This paper puts forth an argument for a new form of political survey that is aimed towards those who have the ability to vote, but choose not to. First, I will explain the importance of voting. Second, I will outline the structure of the survey. Third, I will explain how current surveys are inadequate. I will go into detail on the methods by which people make the decision whether or not to vote, and will discuss some issues of pragmatism that will need to be answered for this survey to find success.

This paper analyzes how varying redistricting types—state legislature, advisory commissions, political appointee commissions, and independent commissions—correlate with margins of victory. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project’s statistical tests are used to classify state legislatures that have allegedly conducted partisan gerrymandering, and this study performs a pre-test post-test analysis via graphical and tabular interpretation of election data available from CQ Press’ Voting and Elections Collection. The use of GIS technology in the 2000’s combined with research to “sometimes pack but never crack” in the 2010’s and predictable voting behavior from party polarization has accelerated gerrymandering to unprecedented heights. Partisan redistricting results in landslide victories and less districts won overall for the opposing party.
Solutions to resolve gerrymandering are outlined, such as by voters lobbying state legislatures or issuing ballot initiatives, for the Supreme Court to establish gerrymandering criteria based upon statistical tests, or from changing House elections themselves, such as moving from a winner take all system to a proportional system, or having boundaries based on municipal and county boundaries as opposed to the one person one vote requirement. Independent commissions demonstrate promise in preventing gerrymandering as shown in Arizona, however a longer-term study in the future is necessary to validate its effectiveness on increasing the competitiveness of elections. Arizona has reduced margins of victories after switching redistricting authorities, however alternate “third-party” redistricting authorities—political appointee commissions and advisory commissions, are not very different than state legislatures due to political connections with these redistricting types. The purpose of this study is to examine an aspect of gerrymandering that is simple for voters to understand and decide for themselves which redistricting type is best for their state.

In 1985 Schotland made the observation that judicial campaigns were becoming “nosier, nastier, and costlier.” Because judicial campaigns are one of very few occasions in which individuals receive information about the bench (Schaffner and Diascro 2007), there is a possibility that such negativity in judicial elections could harm individual perceptions of the legitimacy of state supreme courts (Gibson 2008). This dissertation seeks to uncover the amount of negativity present in judicial campaigns, and to understand the effects of such negativity on perceptions of state courts’ specific and diffuse legitimacy.

To accomplish this goal I first conduct a content analysis of all televised judicial advertisements aired from 2005-2016. While other scholars have examined the use of attack advertisements in judicial elections (Hall 2014), my study is the first to consider ads airing before and after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that removed spending limits for political groups. I find that neither the use of attack nor contrast advertisements appears to be increasing, though the sponsors of such ads have changed such that candidates and political parties air far fewer negative advertisements, but political groups air more negative ads than they did before Citizens United.

I then conduct a unique experiment to examine the effects of negativity on perceptions of specific and diffuse legitimacy. Unlike previous studies, I include a treatment group for contrast advertisements, which are advertisements containing elements of negativity about a target, as well as positive information about the target’s opponent. I find that, perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy are only moderately influenced by exposure to negative ads. I do however find that contrast advertisements appear to depress perceptions of the court’s diffuse legitimacy by a significant amount for individuals with high knowledge of the courts.

This study involves determining if different political symbols associated with ideological labels vary between the old and new terms. Specifically, the terms conservatism, liberalism, moderate, progressivism, and populism were used, where the first two are the old terms and the last two are the new terms. A survey was given to a representative sample of the United States, provided by SurveyMonkey, consisting of 205 respondents. Questions regarding favoritism/support for groups and political issues were asked to determine a trend of what each political ideology favors. Voting behavior was also evaluated to identify if there was a connection between self-identification of a political ideology or party and the frequency/type of elections that the individuals voted in. The hypothesis was that by adding progressivism to the liberalism category, the percentage of people who identify as these groups would be roughly equal to the percentage of people who identify as conservative, since the percentage of people who identify as conservative has been much greater than those who identify as liberal. The consensus was that the percentage of people who identified as liberal and progressive was greater than the percentage of those who identified as conservative. For example, the percentage of people who identified as conservative, moderate, liberal, and progressive was 25.9%, 31.7%, 27.3%, and 14.6%, respectively. Ultimately, after evaluating issue and symbolic preferences, progressivism is not just a term used in place of liberalism, but instead a whole new ideology that is different from other popular political ideologies. Considering voting behavior, there is no conclusive evidence that says that people who identify with one ideology vote more frequently or in a different election than people who identify with other ideologies.

This thesis examines how the wording of proposed government policies can affect the level of public support that a given policy generates. By surveying 158 Phoenix residents, I tested the differing degrees of support that voters would have for a proposed city ordinance, which would stop Homeowners' Associations from restricting the use of native desert plants in residential landscaping. The ordinance was framed in the survey as a self-governance issue or a water conservation issue. I found that the message frames had little effect on the overall level of support for the ordinance, since most residents had moderate support for the policy. However, participants who were either residents of Homeowners' Associations that did not have native plant restrictions, or native residents of Arizona, demonstrated greater levels of support for the self-determination frame of the proposed ordinance. These findings have implications for policy makers who use targeted messages to establish pro-environmental policies at the local level.

Research on voter turnout has focused almost exclusively on the traditional, public elections at the local, state, and federal level. However, very little research has been done on voter turnout among college students for student government elections within universities. The purpose of this study is to evaluate voter turnout in undergraduate student governments as a function of social capital and information dissemination. Based on a survey of an organization at Arizona State University, there is no evidence a reminder of a civic obligation to vote increased a student's propensity to vote in a USG election or that social capital facilitates the treatment. Attitudes toward USGs and the internal nature of social capital relevant to the student body could explain the opposite intended effect.

I examine how gender stereotypes influence the campaign advertisements utilized by candidates for state supreme court and how these gender stereotypes influence how voters react to these advertisements. Gender stereotypes have been found to have a profound impact in races for other offices (e.g., legislative, executive), but there is a lack of research on the role of gender stereotypes in state court elections. In my present research, I first conduct a content analysis of state supreme court advertisements over the course of four election years, looking specifically at how the candidates describe themselves in their advertisements. Based on these findings, I create advertisement scripts where I vary the gender of the candidate and the type of message employed by the candidate in order to test how the gender of the candidate and the content of the messages influences voter impressions of judicial candidates. In a second experiment, I create video advertisements based on these scripts and test how the video advertisements, as well as the candidate’s gender, affect impressions of these candidates. My analyses indicate that not only gender stereotypes play a role in the way judicial candidates create their advertisements, but they also impact the way voters form opinions about candidates running in judicial races.

Do fact-checks influence individuals' attitudes and evaluations of political candidates and campaign messages? This dissertation examines the influence of fact-checks on citizens' evaluations of political candidates. Using an original content analysis, I determine who conducts fact-checks of candidates for political office, who is being fact-checked, and how fact-checkers rate political candidates' level of truthfulness. Additionally, I employ three experiments to evaluate the impact of fact-checks source and message cues on voters' evaluations of candidates for political office.