Votomatic-style punch card voting systems produce higher rates of
residual voting than other technologies, but the effect of punch card
voting systems is not uniform. Minority voters are less likely to have
their votes properly recorded with punch card systems than are
nonminorities. This racial gap occurs, for the most part, because punch
card systems lead to higher rates of “undervoting” by
minorities. When election administrators switch to other systems, such
as optical scan systems, the racial gap is significantly reduced. Punch
card voting systems, then, constitute a disproportionate obstacle to
minority voting. This effectively gives less weight to votes cast by
minorities than to votes cast by nonminorities, and arguably violates
constitutional requirements for equal voting rights. The mechanism is
similar to the literacy tests that were abandoned after the 1970
amendments to the Voting Rights Act.The authors are grateful to UC Berkeley's Survey Research
Center for research support and are deeply indebted to Henry E. Brady. Our
thanks also to the anonymous reviewers and to the editorial staff at
Perspectives on Politics for their helpful suggestions and hard work
on our behalf.
The veto is one of the few formal powers accorded to the president of the United States, yet it plays a central role in many theories of the executive branch and in theories of congressional action as well. To be more precise, the threat of a future veto is generally held to be the important component. However, there have been few empirical or theoretical studies of veto threats. This article presents new systematic data on the veto "threats" of President Dwight Eisenhower. These data are analyzed to test novel theories regarding the relation of future veto threats to the outcomes of past veto threats. Specifically, this theory extends concepts of credibility of threat to include information that is specific to both the president in question and that president's then-current history of congressional interactions. Support is found for the theory that a president who "cries wolf" and fails to carry out threats will find Congress less responsive to future threats, unless and until the president's credibility is reestablished.If the decision is close, I want to veto.-Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1935 1 We hear the veto threats, but they just don't mean anything anymore. You can only take so many threats seriously before you just tune them out. -Anonymous Democratic congressional aide, 2002 (Curl 2002, A01) We'd like him [Bush] to veto something-anything-to show he's in charge. -Anonymous Republican congressional aide, 2002 (Curl 2002, A01)Veto threats are curious beasts. A successful veto threat is one that is never carried out. 2 This makes the study of threats difficult because the study of veto threats is the study of events that should never occur. Moreover, an unchallenged veto threat could also be an unobserved veto threat. Yet, the veto is at the heart of many formal theories of both the presidency and of inter-institutional relationships, and
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