Runoff Elections Research Articles

Assessing the Legality of Runoff Elections under the Voting Rights Act

Assessing the Legality of Runoff Elections under the Voting Rights Act

Runoff Elections in Georgia

Runoff elections have received little scholarly attention. This paper begins to fill this void by exploring the accuracy of three popular myths concerning the impact of runoffs. The "leader loses" myth states that the primary leader usually loses the runoff. The "incumbent loses" myth warns that if an incumbent is forced into a runoff, the challenger will win the nomination. The "minority disadvantage" myth is a special case of the leader loses myth and claims that minorities who obtain primary pluralities lose runoffs. Data from 215 Georgia runoffs held between 1965 and 1982 are used to explore the myths. The myths bear little relationship to general patterns. While selected well-known cases conform to the myths, the myths are inaccurate more often than they are correct. The success of primary leaders in runoffs is related to the margin enjoyed by the leader in the primary and to conditions associated with incumbency.

Conditions influencing faculty voting in collective bargaining elections

This research examines the factors that influenced voting behavior in two faculty union defeats at New York University. Faculty members' and librarians' demographic and professional characteristics referred to in previous research on collective bargaining were not good predictors of how they voted in these elections. However, their satisfaction with conditions at NYU, especially satisfaction with participation in governance, was a strong predictor of how they voted. Furthermore, faculty characteristics were found to influence their satisfaction with conditions. This paper also discusses the importance of the swing votes cast in a run-off election by the members of a previously defeated third party and the influence on the election outcomes of an independent group of faculty members opposed to unionization.

Racial Voting in a Biracial City

In this analysis of three biracial 1982 New Orleans municipal run-off elections—mayor, civil sheriff, and district judge-we examine the relationship of race and class to political mobilization and vote choice, and racial bloc voting. We found the elections characterized by high voter turnout, low voter dropoff in subordinate elections, and bloc voting by both whites and blacks (but especially by blacks). Class was found relevant only in locating white support for black candidates. Furthermore, the data analyzed suggest the need to reexamine the impact of electoral institutions on electoral behavior.

Voting Cues in Nonpartisan Trial Court Elections: A Multivariate Assessment

Despite a number of valuable scholarly contributions made in recent years, we still lack a precise understanding of the determinants of voter choice in low salience nonpartisan judicial elections. Utilizing a multivariate technique that controls for the varying numbers of candidates frequently found in judicial elections, this analysis examines the contributions of incumbency, occupational ballot labels, campaign spending, newspaper and bar association endorsements, voter information pamphlets, and the ethnic and sexual voting cues provided by candidate surnames to the outcomes of the 123 contested primary and run-off elections held for California's major trial court from 1976 to 1980.The results suggest that the determinants of voter choice are quite different in the relatively well-publicized run-off elections than they are in the low visibility primary races. Additionally, judicial voters in the less populated California counties were found to rely upon different guides to voting than voters in California's metropolitan counties. The reasons for and implications of these differences are explored.

Runoff election required for ACS president-elect

Runoff election required for ACS president-elect

Approval voting, Condorcet's principle, and runoff elections

Approval voting allows each voter to vote for as many candidates as he wishes in an election but not cast more than one vote for each candidate of whom he approves. If there is a strict Condorcet candidate — a candidate who defeats all others in pairwise contests — approval voting is shown to be the only nonranked voting system that is always able to elect the strict Condorcet candidate when voters use sincere admissible strategies. Moreover, if a strict Condorcet candidate must be elected under ordinary plurality voting when voters use admissible strategies, then he must also be elected under approval voting when voters use admissible strategies, but the converse does not hold.

Effects of abstentions on voting procedures in three-candidate elections

This article deals with decision making in living systems at the levels of the organization, society, or supranational system. Abstention rates have a significant effect on the propensities of different voting procedures to elect the global Condorcet majority candidate in a three-candidate election when it exists. Hence any comparison of voting procedures that is concerned about the election of a global Condorcet candidate should reckon with abstention rates that may obtain for different procedures. Precise and approximate Condorcet propensities as functions of abstention rates are derived for the following voting rules for large electorates: Condorcet rules, including Black's rule; weighted scoring rules, including plurality and Borda rules; approval voting; and runoff elections in which a weighted scoring rule is used to eliminate one of the three candidates after the first ballot.

Approval Voting

Approval voting is a method of voting in which voters can vote for (“approve of”) as many candidates as they wish in an election. This article analyzes properties of this method and compares it with other single-ballot nonranked voting systems. Among the theorems proved is that approval voting is the most sincere and most strategyproof of all such voting systems; in addition, it is the only system that ensures the choice of a Condorcet majority candidate if the preferences of voters are dichotomous. Its probable empirical effects would be to (1) increase voter turnout, (2) increase the likelihood of a majority winner in plurality contests and thereby both obviate the need for runoff elections and reinforce the legitimacy of first-ballot outcomes, and (3) help centrist candidates, without at the same time denying voters the opportunity to express their support for more extremist candidates. The latter effect's institutional impact may be to weaken the two-party system yet preserve middle-of-the-road public policies of which most voters approve.

Persuasion, surveillance, and voting behavior

More than 4000 students received one of three letters urging them to vote in a campus primary election. Two letters suggesting that voting behavior would be monitored produced 37% turnout compared with 32% for a nonsurveillance letter and 26% for noletter controls. Differences among these three groups are significant at p < .01. The letters also increased turnout in a runoff election held one week after the primary; however there were no differences among the three letters. These results are discussed in terms of Thibaut and Kelley's three-step process for enforcing group norms.

Majorities and Pluralities in Elections

Most elections, public and private in the United States or abroad, provide that to be declared elected, a candidate must receive either more than half of the valid votes cast in the contest (majority) or more votes than any other candidate (plurality). If there are only two candidates, the two rules are the same, but if there are more than two, the rules differ. Under the majority rule, if no candidate receives a majority, a run-off election or some other procedure is required to choose between the two candidates who lead on the first ballot. Since elections are time consuming and popular elections especially are expensive, investigation and comparison of alternatives seems worthwhile. The author has made a modest investigation, both deductive and inductive, having in mind particularly the proposed amendment to the U. S. Constitution providing for the popular election of the President. The rule put forward here and even more the method of analysis are applicable to a broader set of circumstances, however. The proposed Constitutional Amendment in the form in which it passed the House of Representatives in 1970 is interesting because it is a hybrid between the majority and plurality rules. It provides for election by plurality provided that the leading candidate receives more than 40% of the total vote. If no candidate receives more than 40% of the vote, a run-off election is called for. This rule seems reasonable if the leader receives, say, 49% and the runner-up 41% with 10% going to other candidates. It seems less reasonable if the leader receives 41% and the runner-up 40% with 19% to other candidates. An alternative which appeals on grounds of reasonableness and yet is simple is-

Civil Rights Voting by Southern Congressmen

Previous articleNext article No AccessArticlesCivil Rights Voting by Southern CongressmenJoe R. FeaganJoe R. Feagan Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 34, Number 2May, 1972 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2129364 Views: 8Total views on this site Citations: 9Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1972 Southern Political Science AssociationPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jason Wei Jian Ng, Gary John Rangel, Santha Vaithilingam, Subramaniam S. Pillay The 2013 Malaysian Elections: Ethnic Politics or Urban Wave?, Journal of East Asian Studies 15, no.22 (May 2016): 167–198.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1598240800009334Daniel R. Green The Effects of Member Gender and Constituency Characteristics on Southern Congressional Voting Behavior, 1972-2000, Politics & Policy 31, no.11 (Mar 2003): 80–104.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2003.tb00888.x Richard Fleisher Explaining the Change in Roll-Call Voting Behavior of Southern Democrats, The Journal of Politics 55, no.22 (Oct 2015): 327–341.https://doi.org/10.2307/2132268Mary Alice Nye The U.S. Senate and Civil Rights Roll-Call Votes, Western Political Quarterly 44, no.44 (Sep 2016): 971–986.https://doi.org/10.1177/106591299104400410 Kenny J. Whitby , and Franklin D. Gilliam, Jr. A Longitudinal Analysis of Competing Explanations for the Transformation of Southern Congressional Politics, The Journal of Politics 53, no.22 (Oct 2015): 504–518.https://doi.org/10.2307/2131770 Charles S. Bullock, III , and A. Brock Smith Black Success in Local Runoff Elections, The Journal of Politics 52, no.44 (Oct 2015): 1205–1220.https://doi.org/10.2307/2131688 Mary Herring Legislative Responsiveness to Black Constituents in Three Deep South States, The Journal of Politics 52, no.33 (Oct 2015): 740–758.https://doi.org/10.2307/2131825Jeanne S. Hurlbert The Southern Region: A Test of the Hypothesis of Cultural Distinctiveness, The Sociological Quarterly 30, no.22 (Dec 2016): 245–266.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1989.tb01521.x Charles S. Bullock III Congressional Voting and the Mobilization of a Black Electorate in the South, The Journal of Politics 43, no.33 (Oct 2015): 662–682.https://doi.org/10.2307/2130631

Administrative Law. Appealability of National Labor Relations Board Directions of Election; Labor Law. Propriety of Run-off Elections to Determine Exclusive Bargaining Agent

Administrative Law. Appealability of National Labor Relations Board Directions of Election; Labor Law. Propriety of Run-off Elections to Determine Exclusive Bargaining Agent