The potential impact of Amish voting on the 2024 presidential election, especially in Pennsylvania, attracted considerable media coverage and speculation on the possible role Amish voters might play in the election outcome. This research note reports on Amish voting in 2024 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, drawing on a larger, ongoing research project into Amish voting across time in various states and settlements. While both the Amish vote total and the Amish turnout rate in Lancaster County were lower than in 2020, the numbers add to a growing body of data by the authors and raise new questions. Here, we place the 2024 data in context, offer several hypotheses, and suggest possible implications.

Thirty years after the last APSA-sponsored recommendations on the structure of the undergraduate political science major, new efforts at curriculum reform are under way. As a prelude to how the profession might respond, this article examines how political science departments made undergraduate curriculum changes during the 2010s. Based on a survey of department chairs in 2019-2020 (prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.), one-half of political science programs changed major requirements in the previous five years and 70% made revisions during the decade. Most changes involved adding courses or tracks and modifying course sequences within the prevailing model of subfield distribution. Assuming departments are rational actors seeking to improve student learning and respond effectively to the educational marketplace, various explanations of curriculum change were tested. Structural variables (institutional type and departmental factors) had no significant effects. Nevertheless, the survey revealed learning-based (acquiring disciplinary knowledge, developing intellectual skills) and market-based (concern about enrollments) motivations for change, as well as institutional constraints. Among curricular alternatives to the distribution model, evidence indicated greater support for promoting liberal learning outcomes. Moreover, the civic engagement movement influenced departmental decision-making. However, few programs made curriculum changes related to diversity, equity, or social justice, notable concerns among students and within the discipline.

Part of a broader movement to promote student engagement in educational activities, high-impact practices (HIPs) are purported to deepen learning through such activities as first-year seminars, internships, community-based learning, capstone experiences, study abroad, and research with faculty. Within political science, HIPs are key to efforts to increase civic and political engagement. The discipline is heavily invested in HIPs as vehicles for research, professional development, curriculum, instruction, and student involvement. Addressing disputes among scholars over the efficacy of HIPs, this study examined the effects of upper-year HIPs on student engagement, learning, and satisfaction at a small, private college in the Northeast, measured by responses from seniors to the National Survey of Student Engagement in 2008-2017. Consistent with the literature, the analysis found that community-based learning and research with faculty related positively with: (1) higher-order, reflective, and integrative learning behaviors, (2) personal and general education competencies, and (3) faculty-student interaction. However, community-based learning had the largest impact on arts and sciences majors. Research with faculty, followed by study abroad and capstone experiences, influenced professional studies majors the most. In addition, capstone experiences and study abroad connected positively to satisfaction with the overall educational experience. Depending on their curriculum goals and program mix, political science departments should consider which kinds of HIPs best fit the undergraduate major.

Using an original online experiment, we test whether the appropriation of Amish group identity influences voter behavior. We do not find that the appropriation of Amish group identity influences intended vote choice. However, there is evidence that associating the Amish with a candidate who was subjected to negative advertisements resulted in a reduction in approval rating for the Amish as a group. In addition, we find that the attitudes toward the Amish vary by respondent ideology and, consistent with the contact hypothesis, those individuals who interact regularly with the Amish reported more favorable ratings toward the Amish. The results raise important questions regarding the appropriation of a group's image in the course of a political campaign.

Abstract Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote for president in 2016, but lost to Donald Trump in the Electoral College. Trump’s margin of victory in several decisive battleground states was smaller than the combined vote for the two leading minor party candidates: Gary Johnson, of the Libertarian Party, and Jill Stein, of the Green Party. The perception that Johnson and Stein “stole” the 2016 presidential election from Clinton is widespread, and potentially consequential for future minor party candidacies, but it has not yet been rigorously tested. In this article, we extend the analysis of minor party voting in the 1992 election from Lacy, D., and B. C. Burden. 1999. “The Vote-Stealing and Turnout Effects of Ross Perot in the 1992 U.S. Presidential Election.” American Journal of Political Science 43 (1): 233–55, by using data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to estimate a multinomial probit model of voting behavior—including outcomes for vote choice and abstention—and calculate the predicted probabilities that Johnson and Stein voters would have voted for another candidate or abstained from voting, had one or both of these candidates been excluded from the ballot. We then reallocate Johnson’s and Stein’s votes accordingly, to estimate Clinton’s and Trump’s counterfactual vote shares nationally and within key battleground states. Our analysis indicates that Johnson and Stein did not deprive Clinton of an Electoral College majority, nor Trump the legitimacy of winning the national popular vote. We estimate that most Johnson and Stein voters would have abstained from voting if denied the choice to vote for their preferred candidate, and that most of Johnson’s remaining voters would have supported Trump.

This article assesses how ambiguous/vague election laws versus specific laws could influence the counting of paper ballots. The article also provides an empirical classification scheme, based upon statutory/regulation text and pictorial examples of disputed ballots, to measure election law specificity in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

While the benefits of studying abroad are well documented, honors administrators face significant challenges in internationalizing their honors programs and colleges. As one approach to address the challenges of internationalizing American higher education, the U.S. Fulbright Commission has partnered with commissions in Germany, France, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and Taiwan to host international education administrators from around the United States each year. The IEA seminar offers unique opportunities to build successful, sustained international collaborations that can enrich and internationalize honors programs and colleges. Just as each honors program is unique and individually suited to its institution and the needs of its students, IEA seminars enable participants to construct outcomes specific to the participants’ goals and institutional settings, whether those institutions are as diverse as four-year public universities, liberal arts colleges, or two-year community colleges. The seminar program also allows honors administrators to establish lasting, collaborative partnerships with international institutions that can be further tailored to the specific honors program or honors college. This chapter provides an overview of the German-American Fulbright Commission’s IEA seminar and outlines the benefits and opportunities that the experience offers honors program and college administrators to internationalize their programs by engaging with German institutions. The insights and professional connections discussed here are generally applicable to Fulbright IEA seminars in the other host countries where honors administrators can establish lasting partnerships and collaborative experiences for students, faculty, and staff.

This article critiques two leading analyses of the vice presidential home state advantage (VP HSA) and uses their fundamental methodological insights to develop a comprehensive, individual‐level analysis aimed at resolving a major conflict in the political science literature. Our analyses of the 1952–2016 American National Election Studies and the 2008–16 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies provide no evidence of a statistically significant VP HSA. These results are consistent with Devine and Kopko's findings, and inconsistent with Heersink and Peterson's, regarding the VP HSA, in general. However, they are also inconsistent with Devine and Kopko's previous findings regarding a conditional advantage based upon home state population and candidate experience. These results underscore the importance of using individual‐ rather than aggregate‐level data to analyze voting behavior, whenever possible.

This article analyzes the strategic allocation of presidential campaign visits in 2016. In particular, we test whether each campaign disproportionately targeted its presidential versus vice presidential candidates’ visits toward voters with whom they shared a salient demographic or political characteristic. Our purpose in doing so is to discern whether—and, if so, among which groups—the campaigns perceived the candidates as having a strategic advantage in appealing to affiliated voters. To this end, we analyze an original database of 2016 campaign visits that includes local population characteristics for each host site. Our results indicate that each ticket’s visits were highly coordinated across states, but frequently divergent within states. At the substate level, we find several systematic differences in the populations visited by presidential versus vice presidential candidates—in some cases aligning with a candidate’s personal characteristics. We discuss these findings’ implications with respect to campaign strategy and vice presidential selection.

Undergraduate public law courses often attract students with competing expectations. Some students enroll in these courses to prepare for law school, while others enroll in the courses to gain a broader understanding of courts in the American system of government. These differing student constituencies can create a dilemma for instructors. A course designed to cater to students with a general interest in the judiciary may not afford prelaw students with an appreciation for the demands of the legal profession. Conversely, a course narrowly tailored toward prelaw students risks alienating the majority of students for whom this class may be their only look at the judiciary. As a means to promote pedagogical balance and to appeal to varied student constituencies, we profile five public law simulations in this article that engage students in active learning and promote a greater understanding of law and courts.

A widespread perception exists among political commentators, campaign operatives and presidential candidates that vice presidential (VP) running mates can deliver their home state's electoral votes in a presidential election. In recent elections, presidential campaigns have even changed their strategy in response to the perceived VP home state advantage. But is the advantage real? And could it decide a presidential election? In the most comprehensive analysis to date, Devine and Kopko demonstrate that the VP home state advantage is actually highly conditional and rarely decisive in the Electoral College. However, it could change the outcome of a presidential election under narrow but plausible conditions. Sophisticated in its methodology and rich in historical as well as contemporary insight, The VP Advantage is essential and accessible reading for anyone interested in understanding how running mates influence presidential elections.