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Voter Turnout

In: Social Issues

Submitted By floyd1416
Words 476
Pages 2
Paper #5
11/03/08
POS1001, 11am
Words: 475

American voter turnout has never reached extremely high numbers, and it is a fact that barely more than half of all eligible American citizens get involved in presidential elections. Although on occasions this may baffle most practicing politicians and political scientists, there are various logical and reasonable explanations for this to occur in one of the world’s most successful economies. One of the most important is the peoples’ general satisfaction of government stability, or lack of significant dissatisfaction. Another example demonstrates that European countries automatically register its citizens at the age of eighteen to vote while American youth must personally appear and register before elections. Generally most of the youth eligible to vote tend to feel less concerned or drawn in by politics due to the lack of serious income, property, and consequently taxes. Along with this goes the income and education level of eligible voters, which either aids in the involvement and general attention, or in supports indifference and unimportance relating to policy. Throughout US history the elements of gender, race, and location have also shown to be major factors involving voter turnout. The factors of why Americans vote the way they do begin with the element of party identification, which can often be inherited and mainly influenced by and through our family and its personal ideologies reflected towards certain party. Another important factor is that of the social class of the voters, which is reflected through work, general income, education, and are often influenced by traditions or picked up liberal or conservative views. On occasions class voting overlaps, in a sense that some people who fall inside the brackets of either liberal or conservative tendencies, vote for converse parties due to their own, personal

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