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This paper takes a fresh look at the midterm loss in German elections & argues that government type is a crucial determinant of midterm loss. Using panel regressions on a newly compiled data set covering all state elections during the period 1949-2004, we find that systematic midterm losses occur only when both chambers of the federal legislature (Bundestag & Bundesrat) are controlled by one party or a party coalition. Prior research has failed to discover this important regularity. These findings lend strong support to electoral balancing models while calling into doubt more traditional explanations of midterm loss. Tables, Figures. Adapted from the source document.

ObjectiveThis article examines public opinion on the effectiveness and consequences of voter identification laws, focusing on the core issue in the Supreme Court's reasoning in the 2008 case that upheld an Indiana photo‐ID law, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board.MethodWe use a unique survey from New Mexico, where voter identification policies have recently undergone important changes. Questions in the survey examine whether voters think that ID laws protect against fraud and prevent legitimate participation, which point of view voters find more compelling, and whether attitudes toward voter identification are related to voter confidence.ResultsMost voters think that voter ID laws prevent fraud, but many voters think that ensuring access to the polls is more important than preventing fraud. Among other variables that explain differences among individuals, partisanship plays an important role.ConclusionThe framing of voter identification policies plays an important role in how such laws are interpreted by the public and Republicans are especially concerned about fraud in elections.

This work provides a general framework for analysis of issue voting across democratic polities. Unlike current frameworks of analysis for issue voting, I argue that voters are concerned not only with party positions, but also with policy outcomes. This simple principle carries implications for voter choice under various institutional environments. In consensual parliamentary systems, taking into consideration the bargaining built into policy formation process in the parliament, voters often endorse parties whose positions differ from their own views. In presidential elections, incorporating the compromise between the president & the legislature into their decision making, voters adjust their vote, balancing the two institutions against one another. Finally, in federal systems, voters engage in vertical balancing, utilizing state elections to balance the federal government. I illustrate the latter implication analyzing election returns from Germany between 1965 & 2002. Tables, Figures, References. [Copyright 2005 Elsevier Ltd.]

AbstractIn order to better understand the individual-level motives for ticket-splitting, Taiwan's Election and Democratization Study has since 2001 included a question aimed at measuring respondents' preferences for checks and balances. We argue that this set of questions, designed to measure a combination of Fiorina's policy-balancing hypothesis and Ladd's cognitive Madisonianism, is inconsistent with principles of survey methodology and thus produces data that are suboptimal. Following a method developed by Carsey and Layman, we propose an alternative concept, the policy-balancing index derived from the perceived ideological distance between respondent and political parties, which both avoids methodological violations and provides us with a more precise concept to work with. We test the index and find it to be a significant determinant of ticket-splitting behavior.

This article compares ticket-balancing processes in pure and mixed-member proportional systems, which differ with regard to the type of candidature-party list versus combination of single-member and party list. By comparing sub-national elections in Germany between 2000 and 2004, we analyse the impact of double-nominations on the share of safely listed women. Whereas a cross-sectional multiple OLS-regression analysis finds no direct effect except that women's share is dependent on candidate gender quotas and a minimum of two safe list places, there is clear evidence of an interactive relationship between quotas and nominations. Selectors strategically use candidate selection to fulfil gender quotas and frequently nominate female district candidates on safe list places. [Copyright 2008 Elsevier Ltd.]