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While testing an affective measure of party identification Burden and Klofstad (2005) found that using the phrase, "feel that you are," in place of, "think of yourself as," significantly shifted PID in a Republican direction. I adopt the theoretical framework of Affective Intelligence (Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000) to specify how the timing of their question-wording experiment may have influenced the results. I suggest that the outcome was a function of (a) anxiety present during the survey, which ran just after 9/11 of 2001, coupled with (b) a political environment that favored Republicans. In a 2005 survey I replicate the experiment and collect new measures with which to test expectations. I find no significant shift in PID, and provisional support for the Affective Intelligence explanation. The results validate Burden and Klofstad's measure, qualify their findings, and test the application of the theory of Affective Intelligence to party dispositions. Alternative explanations and directions for further research are discussed.Party identification lies at the center of the study of political attitudes and behavior. Over the past half century the concept first developed in the American Voter (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960) has been revisited and revised, but it remains a key element to understanding individuals' political tendencies. One aspect of party identification (PID) that has drawn much deserved attention is its stability. Although opinions vary on how and when it moves (Fiorina,

We examine the first 3 years of San Francisco's instant-runoff voting (IRV) elections to determine whether some voters adapt more easily than others to the more complex ballot and decision task. We draw on studies of uncounted votes to develop hypotheses about tendencies to undervote, overvote, and rank candidates in IRV elections. Individual ballot records and precinct-level census data are used to estimate the relative influences of demographic and election-specific factors. A natural experiment tests whether or not prior experience with IRV makes a difference. The change to IRV appears to have increased the rate of overvotes and decreased tendencies to undervote. Both behaviors are explained by demographics and aspects of the electoral environment. Meanwhile, tendencies to rank candidates were shaped less by demographics and more by contextual factors and prior exposure to IRV. The findings extend the literature on uncounted votes, inform issues of equality in elections, and provide practical insights on this type of electoral reform.