Section 3

Question 1

Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

Answer 1

a 2002 law to limit “soft money” donations to political parties.

Question 2

primary election

Answer 2

an election among members of the same political party, designed to narrow the field or identify the person who will ultimately be the party’s nominee for a particular office; also called “primaries”.

Question 3

general election

Answer 3

an election where candidates for elected office are formally chosen, or where the allocation of presidential electoral votes is decided.

Question 4

political action committees

Answer 4

groups organized to collect funds from donors and distribute them to political candidates.

Question 5

incumbent

Answer 5

a candidate for office who presently holds that office and is running for reelection.

Question 6

seat

Answer 6

the office for which a candidate is running.

Question 7

electoral votes

Answer 7

Electoral College votes which, according to the Constitution, are the votes that elect a president.

Question 8

caucus

Answer 8

a meeting of party members where delegates are selected to support a candidate for a party’s presidential nomination or other party issues are discussed; occurs at local, state, and national levels.

Question 9

electors

Answer 9

persons selected by each state to cast Electoral College votes.

Question 10

independent voters

Answer 10

voters who indicate no preference for one political party or another.

Question 11

swing states

Answer 11

states with a history of voting for both political parties in recent presidential elections, considered by both sides as an opportunity for persuading.

Question 12

state delegation

Answer 12

the group of individuals selected through the primary process that will represent the state at the national party convention.

Question 13

winner-take-all

Answer 13

a system of voting in which the candidate who wins a plurality of the popular vote is elected; in U.S. presidential campaigns, most states use this system, awarding all their Electoral College votes to the candidate who wins 50.01% or more of the popular vote.

Question 14

public funding

Answer 14

when candidates receive government funding to help finance their campaigns.

Question 15

congressional district

Answer 15

one of 435 legally established areas of a state represented by one member of the House of Representatives; each congressional district is approximately equal in population to all other congressional districts.

Question 16

brokered convention

Answer 16

national party convention where no candidate for the party’s presidential nomination enters with a majority of the convention’s delegates, resulting in negotiating by “power brokers” to agree on a nominee.

Question 17

district method

Answer 17

method of allocating the Electoral College votes of a state in a presidential election among candidates according to the popular vote in each congressional district; the district method is rare, with most states using the winner-takes-all method.

Question 18

faithless electors

Answer 18

name for electors who violate their pledge to vote for a particular presidential candidate by instead voting for someone else.

Question 19

safe state

Answer 19

a state with historically strong leanings toward a particular political party, requiring relatively little effort from that party to win campaigns; the opposite of a safe state is a “swing state”.

Question 20

interest groups

Answer 20

a public or private association of individuals or organizations that attempt to influence government decision-making and/or public policy.

Question 21

association

Answer 21

an interest group that includes many groups or institutions with similar interests.

Question 22

lobby

Answer 22

to try to influence a politician or public official.

Question 23

lobbyist

Answer 23

a representative of a particular interest or organization, usually paid, who attempts to influence legislators.

Question 24

particularized

Answer 24

benefits that are specific to an individual or group and from which others can be excluded.

Question 25

public interest groups

Answer 25

a group that pursues policies or collective goods that members feel are useful for most or all citizens.

Question 26

legislative liaison

Answer 26

an individual who represents a government institution to other governmental decision-makers.

Question 27

inside lobbying

Answer 27

attempting to directly influence governmental officials, such as legislators or their aides.

Question 28

outside lobbying

Answer 28

attempting to influence governmental officials such as legislators or their aides, indirectly by influencing public opinion,

Question 29

Buckley v. Valeo

Answer 29

a landmark court case that ruled that spending money in an election was essentially equivalent to free speech; the case also upheld hard-money donation limits to candidates.

Question 30

bundling

Answer 30

a fund-raising strategy in which individuals (“bundlers”) collect individual private campaign donations and submit them as a single contribution; the bundler, sometimes an interest group, achieves greater political influence in this way.

Question 31

super PAC

Answer 31

political action committee (PAC), created to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence an election, that becomes “super” when it relinquishes the right to coordinate its activities with its desired candidate.

Question 32

amicus briefs

Answer 32

legal written argument (that is, a “brief”) filed with a court by an individual or group who is not a party to a case but has an interest in the case’s outcome.

Question 33

Obergefell v. Hodges

Answer 33

a landmark 2015 Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage; this case had many amicus briefs filed in its support.

Question 34

cast their ballots

Answer 34

the act of voting.

Question 35

ballot

Answer 35

means “a vote” or a list of candidates running for office.

Question 36

registration

Answer 36

the process of demonstrating to state election officials that an individual meets the qualifications to participate in an election.

Question 37

polling place

Answer 37

a building where voting takes place; this is usually a building that has another function, such as a school.

Question 38

literacy tests

Answer 38

a detailed exam on reading ability and civic knowledge, historically used to prevent Black people in the South from voting; during the 1960s, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and several Supreme Court decisions put an end to this practice.

Question 39

disenfranchise

Answer 39

being denied the right to vote.

Question 40

poll taxes

Answer 40

historically in the United States, a fee was required to prevent Black people from voting; the 24th Amendment banned poll taxes.

Question 41

online voter registration

Answer 41

a voter registration process that can be completed online without a paper application or signature.

Question 42

Motor Voter Law

Answer 42

a 1993 law, officially named the National Voter Registration Act but commonly called the Motor Voter Act or Law, that allows voters to register when they sign up for a driver’s license or some other government services.

Question 43

voting-eligible population (VEP)

Answer 43

the percentage of citizens who, whether registered or not, are eligible to vote because they meet age and citizenship qualifications and are mentally competent and not imprisoned.

Question 44

compulsory voting laws

Answer 44

laws in some countries (not the United States) that require citizens to vote in elections.

Question 45

straight-ticket voting

Answer 45

an approach to voting where a voter selects all candidates on the ballot from a single party.

Question 46

ballot fatigue

Answer 46

the tendency of a voter to select a candidate in an important office and then stop voting before selecting candidates for lower offices.

Question 47

retrospective voting

Answer 47

a vote cast by a citizen based on events that have happened in the past.

Question 48

prospective voting

Answer 48

a vote cast by a citizen based on what a candidate is expected to do in the future.

Question 49

incumbency advantage

Answer 49

the tendency of voters to re-elect the candidate who is currently serving in a position or to select candidates who have previously served.