Voter Turnout & Behavior

AP GoPo

How do Americans participate in government?

• What are some historical events that may have impacted political participation in the U.S.?– Literacy testing– Poll taxes– Grandfather clause– White primaries– 15th Amendment – 19th Amendment– 26th Amendment

What factors impact participation in government?

• Religious involvement• Education• Race & ethnicity• Age• Gender• Two-party competition• http://

www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_12.html

• http://www.people-press.org/2006/10/18/who-votes-who-doesnt-and-why/

• http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm

Nonvoting

• Low turnout compared to Europe– Compares registered voters to eligible adult pop.

• Voter apathy on Election Day– Low registration rates– Stats?

• Get Out the Vote Drives– Is this a solution?– Impact on those who aren’t registered

Nonvoting

• Causes of non-registration:– U.S. registration process vs. European countries

where free registration is automatic• http://

www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx

• Voting isn’t the only type of participation– Military service, volunteer work, etc.

• How do different kinds of participation affect government?

Nonvoting

• Motor-voter law of 1993• http://

www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/nvra/activ_nvra.php

• Increased registration throughout the country• Voter ID Laws?– http://news.yahoo.com/study-voter-id-laws-cut-tu

rnout-blacks-young-221257715--election.html

Rise of the American Electorate

• From state to federal control:• Initially, states decided who could vote for which

offices • This led to wide variation in federal elections• Congress has since reduced state prerogatives– 1842 law: House members elected by district – Suffrage to women– Suffrage to blacks– Suffrage to eighteen- to twenty-year-olds– Direct popular election of U.S. senators

Black Voting Rights

• Fifteenth Amendment gutted by Supreme Court as not conferring a right to vote b. Southern states then used evasive stratagems:– Literacy test – Poll tax– White primaries– Grandfather clauses– Intimidation of black voters

• Most of these stratagems ruled out by Supreme Court• Major change with 1965 Voting Rights Act; black vote

increases

Women’s Voting Rights

• Several western states permitted women to vote by 1915

• Nineteenth Amendment ratified 1920• No dramatic changes in outcomes– Why??

Youth Vote

• Voting Rights Act of 1970 • Twenty-sixth Amendment ratified 1971• Lower turnout; no particular party• National standards now govern most aspects

of voter eligibility• Twenty-third Amendment ratified 1961, gave

District of Columbia residents the right to vote in presidential elections

Voting Turnout

• Debate of declining percentages: two theories a . Real decline as popular interest and party competition decreases – Apparent decline, induced in part by more honest ballot

counts of today• Parties once printed ballots • Ballots cast in public• Parties controlled counting• Australian ballot began to be adopted in 1910– http://

www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/43932/Australian-ballot

Voting Turnout

• Most scholars see some real decline due to several causes:

• Registration more difficult-longer residency; educational qualifications; discrimination

• Continuing drop after 1960 cannot be explained according to Wilson (American Government: Institutions & Policies) but clearly political efficacy plays a role. Watergate, Vietnam, etc...

Who participates in Politics?

• Voting the commonest form of participation• Verba and Nie's Six Forms of Participation:

– Inactives - People who rarely vote, do not get involved in organizations, and do not even talk much about politics. They account for about 22 percent of the population.

– Voting specialists - People who vote but participate in little else politically. They tend not to have much schooling or income, and to be substantially older than the average person.

– Campaigners - People who not only vote but like to get involved in campaign activities as well. The are better educated than the average voter, but what distinguishes them most is their interest in the conflicts of politics, their clear party identification, and their willingness to take strong positions.

Who participates in Politics?

• Communalists - people who tend to reserve their energies for community activities of a nonpartisan kind. Their education and income are similar to those of campaigners.

• Parochial participants - People who do not vote and stay out of election campaigns and civic associations, but who are willing to contact local officials about specific, often personal, problems.

• Complete activists - An individual, usually outside government, who actively promotes a political party, philosophy, or issue he or she cares personally about.

Causes of Participation

• Those with schooling, or political information, more likely to vote

• Religious affiliation?– http://www.pewforum.org/2012/11/07/how-the-faithfu

l-voted-2012-preliminary-exit-poll-analysis/

• Gender?– http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/fast_facts/voters/docum

ents/genderdiff.pdf

• Race?– http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-568.pdf

Level of Trust in Government

• Is there a correlation between trust & voting?– http://www.people-press.org/2010/04/18/distrust-discontent-anger-a

nd-partisan-rancor/

• Difficulty of registering?– As turnout has declined, registration barriers have been lowered– Several small factors decrease turnout

• More youths, blacks, and other minorities in population, pushing down percent registered– Decreasing effectiveness of parties in mobilizing voters

• Remaining impediments to registration• Voting compulsory in other nations• Possible feeling that elections do not matter

Democrat & Republican Solutions?

• No one really knows who would be helped by increased turnout – Nonvoters tend to be poor, minority, or uneducated

• But an increasing percentage of college graduates are also not voting

• Hard to be sure that turnout efforts produce gains for either party:

• http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/voter-turnout/

• http://www.people-press.org/topics/voter-participation/

The meaning of participation rates

• Americans vote less, but participate more a. Other forms of activity becoming more common – Some forms more common here than in other

countries• Americans elect more officials and have more

elections

How does the U.S. Compare?

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-steven-friedman/voter-turnout-europe-america_b_1660271.html

• How can we improve voting/voter turnout in the U.S.?– http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/05/15/2000

621/international-voting-reforms/• Would these suggestions actually work here??

Key Terms & Definitions • Activist: An individual, usually outside government, who actively

promotes a political party, philosophy, or issue he or she cares personally about.

• Australian ballot: An election ballot of uniform size printed by the government and cast in secret.

• Campaigners: According to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who not only vote but like to get involved in campaign activities as well. The are better educated than the average voter, but what distinguishes them most is their interest in the conflicts of politics, their clear party identification, and their willingness to take strong positions.

• Communalists: According to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who tend to reserve their energies for community activities of a nonpartisan kind. Their education and income are similar to those of campaigners.

Key Terms & Definitions• Complete activists: According to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie,

people who are highly educated, have high incomes, and tend to be middle-aged rather than young or old. These people participate in all forms of politics and account for 11 percent of the population.

• Fifteenth Amendment: The constitutional amendment that guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race, color, or pervious condition of slavery.

• Grandfather clause: A state law allowing people to vote, even if they did not meet legal requirements, if an ancestor had voted before 1867. The clause was used as a vehicle to enable poor and illiterate whites to vote while excluding blacks (who had no ancestor voting prior to 1867). Such clauses were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Key Terms & Definitions

• Inactives: According to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who rarely vote, do not get involved in organizations, and do not even talk much about politics. They account for about 22 percent of the population.

• Literacy test: A state law requiring potential voters to demonstrate reading skills. The laws were frequently implemented in a discriminatory fashion to prevent otherwise qualified blacks from voting. These tests were suspended by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

• Motor-voter Bill: A law passed by Congress in 1993 that requires states to allow people to register to vote when applying for a driver's license and to provide registration through the mail and at some state offices that serve the disabled and provide public assistance. The law took effect in 1995.

• Nineteenth Amendment: An amendment to the Constitution allowing women the right to vote.

Key Terms & Definitions• Parochial participants: According to Sidney Verba and Norman

Nie, people who do not vote and stay out of election campaigns and civic associations, but who are willing to contact local officials about specific, often personal, problems.

• Poll tax: A state tax paid prior to voting. The tax was designed to prevent blacks from voting since poor whites were usually exempted through a grandfather clause. Poll taxes have been made illegal.

• Registered voters: People who are eligible to vote in an election and who have signed up with the government to vote.

• Twenty-sixth Amendment: The 1971 constitutional amendment that lowered the voting age in both state and federal elections to eighteen. Congress had attempted to achieve this goal through legislation, but the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had no authority to do so with respect to state elections

Key Terms & Definitions• Twenty-third Amendment: The 1961 constitutional amendment

permitting residents of Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential elections.• Voting Rights Act of 1965: The federal law that suspended the use of

literacy tests in elections and authorized federal examiners to order the registration of blacks in states and counties where fewer than 50 percent of the voting-age population were registered or had voted in the last presidential election.

• Voting-age population: The percentage of people in a country who are eligible to vote because they satisfy the minimum age requirement.

• Voting specialists: According to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who vote but participate in little else politically. They tend not to have much schooling or income, and to be substantially older than the average person.

• White primary: The exclusion of blacks from voting in the primary elections of political parties. Such primaries were employed largely in the South where the Democratic party won almost all general elections. In effect, winning the Democratic primary meant winning the election. The Supreme Court voided the use of white primaries.