In 2008, there was approximately a 60% turnout
In 2008, there was approximately a 60% turnout
Voting and Turnout. The U.S. has one of the lowest voter turnout rates among modern democratic political systems. One study ranks the U.S. 120th on a list of 169 nations compared on voter turnout (Pintor, Gratschew, & Sullivan, 2002). While during the last decade many initiatives have been undertaken to increase voter participation, concerns about the possibility of election fraud have also increased. Additionally, some political interests feel threatened by the increase in turnout among some traditionally low-turnout ethnic minorities.…
7. One of the reasons for the low turnout among American voters is that the individual in the U.S. assumes responsibility for registering to vote, whereas in most other democracies voters are registered automatically by government officials. True…
This is not a favorable argument for many and instead, another suspect to the drop in voter turnout is that of the press and media. A scholar Michael Robinson wrote his doctoral thesis on the media and how they were consistently propagandistic and even at times criticizing with their coverage (35). The media focuses on the negatives whether it be a news story or a political ad, they are the ones who bring these images to the American public to see the politics in this light. Thus this actually drives many people to the point of avoiding any type of involvement of the government and politics. In recent studies, there have been similar results to what Robinson wrote about with the media creating cynicism and pushing people away from the government…
First, Teixeira points to individual, psychological, and cultural explanations. Then, Piven and Cloward indicate to government and institutional evidence especially within parties. Finally, Putnam stresses social and environmental factors including diminishing social capital and civic engagement that have contributed to the voter turnout decline. A major factor that the authors disagree upon is how large the role of education level plays in whether Americans vote. Teixeira and Piven and Cloward claim that education is an important variable in determining voter turnout and that those who are not well-educated often do not vote. While the two respective works offer different reasons for why the lesser educated Americans do not vote, they both agree that the lowest class suffers the most. This is true in terms of both structural and psychological reasons. First, Parties do not mobilize these voters and they know a lot less about the registration process and about politics itself. Additionally, educated people are more likely to participate in social connectivity and politics, and therefore aren’t declining at as steep of a…
Voter turnout is defined as a number of voters who actually cast ballots in an election, to a percentage of people eligible to register and vote. About half of the voting age population historically does not vote, even in presidential elections. The voter turnout is even lower in off year congressional and state elections. Turn out in local elections is even lower. Voter turn out is always higher in years with a presidential election. Voter turn out has generally declined since the 1960’s. Voter turnout can take a huge upswing when the elections have highly contested issues with differing candidate platforms.…
The election has passed and all the attention is now turning to the changes that will be occurring this year. Who voted, who didn't, and why; these facts are the subject of a week's lesson. By all measure, early statistics are showing that only 56.8% of all registered voters voted (and this is the total number of those that are eligible to vote, not those who have not even registered). All the politicians are bragging about the voter turnout, but if you consider the fact that only 56.8% of the eligible population voted, that means the winner had to receive 29% or more of the total eligible population to win. This is not exactly a dominate factor for a government that taxes the profits of its citizens and sends our youth to war. Finally, can we compare this turnout to countries like Iraq that are the middle of a war zone and turn out 80% to 90% voter participation in their elections?…
Voters’ turnout ratio is the ratio of valid votes on all registered voters in this referendum, and the results show this referendum voters’ turnout ratio is only 35.3%, which is especially low (see table 1). Analyzing whether rebel violence influences voters’ willingness to vote might explain the reason why this turnout ratio is so low.…
Charles Krauthammer’s article In Praise of Low Voter Turnout raises an important issue America faces as a democratic republic. The problem that is frequently addressed tends to be that voter turnout is lower than most other democratic countries; however, in respect to the working population, being over 50% nationally is not nearly as poor as it would seem.…
The two party system sometimes affects voting turnout. A state is usually considered a Democratic, Republic, or swing State. Some people think that their vote doesn’t matter because if their states is Democratic (or Republic) then the Democratic (or Republican) candidate will receive their state’s electoral votes. This results to only 45% of eligible voters actually voting.…
There are many factors that affect voting behaviour such as, the voters age, the voter gender, or even where they’ve been bought up. The election campaign is the months before the general election where various parties try and get as much support as possible. Some may argue that the campaign is now more important than the long term factors which shaped voting behaviour.…
First, Models 1-4 suggest that turnout does not have a significant impact on party strength. In the national party strength models, turnout does indeed have a significant and positive impact on party strength. This finding makes perfect sense. At the start of the period of study, whether one voted was highly dependent on class. Today, this relationship is not as strong. Figures 3.3 and 3.4 show a distinctive upward trend in the data. Moreover, midterm effects are visible. It makes it reasonable to expect that more new voters were showing up at the polls and voting for at least some Republican candidates in high profile races. Turnout is not by itself significant in any of the state party strength models. This suggests that candidates such as Senator Trent Lott and President Ronald Reagan may have been able to convince new southern voters to show up and vote for them, but those new voters continued to vote for Democratic candidates in state level…
Voter turnout can increase if the United States makes it compulsory like the other democratic nations who turnout is 90% and up. The US is one of the few democracies that require its citizens to register to vote. In most other democratic nations this is not a separate step. The government provides the polling location to each citizen as they comprised a listing of each citizen with the person’s name, age and address. The person just has to show up to the poll to vote, show identification and then are checked against that location’s list. The US leaves the registration to each citizen. A significant number of voters never take the initial step of bothering to register. And then those that take this step may show up to vote to find out there…
Voter turnout in the United States compared to other countries is extremely low. The text book explains that low voter turnout in Texas can be attributed to wealth, race and education. If we attribute the same reasons as to why voter turnout…
Considering that the percentage of registered voters is usually a fraction of the eligible voting population, it’s easy to deduce the factors that are influencing voter turnout by simply looking at the statistical information from the groups that do tend to vote and those that don’t. In 2012 only around 65-71% of the voting-age population was even registered, compared to around 96% for Sweden and 93% in the United Kingdom. Some countries, like Japan, have actually seen a pretty large decrease in voter turnout in the past couple of decades from 75-52% from 1990 to this year. This is only a trend usually seen in OECD countries, which most are seeing a downward drift further into the future. Pretty much compulsive voting, influenced by the major issues of the terms are what will drive voter turnout to either go up or down. It’s similar for some other countries as well; the percentages will fluctuate so I don’t think there is a major difference in voter…
To understand, consider the classic “calculus of voting” model, R = PB - C + D, first proposed by Downs (1957) and later adapted by Riker and Ordeshook (1968), where R is the reward gained from voting in a given election, P is the probability of a vote influencing the outcome of the election, B is the differential benefit of one candidate winning over the other, C is the cost of voting (e.g., time and effort spent), and D is the psychological benefit of voting derived from things like feelings of civic duty or altruism. Most scholarship on voting has assumed—either explicitly or implicitly—that inclement weather impacts elections only through increasing C, the actual costs associated with voting (e.g., through causing poor driving conditions), and therefore that inclement weather might only impact election outcomes through its effect on voter turnout. In contrast, we argue that inclement weather also impacts voting behavior through its effect on D, the psychology of the voter, and through the individual’s perception of the values of P and B. Therefore, we contend that precipitation might impact not only voter turnout, but also voters’ choices at the…