Matching Items (20)
Description
The shift in the cultural makeup of the U.S. population has peaked general curiosity on how growing minorities are going to influence society in the future. The Latino community is perhaps the most prevailing among these groups; however, the voter turnout of this community had remained at constant rate for the previous elections. This research project examined to what extent Hispanic/Latino voter turnout and voting behavior in Arizona's Elections has been influenced by efforts of grassroots campaigns . The hypothesis is that if social campaigns are effective IN raising awareness and reaching out to the Latino community, then the voters will be more likely to cast their vote. Today, diversity is expected, and it is a given that all groups should be represented. However, despite the long way minority groups have come in U.S. politics, there is still a long road ahead to achieve the goal of having more minorities in positions of influence to impact policies and society as a whole.
ContributorsGutierrez, Mayra Alejandra (Author) / Espino, Rodolfo (Thesis director) / Woodall, Gina (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
In this work we analyze just what makes the topic of third party voting so intriguing to voters and why it is different than voting for one of the major parties in American politics. First, we will discuss briefly the history of politics in America and what makes it exciting. Next, we will outline some of the works by other political and economic professionals such as Hotelling, Lichtman and Rietz. Finally, using the framework described beforehand this paper will analyze the different stances that voters, candidates, and others involved in the political process of voting have regarding the topic of third party voting.
ContributorsMcElroy, Elizabeth (Co-author) / Beardsley, James (Co-author) / Foster, William (Thesis director) / Goegan, Brian (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Millennials turn out to vote at significantly lower rates than the rest of the population, sparking commentary on their apathy and lack of contributions to American society. This thesis attempts to paint an accurate description of why these trends have persisted in the past, and finds that there are many complex reasons that serve as explanations. Many of these reasons can be explained by an analysis of Millennials' characteristics and political attitudes, which research has found includes a prioritization of achievement and Independent political ideologies. Additionally, by differentiating between civic engagement and political engagement, data and research find that Millennials choose forms of civic participation over political participation as an active choice and alternative avenue for electoral participation. Ultimately, Millennials are disillusioned with the politically polarized landscape and are unable to navigate the saturated information environment to make confident voting decisions. The rest of the thesis explores organizations, campaigns, and potential reforms that attempt to turn out Millennials. A thorough evaluation of campaigns' and nonpartisan organizations' efforts reveal the best practices for reaching Millennials, which include prioritizing substantive policy discussions, implementing grassroots and bottom-up organizational strategies, and avoiding flashiness and pandering. Another clear area for potential reform is civic education, which is currently not prioritized in the public education system. Some education reforms that would be particularly effective at reversing these negative trends include allowing for political debate within the classroom, teaching civics through more vibrant and hands-on curriculum and directly highlighting and perpetuating the importance of voting in the classroom. This thesis evaluates these and many other potential policy reforms that will encourage Millennials' political engagement as they further enter into adulthood.
ContributorsBockrath, Stephanie Michelle (Author) / Gruber, Diane (Thesis director) / Kirkpatrick, Jennet (Committee member) / School of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Very little of modern America resembles the country that existed during the time of the Nation's founding. The country has technologically, socially, and economically advanced to the point of likely being unrecognizable to our Founding Fathers. However the American Voting system is strikingly similar to the system established over two centuries prior. The current system of First-Past-The-Post voting has numerous structural biases and inadequacies that contribute to the current level of American dissatisfaction. The system discourages compromise, prevents the formation of third parties, is vulnerable to manipulated, and contributes to the toxic American political environment. Adopting a replacement for the outdated First-Past-The-Post system would provide significant advantages to the current United States political system. In this paper both Alternative Voting and Proportional Representation systems will be evaluated as viable replacements for the current system. The ongoing nature of the American political experiment contributes to the obstacles of objective political science conclusions. In order to evaluate the current and possible replacement systems, a logical base is required. Information Measurement Theory utilizes dominant information to aid in the decision making process. Developed by Dean Kashiwagi to improve efficiency across multiple fields, this logical system simplifies complex issues down to their most basic elements. Information Measurement Theory will be used to determine: 1. Which voting system offers the clearest communication between the government and the governed 2. Which voting system best discourages strategic voting 3. Which system best promotes long term democratic stability Determining the voting system that best satisfies these three criteria will provide the American Electorate with an electoral reform goal and the means of improving the American political climate.
ContributorsBurke, Andrew Sutherland (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis director) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
This project involves developing a cybersecure Internet voting framework that can be used to allow active duty military personnel to vote during a general election. This framework was developed with security at the forefront in an attempt to solve the most common issues that Internet voting solutions face. During the course of this project the registration phase of the framework was addressed and a solution was developed. The Distributed Internet Voting with Authentication system (DIVA) is designed to use a web based application to collect data from a registering user and store it in a secure database. This data is then written onto to JavaCard for later use in authentication. This system allows for a user to become registered in the DIVA database for Internet voting.
ContributorsGatto, Brandon Michael (Author) / Helm, Jim (Thesis director) / Sookhak, Mehdi (Committee member) / Information Technology (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In this paper, I defend the Electoral College system used to elect the President of the United States against criticisms that the system should be more democratic. I first take a look at federal republican theory and the contemporary issues which influenced and persuaded the Founding Fathers to adopt this theory \u2014 not only as the foundation of the presidential election system, but also as the foundation of the United States Constitution. I describe that the purpose of federal republicanism is to ensure that power is distributed such that no group of people is too powerful to oppress others. I then provide a basic description of the Electoral College and demonstrate how the system is not purely democratic. From here, I defend the Electoral College's partially undemocratic nature on the grounds that state representation is a fundamental part of federal republicanism. I subsequently address four issues alleged by critics concerning the Electoral College: discouraged voter participation, unrepresented state minorities, the creation of battleground states and safe states, and the entrenchment of the two-party system. With respect to discouraged voter participation, I argue that the issue is not unique to the Electoral College system. With respect to unrepresented state minorities, I argue that if states distribute College electors proportionally to give state minorities representation, it would strengthen national interests at the expense of state interests and hurt the federal system of government. With respect to battleground states and safe states, I argue that they do not cause presidential candidates to ignore voters any more than under a national popular vote system. And, with respect to the two- party system, I argue that it does little harm to representation because the Democratic and Republican parties are internally diverse. Finally, I use federal republican theory to challenge the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) \u2014 a purely democratic solution to reform the Electoral College without Constitutional amendment \u2014 on the grounds that it would throw away state representation, eliminate the federal aspect of the election system, and face legal controversy.
ContributorsLachance, Yann (Author) / Simhony, Avital (Thesis director) / Herrera, Richard (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Elections in the United States are highly decentralized with vast powers given to the states to control laws surrounding voter registration, primary procedures, and polling places even in elections of federal officials. There are many individual factors that predict a person's likelihood of voting including race, education, and age. Historically disenfranchised groups are still disproportionately affected by restrictive voter registration and ID laws which can suppress their turnout. Less understood is how election-day polling place accessibility affects turnout. Absentee and early voting increase accessibility for all voters, but 47 states still rely on election-day polling places. I study how the geographic allocation of polling places and the number of voters assigned to each (polling place load) in Maricopa County, Arizona has affected turnout in primary and general elections between 2006 and 2016 while controlling for the demographics of voting precincts. This represents a significant data problem; voting precincts changed three times during the time studied and polling places themselves can change every election. To aid in analysis, I created a visualization that allows for the exploration of polling place load, precinct demographics, and polling place accessibility metrics in a map view of the county. I find through a spatial regression model that increasing the load on a polling place can decrease the election-day turnout and prohibitively large distances to the polling place have a similar effect. The effect is more pronounced during general elections and is present at varying levels during each of the 12 elections studied. Finally, I discuss how early voting options appear to have little positive effect on overall turnout and may in fact decrease it.
ContributorsHansen, Brett Joseph (Author) / Maciejewski, Ross (Thesis director) / Grubesic, Anthony (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
Borda's social choice method and Condorcet's social choice method are shown to satisfy different monotonicities and it is shown that it is impossible for any social choice method to satisfy them both. Results of a Monte Carlo simulation are presented which estimate the probability of each of the following social choice methods being manipulable: plurality (first past the post), Borda count, instant runoff, Kemeny-Young, Schulze, and majority Borda. The Kemeny-Young and Schulze methods exhibit the strongest resistance to random manipulability. Two variations of the majority judgment method, with different tie-breaking rules, are compared for continuity. A new variation is proposed which minimizes discontinuity. A framework for social choice methods based on grades is presented. It is based on the Balinski-Laraki framework, but doesn't require aggregation functions to be strictly monotone. By relaxing this restriction, strategy-proof aggregation functions can better handle a polarized electorate, can give a societal grade closer to the input grades, and can partially avoid certain voting paradoxes. A new cardinal voting method, called the linear median is presented, and is shown to have several very valuable properties. Range voting, the majority judgment, and the linear median are also simulated to compare their manipulability against that of the ordinal methods.
ContributorsJennings, Andrew (Author) / Hurlbert, Glenn (Thesis advisor) / Barcelo, Helene (Thesis advisor) / Balinski, Michel (Committee member) / Laraki, Rida (Committee member) / Jones, Don (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
Young voters are the future of the country, yet are disengaged and disinterested in politics, leading to low turnout rates. This paper focuses on the Millennial generation, which consists of adults ages 18 to 33, and at times, narrowly focuses on the subset of college students. Since individuals should learn about the presidential candidates and the election before casting a vote, I analyze the similarities and differences between receiving election content through television news, a traditional source, compared to social media. Next, I examine the importance of political expression and political discussion, along with how millennials engaging in such activity on social media allows for a deeper level of engagement in elections than what was possible before the birth of social media. Thus, as opposed to focusing on the reasons milllennials shy away from politics, the purpose of the first three chapters is to highlight the potential benefits for using social media during presidential elections. Lastly, I analyze millennials' voting behaviors, particularly the generation's preference for liberal social values. Since we are currently in the 2016 U.S. presidential election season, the purpose of this chapter is to highlight current research regarding millennials' voting patterns, which should then be compared to the future 2016 general election studies. By analyzing consistent and divergent trends, researchers can further add to the discussion of millennials' political behavior. Although I dedicate a brief part to the 2016 presidential election in Chapters 2 through 4 to discuss how trends are similar or different from current research, the overall purpose of this paper is to inform readers about how millennials learn, engage, and participate in presidential elections.
ContributorsLarson, Dakota Alexis Ok-Ran (Author) / Ackroyd, William (Thesis director) / Cisler, Sherry (Committee member) / Department of Management (Contributor) / School of Social and Behavioral Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
There has been a low rate of voter turnout in the U.S. in recent years, especially among young voters. In an effort to determine how to best encourage Americans to vote, emotional appeals and message frames were examined. The objective of this 2x2 study was to determine if positive or negative emotional appeals were more effective in changing voting behavior and if positively framed or negatively framed messages were more effective in changing voting behavior. An experiment was conducted via the Robert B. Cialdini Behavioral Research Lab at ASU, and each participant was shown a piece of voting communication that presented an emotional appeal and a message frame. It was found that, although the positive emotional appeals were not more effective than the negative emotional appeals in changing voting behavior, the positively framed messages were more effective than the negatively framed messages in changing voting behavior.
ContributorsSweeney, Erin Patrice (Author) / Eaton, Kate (Thesis director) / Brian, Jennifer (Committee member) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05