...An explanation for low voter turnout is that a lot of people think their vote would not count. Another reason is due to voter registration requirements, as well as the fact that elections are being held on work days and as such, people are too busy to go vote. The Federal Government should indeed seek ways to increase voter turnout, since citizens’ participation in politics is the essence of a democratic government; besides it is a civil right that should be utilized. One of the ways The U.S government can increase voter turnout, is by making registration and voting, online. This would address the rigors of registration and voting, as they could be done at the comfort of one’s home or even at work; since elections are held on work days, people...
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...The United States has such a low voters turnout because voters are not forced to vote. The countries with a high voter turnout have strictly enforced laws. In American you have to register to vote but in other countries if you are a citizen, you are automatically registered. If the United States changes the voting system a little, it could increase voter’s turnout. Americans need to be more educated and know each candidate’s platforms. Voter’s turnout could increase if voters did not have to work on Election Day. If America followed some of the guidelines other countries use, the United States would have a higher voters turnout. Countries with a high voter turnout are due to the countries strictly enforced voting laws. In some countries you can be fined if you do not show up to the polls to vote. America does not have strict voting laws so it is not mandatory to show up and vote. In other countries if you are a citizen of the country you are automatically considered a registered voter. The United States is one of the only countries to hold Election Day during the week. Countries with high voters turnout have Election Day on the weekend. Voters in America do not want to...
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...FA13 SOCI-101-1099 Prin. of Sociology -Online- Essay Why is United States Voter Turn-out so Low Question 4) What are some explanations for why voter turnout is so low in the U.S. compared to other wealthy, literate and democratic countries? INTRODUCTION Voter turnout is the rate by which people vote in elections. The simplest way to calculate a given election's turnout rate is to compare the actual number of voters with the voting-age population. “Voter turnout in the United States is among the worlds’ lowest.” (E.S. 371) The graph below taken from an article written for the Huffington Post in 2012, illustrates how poor United States voter turnout has been as compared to other industrialized nations. Our voter turnout is less than half of the turnout in Belgium and Australia for example and it is getting worse. "Starting in the early 60's, the proportion of the population that turns out to vote in the U.S. steadily decreased, to the point where only slightly more than half the electorate voted in presidential elections in the last three decades of the 20th century" (E.S. 370) [pic] Although there are several factors that contribute to low voter turnout in the United States, three factors appear to have the most direct influence. • Voter Registration and Voting Processes in the United States make it more difficult to vote as compared to other nations. • The Decline of Social Capital in the United States • The decline in the strength...
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...Masses of votes have a great effect on public policy and government. The residents who have policy and political concerns whether the path of an issue or urgencies of public budgets that will not be heard if they do not vote. Great voter turnout is normally reflected to be desirable, though among political scientists and economists studying in public choice, the issue is still argued. It usually presumed that low turnout is a reflection of dissatisfaction, an election with very little voters may not be an exact reflection of the will of the people. On the contrary, if low turnout is a reflection of satisfaction of voters about possible winners, then low turnout is as valid as great turnout. Supporter turnout is the fraction of qualified voters who cast a vote in an election. Precisely who is qualified differs by nation, and should not be confused with the whole adult population. Extraordinary turnout is normally perceived as signs of the legitimacy of the modern system. In past decades dictators have often made-up high turnouts in platform elections for this reason. For example, Donald Trump 2016 election survey was claimed to have had 100%...
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...Can people be too busy to have a voice in politics? The ability to vote has come to Americans through countless struggles such as King George the III, the denial of women's rights, and the denial of minority rights. A right to vote is not something that should be taken lightly. The citizens of the United States of America are full of pride when it comes to the world seeing them as a strong, democratic nation. Although, according to Merriam Webster, a democracy is defined as “a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections” (Merriam Webster). A democracy is not strong, however, when a low...
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...literally thousands of cross-sectional surveys have indicated that turnout rates climb with years of formal schooling,” a few scholars have published literature that discredit the positive relationship between levels of education and voter turnout. Steven Tenn (2007:446) is the first to phrase the relationship as education being “spuriously correlated with voting.” His work focuses on the impact of the marginal impact of an additional year of schooling. Ultimately, Tenn’s (2007:451) analysis reveals that “an additional year of education has very little influence on voter turnout. This is in direct contradiction of one of the most influential studies on education and voter turnout, Wolinger and Rosenstone’s (1980:102), which found that increased levels of schooling do in fact raise the participation rate of voters. Similarly, Kam and Palmer (2008:617) wanted to test the claim made by multiple scholars that higher levels of education cause political participation. Rather than conferring with the scholars, Kam and Palmer (2008:612) take on a differing perspective and focus on other factors that could in turn influence political participation. They find that “the same factors that propel...
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...civic duty of political participation. This combination of a hectic lifestyle, lack of concern, or sometimes even distrust towards the government and political news leads to people not being able to make time, not interested in making time, or simply refusing to make time for political participation. There are numerous ways in which citizens can participate politically, each with varying degrees of difficulty and potential strength of messages conveyed. Voting and financial contributions to causes and campaigns are the two least sophisticated and most common forms of political participation. Since all votes are equal and voters vote for a candidate due to a number of reasons instead of one, the amount of information conveyed is relatively low compared to more active and sophisticated methods of political participation. (Losco and Baker 156) Forms of political participation that require a bit more skill and commitment than voting and donating money include...
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...The term turnout used means what percentage of the electorate participated and voted in the election, for example in 2010 there was an approximate 65% turnout. Turnout can be very useful to study for political scientists as it highlights political apathy and has shown how over the last few decades voting percentages have drastically decreased. This is clearly a worrying factor as it is important that as many people cast their vote in order to have their opinion heard. When viewing the previous data on turnout out it is evident that the percentages have decreased with a slight increase in the 2010 elections, this has led many commentator to label the situation as a ‘participation crisis’. However clearly more needs to be evaluated before coming to a ‘crisis’ conclusion. Firstly, looking at the turnout situation it is clear to see why a commentator may come to the conclusion that it is a ‘crisis’ and in 2001 Britain saw its lowest ever turnout at only 59.4%, in comparison the 1950 election had an 83.9% turnout. Whilst over the last two elections turnout has increased, those increases have been very minimal only rising to 65% in 2010. It is also evident that this is a massive political problem as low turnouts mean large amounts of the electorate haven’t been able to voice their opinion and as a result may rightfully feel as though the government is not representative of them and that is because at present the government is only representative of 65% of the electorate. With...
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...In the United States, voter apathy has been a consistent theme. Many eligible Americans fail to participate in elections. Between 1960 and 2008, the average voter turnout was approximately 49% to 63%. This means that close to half of the Americans do not really care which candidate will become their resident. In the United States, the lowest voter turnout was recorded in the year 1996 when only 49.1% of eligible Americans turned to vote. The low turnout in the country is an international disgrace. It is worrying that democracy in America has lost meaning. According to Fulton (16), one may not understand what happened to the government that Abraham Lincoln used to call “government of the people, for the people and by the people.” People should not be satisfied when...
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...The Importance of Having a Voice and Getting Out To Vote Professor Butler POLS 2301.04 April 24, 2015 The Importance of Having a Voice and Getting Out To Vote Throughout this semester I’ve learned a great deal of information on various subject areas. I’ve also gained more political knowledge than I had prior to taking this course. Of the many chapters discussed during this course, I found Parties and Elections in Texas (chapter 21), Public Opinion (chapter 6), and Political Participation and Voting (chapter 8) to be the most interesting and informative. Parties and Elections in Texas Political parties play a major role in Texas politics. Approximately 91 percent of Texas voters either identify with or lean toward the Republican or the Democratic Party. Despite all of the complaints about parties, they perform roles that are critical to the operation of our democratic system and to the overall coordination and functioning of our political system. The most important function of parties in Texas is to provide a label under which candidates may run and voter may identify. The party label becomes the standard used in casting a ballot for a candidate. Parties recruit candidates, assist in getting out the vote, and helps to organize the government once officials have been elected. The organization of political parties in Texas can be somewhat complex. Texas does not have a system of party registration for voters. Texas parties conduct primaries to select each party’s...
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...‘participation crisis’? Over time, as society changes many seem to form presumptions that in the UK there is an evolving ‘crisis’ in political participation as less people are willing to actively participate or engage in any political activities whatsoever. This can be problematic as participation in politics is crucial because it will allow the government to be held responsible. There are several reasons suggesting a ‘political participation’ which can be evident from the current turnout at general elections because they have been considerably lower than average between the years of 1945-1997. In the election year 1992 the turnout was 77.7% which gradually declined to 59.5% in 2001 which highlights the significant difference of election participation decline as the years went by. This perhaps could be due to the number of the population disagreeing with the ideologies of the political parties and have perhaps different strong ideas thus resulting in them in not turning up to the elections. Also, the fall in turnout levels could be because of people progressing in the industrial sectors as society is modernising so this occupies people and doesn’t allow them to make the time to actually go vote. Moreover, another contributing factor to the ‘participation crisis’ is that party membership has been declining drastically over the last thirty years as during 1980 the membership of all parties was a staggering 1,693,156 as well as 4.12% membership of total electorates. This is highly contrasting...
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...1 Participation and Voting Behaviour Total for this topic: 40 marks (01) Explain the term turnout used in the extract. (5 marks) It is likely that the majority of candidates will define turnout as a measure of the number or proportion of people who vote at an election. Higher-level responses are likely to provide a more authoritative definition: ie the proportion of registered voters who cast a ballot at a given election, expressed as a percentage. Candidates may pick up on the reference in the extract (ie by identifying electoral turnout as one measure of political participation). At the higher levels of response, it is likely that candidates will look to develop their answers by introducing material from their own knowledge. Some may refer to varying levels of turnout witnessed at different types of elections or introduce the notion of differential turnout in a single electoral cycle, with top-level responses supporting such points with statistical evidence. It is likely that many candidates will also make reference to the relatively low levels of electoral turnout witnessed at some recent general elections (most famously in 2001) and such knowledge is obviously creditable here. (02) Using your own knowledge as well as the extract, consider why some commentators have spoken of a ‘participation crisis’ in recent years. (10 marks) The focus here is the issue of why commentators have spoken of a participation crisis, as opposed to the question of...
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...Political participation are actions of private citizens seeking to influence to support government and politics. Participation involves voting, involvement in campaigning (canvassing), party membership and pressure group membership. Participation is sad to be in decline due to the low turnout since the 1950’s. There are trends of low turnout in the General elections for UK. In 1951 the turnout for the UK general elections was 82%, however this fell to 66% in the 2015 general elections. Voter apathy is one reason for his; members of the electorate feel as though their opinions aren’t represented in Parliament, especially voters in support of smaller parties which are spread thinly across constituencies. Furthermore, parties now have become idealised so people are apathetic towards voting as they feel it wouldn’t really make a difference what party came into power. Party memberships also decreased since the 1950’s. For example n 1951, there were 2900 conservative supporters; however this decreased to 170 members in 2011, highlighting that there is a participation crisis in the UK. Additionally, the modern era and new generation new have now is distinctly different to previous years. In earlier years, politics was a min topic of discussion within households, leading children to become more informed about certain parties and be incline to vote for one- usually the same party as there parents support. However nowadays it isn’t as common for families to even spend dinner or...
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...AP Government McKinley CHAPTER 8 Political Participation I. A closer look at nonvoting A. Alleged problem: low turnout of voters in the U.S. compared to Europe 1. Data are misleading: tend to compare turnout of voting-age population; turnout of registered voters reveals problem is not so severe 2. Real problem is low voter registration rates a) Proposed solution: get-out-the-vote drives b) But this will not help those who are not registered 3. Apathy is not the only cause of non-registration a) Registration has costs in the U.S.; there are no costs in European countries where registration is automatic b) Motor-voter law of 1993 took effect in 1995, lowered costs and increased registration throughout the country B. Voting is not the only way of participating—by other measures, Americans may participate in politics more than Europeans. C. Important question: how do different kinds of participation affect the government? II. The rise of the American electorate (THEME A: POPULAR PARTICIPATION IN ELECTIONS) A. From state to federal control 1. Initially, states decided who could vote and for which offices 2. This led to wide variation in federal elections 3. Congress has since reduced state prerogatives through law and constitutional amendment. a) 1842 law: House members elected by district b) 15th Amendment (1870): seemed to give...
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...it’s from decreasing voter turnout or decreasing numbers in party membership. In my opinion I believe that the UK is suffering quite a large crisis. The first reason to suggest that Britain is in a crisis is if we look at recent voter turnout. In the 2010 and 2015 General Election the voter turnout was between 65-66%. This is considered as a crisis because in contrast to the election in the 1970’s the turnout was about 80%. It is a crisis because voter turnout has been decreasing over the years. The problem with lower voter turnout is that it becomes harder for the government to make decisions that would be more representative. When there is low voter turnout the government’s decisions are mainly based upon the people that voted. This would result in a large minority being left out and unrepresented in the process. Furthermore, it is considered a crisis because it also highlights the fact that UK citizens aren’t politically active. This means that less people are engaging with politics and are less aware with what is happening in their country. On the other hand, others may argue that the figure is relatively high and will improve overtime. This is because in the 2005 General Election the turnout was 60%. They would use this to suggest that voter turnout isn’t evidence to suggest UK...
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