Chapter Four

The Politics of Elections and

Parties

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Voting

• Obstacles to Voting

• Democratization of the Ballot

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Electoral Politics

• Primaries

• Elections

• Administering Elections

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Figure 4.1: Sample Portion of Election Ballot for Harris County, Texas, 2002

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Party Structure

• Temporary Party Organization • Precinct Conventions • County and District Conventions • State Conventions • Texas’s Presidential Primary-Caucus

Convention

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Figure 4.2: Texas Political Party Organization

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Party Structure

• Selection of National Convention Delegates

• Permanent Party Organization

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Political Democracy

• Ideology

• An Overview of Texas Political History

• Electoral Trends

• Third Parties

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Table 4.1: Growth of Republican Party Officeholders

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Racial/Ethnic Politics

• Latinos

• African Americans

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Women in Politics

• Number of women elected to office in Texas is increasing

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Political Campaigns

• Conducting Campaigns in the Twenty-First Century

• Campaign Reform

• Campaign Finance

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Selected Reading

• “AWOL: The Texas Democrats Insist They’ve Still Got Some Fight Left in Them. So Why Are They Disserting the Battlefield?” by Evan Smith