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Factors that prompted the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that resulted in the postponement of the 2003 CA gubernatorial recall election are considered. The origins of the American Civil Liberties Union's postponement lawsuit are reviewed, emphasizing the plaintiff's contention that pre-scored punch card ballots used in voting performed significantly worse than other ballot designs & that such inconsistency violated the 1973 Voting Rights Act. Analysis of data measuring the percentage of residual vote produced by CA voters in the 1996 & 2000 US presidential elections revealed the following: counties that used pre-scored punch cards in both elections produced the highest residual vote rates & counties that switched ballots between the elections realized drastically reduced residual vote rates. Since counties with high minority populations generally used the pre-scored punch card ballots, it is suggested that the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit was justified. In addition, the legal decisions affiliated with the aforementioned lawsuit & the question of judicial interference in general elections is addressed. The need to replace ineffective ballot designs with those that properly record the selections of all voters is articulated. 4 Figures. J. W. Parker

Introduces a symposium on the future direction of political science comprising articles by James Granato & Frank Scioli as well as Rogers Smith (both, 2004). Here, discussion opens with a consideration of the nature of science, taking biology as a model for social science. The two articles are seen to agree that biology is a useful template for political science. The methodological issues confronted in the two articles are examined in the context of what Granato & Scioli refer to as the need to address the empirical implications of theoretical models. It is seen that Granato & Scioli & Smith, despite their different starting points & divergent methods, are headed in the same direction; their papers are viewed as complementary, endorsing a scientific approach that calls for theory building & testing as well as multiple methods for political research, which can provide a better understanding of politics. 26 References. J. Zendejas

The 2000 US presidential election appears to have uncovered a resurgence in American populism that has been dormant since 1896. Further, an examination of elections since 1896 reveals that staunch Republicans & Democrats have shifted roles over the last century. This transformation is especially interesting in light of the obvious electoral coalitions that became apparent following the 2000 election -- coalitions that differ enormously in their policies regarding the economy & moral issues. These differences become especially apparent when the views of the average Democrat & the average Republican are compared with those of the average American. When these stratifications are considered, it is apparent that Bush's victory hinges on the thinking that his political views of the economy & morality are closer to those of the average American voter than were Al Gore's. The 2000 election will prove pivotal for the future of American politics. Because the election itself was so close, the parties retain only a tenuous hold on both the presidency & Congress. Civil rights, foreign policy, & economic issues -- along with presidential performance -- are likely to determine the future political power of each party. 2 Figures. K. A. Larsen

Two dynamic rational choice models of primaries are analyzed that demonstrate both reformers and their critics are right about primaries. Primaries can provide public instruction and a better informed electorate, and they can be poorly designed lotteries: A "recognition" and learning model describes how changing media coverage affects voters' knowledge about candidates and their subsequent voting behavior. A "strategic" voting model describes the dynamic implications of strategic voting and "horse-race" coverage by the media. We find that the recognition model has the normatively appealing dynamic of information leading to broadly self-interested outcomes while the strategy model has the unappealing behavior of a lottery the odds of which are fixed by the media's harsh judgments of who's winning and who's losing.In coming to these conclusions, this paper illustrates a number of methodological points such as the usefulness of macromodels based upon assumptions about individual behavior, the analysis of macromodels using methods from electrical engineering, the strengths and limitations of analytical results versus simulations for understanding dynamic models, and the use of "ideal type" recognition and strategic voting models to clarify the systemic consequences of individual risk aversion and strategic voting. More generally, the paper shows how models can be used as narratives or parables for organizing disparate observations, refining our intuitions, and directing our research efforts.

This article describes a computationally simple, statistically consistent, reasonably efficient, and statistically informative generalized least squares (GLS) estimator for a general class of nonlinear, multidimensional scaling (MDS) models including the "ideal-point" models of voters' and legislators' behavior proposed by Melvin Hinich, Keith Poole, and others. Unlike other methods, the method described in this article provides a statistical framework for testing a wide range of hypotheses about these models including their functional form, their dimensionality, and the values of specific parameters. The Hinich ideal-point model is estimated using this method. It fits the data remarkably well compared to a standard factor analysis model that does not provide a reasonable fit to the data. This has the substantive implication of suggesting that voters base their voting decisions upon ideal-point dimensions like liberalism-conservatism and not upon factor analysis dimensions like competence and leadership.