Charts of voting and registration in states and counties. (more…)
Tag: Politics
Adult Literacy and Numeracy in Counties
Examining literacy and numeracy based on political preference. (more…)
Republicans Will Encourage Voting Before Election Day
This article, written by Walter Olson and published on Cato Institute, discusses a significant shift in the Republican Party’s stance on voting methods. Former President Donald Trump, who once criticized alternate voting methods as prone to fraud and urged Republicans to vote on Election Day, and the GOP are now encouraging the use of various balloting methods, including vote by mail, early in-person voting, and the use of drop boxes. This change is largely seen as positive, allowing campaigns to allocate resources more efficiently and appealing to a broader range of constituents. However, the article also raises concerns about the potential risks associated with third-party ballot collection, emphasizing the need to balance convenience in voting with maintaining the secrecy and security of ballots.
Olson, Walter. “Republicans Will Encourage Voting Before Election Day.” Cato Institute, 22 Sep. 2023, https://www.cato.org/blog/republicans-will-encourage-voting-election-day
Wichita ethics code to be considered
The Wichita city council will consider an ethics code that overlooks a simple and effective solution to a problem.
This week the Wichita City Council will consider the final version of a proposed ethics code. It does not cover campaign finance. It does cover gifts to council members, which has been an issue in the past.
Part of the problem with the proposal is the creation of a new board, the Ethics Advisory Board. Its members will be asked to judge things like whether a gift is “… intended or has the appearance or effect …” The board will be asked to judge intent. It will need to consider how things appear. This is all highly subjective.
A further problem is that the new code requires disclosure of gifts, but on an annual basis. This means that by the time the public becomes aware of activity, it is likely past the time when awareness has value. If information about gifts has value in helping people make informed voting decisions, we need to have timely disclosure. This is also a problem with the disclosure of campaign contributions in Kansas.
Rapid disclosure of gifts can help citizens judge the actions of elected officials. Disclosure should have these properties, and the propsed code has none:
- Disclose everything. This means everything, except gifts from family. If someone buys lunch or coffee for an official, it must be disclosed.
- Disclose rapidly. Something like filing a report each Monday covering activity during the previous week.
- Disclose online.
- Disclose effectively. This means information entered in a machine-readable format that can be downloaded in useful form.
Some of the points that have caused disagreement include the meaning of friends. If we want to restrict the involvement of friends, how do we define the term? This is a problem with the current ethics ordinance in Wichita. City attorneys have told us that with no definition of the term friend, the ordinance can’t be enforced. See In Wichita, a problem with government ethics, Wichita fails ethics test, Wichita City Council can’t judge airport contract.
Disclosing everything eliminates the issue of someone deciding the meaning of friend. Voters and others can make their own decisions. Elected officials’ opponents will help us learn this.
(An old saw: “Why bother researching your family? Just go into politics, and your opponents will do that for you.”)
Will disclosing all gifts rapidly be burdensome to officeholders and staff? Many employees file detailed expense reports so that they may be reimbursed. This is not a problem.
Disclosing effectively is necessary to make use of information filed on these gift reports. The minimum requirement is that the information in reports be downloaded in machine-readable formats. Currently, for campaign finance reports in Sedgwick County, including for Wichita city offices, reports are filed in a variety of formats. The information is difficult to use, even if optical character recognition can be applied successfully. Some reports are filed in handwriting, and others appear to be faxed to the election office in such low quality that I believe the candidates want to avoid effective use of the information.
Disclosing effectively means that analysis of the reports will be easier than it would be otherwise. Who will do this analysis? There are several sources, such as journalists and citizens such as myself. And, of course, candidates’ opponents.
The agenda report for this item is here, and the code itself is here. Here are a few excepts from the code:
“Avoid the appearance of improper influence and refrain from ever receiving, soliciting or accepting gifts, gratuities, hospitality, favors or anything of value for the official, or their family, valued over ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS ($150.00) from a specific donor over a one-year period ending on December 31, which is intended or has the appearance or effect of influencing the performance of the official duties of an official.”
“Further, a public official shall report any offer or presentation of a gift or gratuity valued at fifty dollars ($50.00) or more on a yearly basis.”
Visualization: Kansas 2020 presidential election
An interactive visualization of the 2020 general election for president in Kansas, at the precinct level.
Presidential approval
Explore and compare the approval ratings of presidents in this interactive visualization.
I’ve gathered presidential approval poll data and present it in an interactive visualization.
I present data in a table and a timeline. Then, I present several views based on the poll date as the number of days from the start of each presidential term.
To learn more about the data and access the interactive visualization, click here.
Example from the visualization. Click for larger. 
Partisan Conflict Index
Have you suspected that the country has become more partisan? An index supports that.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia produces a monthly index that measures one aspect of political partisanship. The authors explain:
The Partisan Conflict Index tracks the degree of political disagreement among U.S. politicians at the federal level by measuring the frequency of newspaper articles reporting disagreement in a given month. Higher index values indicate greater conflict among political parties, Congress, and the President.
The index is an outgrowth of recent Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia research that finds that the index tends to increase near elections and during debates over such contentious policies as the debt ceiling and health-care reform. Research suggests that increased partisan conflict increases uncertainty among firms and households. Such uncertainty has been shown to slow economic activity by delaying business investment and consumer spending.
The source of the data that comprises the index is “the frequency of newspaper articles that report lawmakers’ disagreement about policy,” according to a research paper by the author. (See Azzimonti, Marina (2014), “Partisan Conflict,” Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Working Paper 14-19.” Available at link below.)
Here is a graph of its index from its inception in 1981 to its most recent value in August 2020. As you can see, for nearly three decades the index hovered around or below the value of 100.
Then, in 2009, after the election of Barack Obama, the index started rising, indicating greater political disagreement. It meandered in an upward direction, reaching a local peak in October 2013 at the time of a 16-day federal government shutdown.
After that, the index returned to its previous range but rising sharply in November 2016, where there was a presidential election. It continued to rise, reaching its all-time high in March 2017, two months after Donald Trump took office.
From there, it mostly meandered downward, except for a peak in January 2019. The index reached its all-time lowest value in April 2020 as the nation grappled with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the nation was not at war (except for Afghanistan), the national mood was similar to wartime. As the author of the index has noted: “The lower-than-average values observed during wars suggest a ‘rally around the flag’ effect.”
In May and June, however, the index rose, perhaps as controversies surrounding the pandemic and the federal government’s response arose.
For more information on the index and to use an interactive version of the chart examples shown here, see Partisan Conflict Index.
Libertarian campaign visits Wichita
In Wichita Story, Tim O’Bryhim reports on the visit of the Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate to Wichita:
“It is another hot August day in Kansas; a good day to be inside. But a crowd gathers in the (sadly only proverbial) shadow of the Keeper of the Plains to welcome Spike Cohen, the vice-presidential candidate of the third largest political party in the United States of America. If elections were the Olympics, the Libertarian Party would proudly climb on the medals stand every four years with a bronze medal around its neck. But in American politics, third place is almost always a distant finish.”
Click on Libertarian VP Candidate Spike Cohen Rallies Wichita Supporters Amidst a Hostile Electoral System.
