Party Ballots, Reform, and the Transformation of America's Electoral System

Erik J. Engstrom · Samuel Kernell

oct 2014 · Cambridge University Press

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This book explores the fascinating and puzzling world of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American elections. It examines the strategic behavior of nineteenth-century party politicians and shows how their search for electoral victory led them to invent a number of remarkable campaign practices. Why were parties dedicated to massive voter mobilization? Why did presidential nominees wage front-porch campaigns? Why did officeholders across the country tie their electoral fortunes to the popularity of presidential candidates at the top of the ticket? Erik J. Engstrom and Samuel Kernell demonstrate that the defining features of nineteenth-century electoral politics were the product of institutions in the states that prescribed how votes were cast and how those votes were converted into political offices. Relying on a century's worth of original data, this book uncovers the forces propelling the nineteenth-century electoral system, its transformation at the end of the nineteenth century, and the implications of that transformation for modern American politics.

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Erik J. Engstrom is a professor of political science at the University of California, Davis. He previously taught at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego, in 2003. Engstrom is the author of Partisan Gerrymandering and the Construction of American Democracy. His research articles have appeared in numerous journals, including the American Political Science Review and the American Journal of Political Science.

Samuel Kernell is a distinguished professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego. He has also taught at the University of Mississippi and the University of Minnesota and has served as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kernell received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He has written numerous articles and books, including Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections, 2nd edition (1983, with Gary C. Jacobson), James Madison: The Theory and Practice of Republican Governance (2005), Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership, 4th edition (2006), and The Logic of American Politics, 6th edition (2014, with Gary C. Jacobson, Thad Kousser, and Lynn Vavreck).