Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Ethnic Voting in Primary Elections, Vol. 12: The Irish and Italians of Providence, Rhode Island
For years urban politicians in the northeastern section of the country have assumed the existence of something called the ethnic vote. The substance of this assumption is that members of ethnic groups tend to cast their votes in heavier numbers for candidates which share the ethnic background of the group. Thus, Italians are supposed to cast more votes for Italian candidates than for Irish candidates and vice versa for the Irish. A corollary belief is that ethnic groups are likely to desert at political party that refuses to offer them candidates whose backgrounds are similar to that of the ethnic group. This desertion is most likely to occur when the opposing party does in fact offer such candidates, that is, when a real alternative is available. The attempt to keep ethnic groups loyal results in the curious phenomenon known as ticket balanc ing or united nations politics. In such circumstances, the party at tempts to maintain the loyalty of various ethnic groups by placing at least one candidate from each group on the party ticket. That politi cians have acted upon their faith in ethnic politics is an historical fact.1 The most important question is, however, do ethnic groups respond to the balanced ticket in the way politicians expect? Or, to put the matter another Way, What is the importance of ethnicity as a factor in voting behavior? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
