Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T10:55:40.565Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Politics of Institutional Choice: Presidential Ballot Access for Third Parties in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Extract

During the nineteenth century, a presidential voter actually selected a party-prepared candidate list, casting it in full view of others. The ‘Australian’ ballot, adopted in nearly all states by 1900, took away party preparation of the ballot. State officials now prepared overall candidate lists from which the voter picked in secret. The introduction of the Australian ballot was heralded as a blow against political corruption and for ‘good government’. But practical questions arose. With the state itself responsible for the ballot, how should it decide which candidates to list? Some barriers to entry seemed necessary, otherwise the list would be unwieldy. Each of the states began to pass laws restricting ballot access, often aimed at third parties.

Type
Note
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Duverger, M., Political Parties (New York: Wiley, 1954).Google Scholar

2 Whittle, R., ‘John Anderson Still Trying to Dump His “Spoiler” Image’, Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, 27 09 1980, 2834.Google Scholar

3 For this, and other valuable background information drawn on here, see the excellent work by Rosenstone, S., Behr, R. and Lazarus, E., Third Parties in America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), chap. 3.Google Scholar

4 Our data on state ballot requirements are reported in the New York Times, ‘Perot's Progress’, 26 06 1992.Google Scholar

5 Downs, A., An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), pp. 111–12.Google Scholar

6 Bawn, K., ‘The Logic of Institutional Preferences: German Electoral Law as a Social Choice Outcome’, American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), 965–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Key, V. O. Jr, Southern Politics (New York: Vintage Books, 1949), p. 552.Google Scholar

8 Aldrich, J., ‘Rational Choice and Turnout,’ American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), pp. 246–78, p. 270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Downs, , An Economic Theory of Democracy, p. 102.Google Scholar

10 Downs, , An Economic Theory of Democracy, p. 122.Google Scholar

11 Jackman, R., ‘Rationality and Political Participation’, American Journal of Political Science, 37 (1993), 279–90, p. 279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Rusk, J., ‘The Effect of the Australian Ballot on Split Ticket Voting’, American Political Science Review, 64 (1970), 1220–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Lijphart, A., ‘The Political Consequences of Electoral Laws, 1945–85’, American Political Science Review, 84 (1990), 482–96, p. 488.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Rosenstone, , Behr, and Lazarus, , Third Parties in America; pp. 6375Google Scholar; and Lewis-Beck, M., ‘Agrarian Political Behavior in the United States’, American Journal of Political Science, 21 (1977) 543–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Campbell, A., Converse, P., Miller, W. and Stokes, D., The American Voter (New York: Wiley, 1960).Google Scholar

16 Elazar, D., American Federalism: A View from the States, 3rd edn (New York: Harper & Row, 1984).Google Scholar

17 Norman, J., ‘14 names on Iowa's ballot,’ Des Moines Register, 7 10 1992.Google Scholar

18 Our measure of gubernatorial power is taken from Beyle, T., ‘Governors’, in Gray, Virginia, Jacob, Herbert and Albritton, Robert B., eds, Politics in the American States, 5th edn (Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman, 1990).Google Scholar The lobby regulation measure is taken from Opheim, C., ‘Explaining the Differences in State Lobby Regulations’, Western Political Quarterly, 44 (1991), 405–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The voter registration closing date is taken from The Book of the States 1988–89 (Lexington, Ky: The Council of State Governments, 1988).Google Scholar The professionalization measure compares state legislatures to the US Congress and is taken from Squire, P., ‘Legislative Professionalization and Membership Diversity’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 17 (1992), 6979.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 The Sullivan Index is calculated using the proportions of foreign born, Catholics and Jews, education, housing and income levels, and occupation distribution in each state. We use the version of the measure updated using 1980 census data in Morgan, D. and Wilson, L., ‘Diversity in the American States: Updating the Sullivan Index’, Publius, 20 (1990), 7181.CrossRefGoogle Scholar State population demographics (population over 65 years of age, the number of farms) were taken from Statistical Abstract of the United States 1992.

20 The state conservatism measure is derived from extensive pooling of exit polls and is found in Erikson, R., Mclver, J. and Wright, G. Jr, ‘State Political Culture and Public Opinion’, American Political Science Review, 81 (1987), 797813.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The data for the third-party vote were collected from the America Votes series. We considered ‘the South’ to be the states of the Confederacy.

21 The party competition measure was taken from Stanley, H. and Niemi, R., Vital Statistics on American Politics, 3rd edn (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1992), p. 138.Google Scholar We used the traditional party organization measure developed in Mayhew, D., Placing Parties in American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 State populstion manages to account for less than half of the variance in signatures required (adjusted R 2 = 0.46). Further, when state population is added as a fourth independent variable in the Strategic Parties model (Table 1), the electoral vote coefficient is still highly significant (t = 3.611). Clearly, population by itself offers a poor explanation of requirements for access to the ballot.

23 New York Times, 17 12 1992, p. A13.Google Scholar

24 The last state was Arizona. See Hevesi, Dennis, ‘Perot drive files petitions for ballot in New York’, New York Times, 28 08 1992Google Scholar; Broder, David S. and Dionne, E. J. Jr, ‘Perot vows to pressure candidates on economy; Texan may re-enter race to get TV time’, Washington Post, 19 09 1992.Google Scholar