Suchergebnisse

The report of the Kennedy Commission on Registration and Voter Participation, the 1964 Current Population Survey of the Census Bureau, and other data indicate a number of facts about United States voter par ticipation. People tend to "overstate" their participation in elections. Men vote more than women, the middle-aged more than the young and the elderly, whites more than Negroes. The curve of voter turnout parallels those of education and income. Turnout is lower in the South than in other areas and also varies by urban, suburban, and rural areas. Turn out is generally greater in elections for higher government levels and greater in general than in primary elections. One group of nonvoters is deterred by such major legal-administra tive obstacles as citizenship, registration, and absentee voting requirements, racial and religious disabilities, and administra tive regulations for voting times and locations. A second group of nonvoters are those who meet legal-administrative requirements but exhibit "lack of involvement." Age, sex, and social-economic status affect lack of involvement. So do importance and closeness of elections and competitiveness of the political atmosphere. Total voter participation in elec tions is a dubious goal. Perhaps the goal should rather be to increase access to the polls by eliminating or altering legal and administrative barriers to voluntary voting.—Ed.

Recent efforts at estimating bias and responsiveness in electoral systems typically proceed by assigning observations to subsamples according to which party controlled the redistricting process. We show this traditional procedure to introduce selection bias into the resulting estimates of bias and responsiveness and present an alternative strategy for estimating these parameters. Using data from the state legislatures, and employing two different measures of partisan control of redistricting, we obtain results that modestly differ from those obtained with the traditional approach. Measures of control of redistricting utilizing information about the partisan intent of redistricting commissions and tribunals are exogenous to the seats-votes relationship.

The Nigerian 1983 elections were a disaster for democracy Wole Soyinka — Nigeria's leading playwright, novelist and poet, Professor of Literature at the University of Ife — wrote this 'interim statement' on the Nigerian 1983 elections when he passed through London in late August. The official FEDECO (Federal Election Commission) results for Ondo State have since been challenged by the judiciary and reversed. Those for Oyo State still stand, after a panel of judges dismissed an election petition by the defeated incumbent governor.

AbstractSince 1964, federal electoral boundary readjustments have been the responsibility of independent commissions—one for each province and one for the Northwest Territories. The three redistributions completed to date under the new arrangements suggest that the commissions have increasingly accepted a substantial measure of intraprovincial population equality as the standard by which to define electoral boundaries. At the same time Parliament, in its debates and amendments to theElectoral Boundaries Readjustment Act, has urged commissions to move in the opposite direction by creating more, rather than fewer, electoral districts of unequal populations. These contrary positions derive from different views of what counts in determining electoral boundaries—territory or population. Drawing on American experience sinceBakerv.Carr(1962), Canadian courts may eventually be called upon to resolve the issue.

Federal prohibitions of corporate and union con tributions have been motivated by two objectives: to reduce or eliminate domination of the electoral process by business and labor through their aggregated wealth; and to protect stock- holders and union members from having their organizations' funds used for political purposes of which they do not approve. Federal regulations have been largely ineffective in prevent ing corporate and union monies from reaching political candi dates and parties both legally and illegally. Recent develop ments, including passage of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 as amended in 1974, important decisions by the Supreme Court since 1972, and rulings by the Federal Elec tion Commission, have widened the area of legal campaign- related activities in which corporations and labor organizations can engage, particularly through political action committees. The liberalization of previous restrictions, together with more rigorous and effective electoral disclosure requirements, and widespread public suspicion concerning the political activities of "special interests" make it likely that business corporations and labor unions will be quite circumspect in their election involvements during 1976. However, several legal and polit ical issues which could affect corporate and union campaign activities in 1976 and beyond remain unresolved.