Voting & Election Vocabulary!

Public Opinion What the public thinks of an issue or set of issues at a certain time

Public Opinion Polls Interviews or surveys with samples that are used to estimate the entire U.S. Gallup Telephone Interviews Internet Exit

Factors Gender – Females are typically more liberal on social issues Race/Ethnicity – Black and Hispanic voters are more likely than white voters to support regulation protecting the environment Age – Younger-more liberal Religion – Roles of women – Abortion – Church and State Separation

MASS MEDIA

TV talk shows Talk radio Online magazines Blogs Newspaper Cable news Internet Social Media Teenagers consume almost 11 hours of media content each day

“What the Public Knows” Less Knowledgeable Cable News – MSNBC – Fox News More Knowledgeable National Public Radio Sunday morning talk shows The Daily Show The Colbert Report

Public Policy An intentional course of action or inaction followed by government in dealing with some problem or matter of concern

Interest Group Collection of people or organizations that tries to influence public policy Have certain goals, or topics that they focus on

Interests Groups? Votesmart.org/interest-groups

Think Tank Institutional collection of policy- oriented researchers and academics who are sources of policy ideas

ELECTIONS

Primary Elections-within a political party General Election-between political parties Initiative-citizens propose legislation Referendum-state legislative propose legislation Recall-de-election, vote people out of office

Caucus A meeting of the members of a legislative body who are members of a particular political party to select candidates