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Résumé La Californie est à l'avant-garde de changements démographiques susceptibles de s'étendre à d'autres régions de la nation. Le paysage politique et démographique a en effet radicalement changé au cours des dernières décennies, avec la croissance du nombre d'élus latinos et asiatiques et le déclin de la représentation politique des Noirs. Cependant, l'électorat à l'échelle de l'État qui s'exprime par la démocratie directe et élit les membres de l'exécutif ne reflète pas la diversité de population de la Californie. Dans ce contexte, le recensement et le redécoupage électoral à venir seront lourds de conséquences et engendreront de sérieuses rivalités de pouvoir.

This paper analyzes the "wedge issue" strategy from both a geopolitical and survey based perspective relying on the GIS mapping of the Statewide Database and a preelection survey that oversampled minorities in different types of neighborhood contexts. We find that although white voters overwhelmingly supported Prop 209, including independent and moderate Democrats, the issue failed to swing their vote from Clinton to Dole because it was less important than other more traditional Presidential issues such as the economy. Nonwhite and the loyal Republicans were more concerned about Prop 209 than others, but their Presidential votes were not in question.

The authors analyze the impact of computers on redistricting in the US. Historical review & comparative analysis of 1991 & 2001 state redistricting supports the argument that claims of the corrupting power of computers are somewhat overblown, & the technology may actually benefit the drawing of more competitive districts. A historical narrative of governmental computer finds a parallel in the advancement of computer aided redistricting with decreased technology costs, advances in GIS software, census data tabulation & the advent of the Voting Rights Act. Measurement of the effect of computing on congressional redistricting evaluates competitiveness & compactness. Analysis of the data indicates that computers allow for the complex geographies of districts, making slicing off small pockets of desirable communities more difficult, but redistricters conservatively avoid drawing competitive districts. The authors conclude that computers don't gerrymander, people do, & that it is the redistricters that make the final decisions. Tables, Figures. J. Harwell

The authors address the debate on redistricting through an interpretation of redistricting reform in the US since Baker v. Carr, to emphasize the interrelated changes among the legal, technological, & political factors involved. The authors argue that future reform will have to depend on state constitutional & statutory provisions or institutional arrangements to alter the reduction of competitive seats. The historical analysis reviews the changes from Baker v. Carr to the third wave of redistricting through a focus on state criteria & rising partisanship in the US. The decline in competitive districts since redistricting is discussed in terms of incumbent protecting gerrymandering, the shift of bipartisan plans from smaller to larger states, & limitations on competitiveness. The authors conclude that the noncompetitive districts are ill fitted for a rights framework, & will require institutional types of reform. Tables. J. Harwell

"The impact of policy changes on the local delivery of services has been overlooked in several decades of largely unsuccessful efforts to reform welfare. This article uses one case of state-level welfare reform in the early 1990s to examine the implementation of policy changes in local welfare offices. Direct observation of transactions between welfare workers and clients suggests that policy reforms were not fully implemented by street-level bureaucrats. The instrumental transactions that continued to dominate interactions with clients were consistent with processing claims and rationing scarce resources, but they were poorly aligned with new policies aimed at changing the services and message delivered to welfare clients. The failure to fully implement reforms on the frontlines has implications for the achievement of policy objectives and for equity in service provision. Implementation issues will have even greater urgency as welfare is devolved from federal to state governments." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

While there is a growing academic literature about mail‐in ballots, there has been no serious academic research to date on overseas voters, even though the counting of overseas military ballots figured into the 2000 presidential election controversy. The participation of nearly 4 million overseas voters, both civilian and military, is governed by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act. The authors examine the reported perceptions of military and nonmilitary voters covered by this legislation using two surveys funded by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, focusing on their perceptions of electronic means of transmitting voting materials. The authors find that civilian overseas citizens have a harder time registering and voting than military overseas citizens; that the key factor is the timely transmission of voting materials; and that, despite privacy concerns, electronic transmission of voting materials is viewed favorably.