POL_S 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Get Out The Vote, Contingency Plan, Party System
Document Summary
People use shortcuts to make decisions with limited information. One"s partisanship (the single best predictor of one"s vote) Candidate"s personal traits (gender, race, age, religious beliefs) Retail politics: targeting a small group with intense attention. The body that votes to select the american president and vice president based on popular vote in each state. Each state is allocated the same number of electors as house. In order to win the nomination, a candidate must receive at least 270 electoral votes. American territories have electoral votes but cannot vote in the general elections. Contingency plan (if no candidate gets 270 votes) The house of representatives votes on the top three candidates, one vote per state. The framers assumed this would occur often due to multiple political parties. Andrew jackson won both the majority of popular and the electoral vote but failed to received 270. It is consistent with the federal nature of the constitution.
