Martha Ginn, PhD
Professor | Augusta University
Augusta, GA, UNITED STATES
Dr. Martha Ginn is a political expert on the judicial process, constitutional law and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Spotlight
Multimedia
Publications:
Documents:
Photos:
Videos:
Audio/Podcasts:
Biography
Ginn is a Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Augusta University. She earned her PhD in American Politics from the University of South Carolina. Her research interests include judicial decision-making, public opinion of the judiciary, media coverage of elections, and the role of terrorism in voter turnout. Her work has been published in journals such as Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Politics, Justice Systems Journal, Political Research Quarterly, and Judicature. Dr. Ginn teaches undergraduate courses on Judicial Process, Constitutional Law, Mock Trial, American Government, and Research Methods. She also teaches courses on Administrative Law and Quantitative Methods in the Master of Public Administration program. She currently serves as the Internship Coordinator and Pre-Law advisor for the Department.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Politics
Judicial Politics
The U.S. Supreme Court
Constitutional Law
Polling
Affiliations (3)
- Georgia Political Science Association
- Southern Political Science Association
- Georgia Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Commitee
Links (3)
Media Appearances (5)
Here’s another reason not to trust TV news reports about election polls
The Washington Post
2016-08-23
Many news consumers know by now to take any single election-year poll with a grain of salt. Because of sampling variation and the vagaries of survey research, the best approach is to focus not on individual polls but on polling averages. Our research suggests yet another reason not to overreact to news stories about the newest poll: Media outlets tend to cover the surveys with the most “newsworthy” results, which can distort the picture of where the race stands...
Why Are Democrats Holding Back on Gorsuch?
The Atlantic online
2017-03-20
“I think a lot of the current political dynamic has to do with the composition of the court,” said Martha Ginn, a political science professor at Augusta University, who studies public opinion of the judiciary. “If it had been [liberal Justice Ruth Bader] Ginsburg who had died, that might have provoked stronger opposition from Democratic voters to the potential confirmation of a conservative judge than what you’re seeing now.”
The polls aren’t skewed, media coverage is
Oxford University Press's Academic Insights blog online
2017-03-12
The perceived failures of election forecasting in 2016 have caused many to suggest the polls are broken. However, scholars are quick to point out that more than polling failure this election has demonstrated that people have a hard time thinking probabilistically about election outcomes. Our research suggests skewed media coverage of polls may also be to blame: News media are likely to cover the most newsworthy polls, distorting viewers’ perception of the race.
How Does the Media Choose Which Election Polls to Cover?
Pacific Standard
2016-08-04
Those results are based on polls that ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News covered between June 4, 2008—the date Clinton left the 2008 Democratic primary race—and November 8, 2008. Searles, Martha Humphries Ginn, and Jonathan Nickens compared that coverage with much more inclusive polling databases from PollingReport and Pollster, with an eye toward how polls that got coverage differ from those that didn’t.
Terrorism Charges for Mass Shooters? Experts Are Divided
The Trace online
2022-01-14
The 15-year-old student accused of fatally shooting his classmates at Michigan’s Oxford High School in November is inching toward a trial to determine his guilt on 24 felony charges. One of them — committing an act of terrorism — has rarely been applied in the context of mass shootings, so the move has reignited a debate over whether such violence should be treated as terrorism in the eyes of the law. Martha Ginn, a political science professor at Augusta University said that consistently framing such crimes as terrorist acts would mean more tips would get forwarded to the FBI and fusion centers, enabling authorities to forestall more attacks. “We need to accept the fact that a mass shooting can be an act of terror so that we can figure how to prevent them from happening,” Ginn said.
Answers (2)
Articles (8)
Telework and Work Flexibility in the United States Federal Government Post-Pandemic
Sage Journals
Lance Y. Hunter, Martha Ginn, Wesley L. Meares, William Hatcher
2024-04-11
A decade before the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States (US) federal government was working to create flexible work environments for employees under the 2010 Telework Enhancement Act. Given this reality and the growing desire for greater flexibility of workers inspired by the “Great Resignation” during the pandemic, the US federal government appears to have recovered lost employees faster than other levels of the public sector. Still, given that federal workers skew older with less than a tenth of the workforce being under age 30 years and nearly a third reaching retirement age, a true crisis still looms in our administrative state. Using the 2021 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey Data, we analyze what factors predict turnover intention post-pandemic, focusing the analysis on teleworking and other workplace flexibility policies. We use the findings to make recommendations to help increase employee recruitment and retention within the US federal government.
COVID-19 and 2020 presidential election speeches: A content analysis of pandemic campaign rhetoric
Wiley Online Library
William Hatcher, Martha H. Ginn
2024-01-17
This study examines how public health issues were communicated during the 2020 US presidential campaign, particularly those concerning the global COVID-19 pandemic. Using content analysis, we examined the available campaign speeches of the two major candidates, Donald Trump and Joseph R. Biden. We examined how the candidates discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and vital areas of public health in those speeches. Analysis of these speeches found little discussion on healthcare in general and little to no discussion on the vital areas of public health. We also found that COVID-19 statements were not as prevalent as we anticipated, given the unprecedented scope of the pandemic. Even during a pandemic, public health matters received very little attention during a Presidential campaign. Public health topics accounted for less than 1% of the content in candidates' official speeches. Given that elites help increase knowledge of public health concerns and influence policy, the lack of attention given to the pandemic in the 2020 general election cycle is surprising, if not alarming.
Domestic terrorism, incumbency, and legislative vote shares
Sage Journals
Lance Y Hunter, Joseph W. Robbins, Martha H. Ginn
2023-11-20
A small number of studies have examined the effect terrorism has on political ideology and vote choice cross-nationally. However, scholars yet to understand how terrorist attack type influences vote choice based on the political ideology of incumbent governments. Thus, we examine the effect domestic and transnational terrorist attacks have on vote choice in legislative elections while accounting for the ideology of the incumbent government. In examining 56 democracies from 1975 – 2014 from various regions and levels of development, we find that domestic attacks, and not transnational, significantly effect both right and left party votes shares when the incumbent party in government is of a similar ideology. We attribute these results to the perception of instability that accompanies domestic attacks and the effects it has on voters’ evaluations of political parties. These findings have important implications for understanding how terrorism influences electoral behavior.
For whom the poll airs: Comparing poll results to television poll coverage
Public Opinion Quarterly
2016 Televised election coverage is increasingly dominated by the horse race, a key element of which is poll coverage. How do news outlets decide which poll to air? We know little about the gatekeeping function of news outlets as it pertains to poll coverage, perhaps because this research is plagued by selection bias: By observing only reported polls and not unreported polls, researchers cannot definitively establish that any differences in representativeness are due to bias...
Vouching for the Court? How High Stakes Affect Knowledge and Support of the Supreme Court
Justice System Journal
2015 Building on the geographic constituency theory of awareness of Supreme Court decisions, we conducted a panel survey in Cleveland, Ohio before and after Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, which upheld state-funded vouchers in religious schools. We found several characteristics predict awareness: news consumption, income, and knowledge of and positive feelings toward the Court. Our results also showed those vested in the outcome, such as African Americans, religious individuals, and parents were more likely to change their attitudes in favor of the decision and become more positive toward the institution...
Teaching with Tocqueville: Assessing the Utility of Using “Democracy” in the American Government Classroom to Achieve Student-Learning Outcomes
Journal of Political Science Education
2014 There is a debate in Political Science concerning how best to teach American Government courses. We investigate whether students learn more effectively with texts from the great tradition or from textbooks and other secondary sources. Which medium better guides students toward becoming better citizens? We examine how teaching “The Great Tradition” may increase success in student-learning outcomes. We examine four categories of learning outcomes in the Introduction to American Government classroom: general knowledge, ...
Examining the Effects of Information, Attorney Capability, and Amicus Participation on US Supreme Court Decision Making
American Politics Research
2013 Focusing on litigators or amicus curiae, a significant amount of scholarship has examined the impact of information on Supreme Court decision making. Taking into account that justices have varying degrees of substantive expertise across issues, we model the interaction of justice expertise with these external sources of information. Specifically, we test whether justices are more likely to be influenced by attorney capability in cases where they have less substantive legal expertise. We also explore whether justices' reliance on ...
Do judges follow the law when there is no fear of reversal
Justice Systems Journal
2003 Some political scientists maintain that Supreme Court justices are more likely than other appellate court judges to vote their ideological preferences. It is argued that Supreme Court justices may vote their preferences without constraint from precedent because of a lack of electoral or political accountability, absence of ambition for higher office, and status as a member of a court of last resort that controls its own docket. While this explanation of attitudinal voting is widely accepted, it has never been tested. As a first test of the asserted ...
Social