voting. The resulting class of fault-secure microarchitectures supplants the enormous hardware requirements of naive fault-secure strategies with enhanced hardware utilization afforded by securing the intermediate computations. Experimental results show that fault-security can be implemented at a less than proportional increase in hardware overhead.

The dutchness of the Roosevelts

T of the most notable of American Presidents in the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, took intense pride in their Dutch ancestry. It was the first topic that Theodore Roosevelt wrote about in the opening pages of his Autobiography. Franklin sketched the family line in a paper he wrote as a student at Harvard University, and at the beginning of each of his unprecedented four terms as President took his oath of office on the old Dutch family Bible. Yet both Roosevelts were Dutch more in name and in tradition than in origins. Theodore, a fifth cousin of Franklin, was less than a quarter Dutch; Franklin had only a trifling percentage of Dutch ancestry. Both Roosevelts, despite their name, were predominantly English in origin. There were sound reasons, both political and social, for their pride in their Dutch name. Socially there was no more prestigious pedigree in New York than to be a member of one of the old Knickerbocker families, tracing descent from the founders of New Amsterdam. The Roosevelts enjoyed a secure position in New York society. The political worth of a Dutch name was rather less tangible but nevertheless seemed consequential to both the Roosevelts. It was well to give the impression that one was somehow not an unadulterated blue blood of English colonial aristocracy, but rather a product of the American melting pot. Both Roosevelts had a tendency to claim as varied an ancestry as possible depending upon the ethnic origins of the group whose votes they were soliciting at a given moment. Both were prone to some exaggeration. There were those who joked that TR would have alleged any ancestry that would pull him a few additional votes, and that through citing it he sought to identify himself with almost any ethnic group he addressed. He could express his pride over not only his Holland but also his French Huguenot and English

Reform of the Poor Law Electoral System, 1834-94

Undoubtedly, the most visible aspects of the anti-Poor Law movement were the attacks on the workhouse system and the centralized control (more apparent than real) of the Poor Law Commissioners. These were highly emotional issues capable of galvanizing thousands of men and women into dramatic and sometimes violent encounters with government, armed with righteous denunciations of the “Poor Man's Robbery Bill,” the “Bastilles,” and the “Three Bashaws of Somerset House.” But there was another facet to the opposition to the New Poor Law which has received scant attention from historians—the fight against the blatantly undemocratic electoral system created by the act. This article examines the nature of that system and the sporadic attempts to reform it during a sixty-year period, culminating in the radical reforms made by the Local Government Act of 1894.The constitution and electoral system of the Boards of Guardians were vital components of the New Poor Law, which ensured the dominance of many Poor Law Unions by landed magnates. The key provisions were plural votes for landowners and occupiers for elected guardians, and ex-officio membership of the boards for county magistrates. The landowner's franchise was taken directly from William Sturges-Bourne's Select Vestries Act of 1818, which conferred one vote for land of £50 annual value, and an additional vote for each £25 beyond this, to a maximum of six. A separate occupier franchise was in force until 1844. It gave one vote for land valued up to £200, two votes for land of £200 to £400, and three votes for land over £400, and was the result of a compromise.

Friendly Society Amalgamations

The Friendly Societies Act 1896 provides for two methods of combining the membership, the assets and the liabilities of separate registered friendly societies. Following the procedure of §70 (1) of the Act the societies may amalgamate as one society. For this, the written assent of five-sixths, in value, of the members of each society must be obtained; the value of the members is defined by giving one vote to every member, with an additional vote for each 5 years of membership up to 20 years.Alternatively, under §70 (2) of the Act, one society may transfer its assets, engagements and liabilities to another. If this procedure is followed, the written assent of five-sixths, in value, of the members of the society transferring its engagements is necessary, but the society receiving those engagements can do so on the resolution of the Managing Committee alone, provided that the Committee has the requisite powers under the rules of the society. For this reason, if one of the societies is large or if it is difficult to contact the members, a transfer of the engagements of the smaller society to the larger is more practicable than an amalgamation.

The West German Electoral Law of 1953

In the spring of 1953, with the approach of the regular parliamentary elections, the West German Bundestag began its deliberations on a new electoral law. The original law of 1949 had been enacted for the sole purpose of electing the first Parliament under the new Bonn Constitution. It was therefore necessary for the expiring Parliament to re-enact the old law, to modify it, or to supersede it with an entirely new system.It soon became apparent that there were wide differences of opinion among the various parties represented in the Bundestag. The Chancellor's party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), presented proposals to establish a single member district system, eliminating proportional representation. The Social Democrats (SPD) presented a draft which largely re-enacted the 1949 law. The official government proposal, which was something of a compromise, leaned very heavily in the direction of the so-called Mehrheitswahl but also had provisions permitting a combination of party lists and additional votes (Hilfsstimmen). It bore some similarity to the law which de Gasperi had pushed through the Italian Parliament shortly before this time, but without the same justification. The various proposals were discussed on first reading on March 5, 1953, and again on March 18. After the report by the Election Law Committee, amended proposals were again discussed on second and third reading on June 17 and 19 and passed on third reading June 25.

Multiple Representation in International Assemblies

When the representatives of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States met at Yalta in February, 1945, the Soviet delegation raised the question of giving separate representation in the Assembly of the United Nations to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The United States delegation agreed to support this claim at San Francisco, but reserved the right of the United States to put in a similar claim for three votes for itself and its possessions. The Soviet delegation raised no objection to the latter claim and the British delegation agreed to support both claims. No agreement was reached at the time with respect to the question of the participation of the two Soviet Republics at the San Francisco Conference itself. When the Yalta agreement was disclosed at the end of March objections were raised in different quarters against the principle of plural votes itself and very vehemently against the secrecy attached to the agreement. In order to pour some oil on the troubled waters the Government of the United States announced that the United States would not request for itself additional votes in the General Assembly. The United States delegation was directed, however, to cast the vote of the United States in favor of the admission of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian Republics and on April 27, 1945, the San Francisco Conference unanimously invited these Republics to become initial members of the United Nations. On April 30, 1945, it permitted them to take seats at the Conference immediately. The delegates of these republics at the Conference generally voted with the Soviet delegation but in a few instances their votes diverged. One might recall in that connection that while in the early days of the League of Nations the British Dominions followed quite closely the lead of the British delegation, twenty-five years later, at San Francisco, the British delegation found the Dominions sometimes among its most bitter opponents. It is quite possible that the position of the Soviet Republics might evolve along similar lines, though it might take some time.