Voter Turnout And Voter Apathy

In the last half of the twentieth century, voter turnout in federal elections has declined. During the same period, voter turnout has been higher in presidential elections than in midterm elections.

In our system of government we are privileged with the option to take part in the political process that runs the country. It is our right to vote that lets the people influence change in policy and set the guidelines that politicians must follow to be elected representatives. This precious ability, which is most coveted in most non-democratic countries, is taken for granted in our own.

Industrial Countries all over the world have seen a steady decline in voter participation; Great Britain is a great example of this. The country has witness turnout in elections falling slowly as time pass. However, the election of 2001 dropped the country from their average of 76% voter turnout to just a 59.4% turnout. Comparatively, Australia, a former colony of Britain, has enjoyed high and steady voter participation since 1924 because of the implementation of compulsory voting. This system has proven to be not only effective in bring voters to the polls, but also effective in improving Australia’s democracy. By evaluating these two countries with similar political structure; one can see the difference in compulsory voting turnouts

Rhetorical Analysis: The primary audience for this paper includes every citizen aged eighteen and above eligible to vote in the United States. The proposed topic mostly concerns these individuals due to the fact, they are affected by presidential voting institutions. Throughout this paper, I will be arguing in favor of the Electoral College, with an end goal of persuading my audience of the benefits of the system.

     I will now examine some of last election year’s results. Voter turnout has decreased in the past years. There are two main factors that have been coming up in the past years. First, many citizens say that who is elected in office is not as important as it once was. Secondly, younger Americans are more cynical and disconnected from politics than ever. I think there is too much information out there and another thing that might be the reason this is happening is

Factors such as competitiveness of upcoming elections and demographics play roles in determining voter turnout. Voting rates historically vary widely among states. In a given election year, many factors contribute to the number of state citizens going to the polls. In presidential elections, citizens of less competitive states go to the polls less often than in states where outcome is less certain. Election type also influences voter turnout. Fewer voters across all states turn out for primary elections and local elections. Among demographic factors, age and race influence voter turnout. Younger Americans and certain minorities, including Latin Americans and Asian-Americans, historically cast votes less frequently than older citizens,

Data used for this term paper was obtained from Houghton Mifflin Company through the 1996 Voter's Data Set found as part of the Crosstabs package. The dependent variable (rows) I chose to highlight the 1996 U.S. presidential election voting pattern was the Final Voting Choice. The independent variables (columns) I chose were personal traits such as education, income, age, religious affiliations, race, and gender. The data made available by the Crosstabs program was compiled in a statistically scientific way by a national survey of citizens before and after the 1996 election. The objective of this research is to determine which of the personal traits of the electorate has a positive, negative, or an indifferent impact on voter turnout. Therefore, I have made the following five assertions in the below listed hypotheses:

Voter turnout in American is on of the lowest of the democratic countries. Totaling 60% of voter turnout when in Belgium the voter turnout is 90%. You maybe asking yourself why is the voter turnout so low in America. In this paper I will be explaining why it’s low along with why some Americans are regular voters

Since the United States of America established itself as its own self-governing country, one of the things that caused it to be salient and stand out from other countries is its relentless insistence on functioning as a democracy. Wars and protests have occurred so that every type of people, whether it was women or African Americans, may be granted the right to vote. Having a say in the American government is an honor and a privilege bestowed upon American citizens when they reach the age of eighteen. However, in recent years, statistics have shown that voter turnout and participation in recent elections has been rapidly and steadily declining, causing the United States to have the lowest voter participation in the world (“Is the System

In this essay, I would like to discuss the major obstacles to voting, recent changes to overcome voting barriers and the political influence of changed rules. Low turnout in the U.S. reflects that there are obstacles for people to voting and changes to overcome these obstacles may also bring new problems to different social groups. I will elaborate on these aspects in the following parts.

Franklin. The theory proposed in this article is “elections that do not stimulate high turnout among young adults leave a ‘footprint’ of low turnout in the age structure of the electorate” (Franklin, 2004). The methodology involved examine the voting patterns of 22 countries that have held elections continuously since 1945. This number total 356 elections and provides a strong pool of data to draw conclusions from. The results brought forth a number of different variables that impact voter turnout. Such variables are the frequency at which elections are held - the closer together equates to a decrease in turnout, to the impact of lowering the eligible voting age. Interesting any country that lowered the voting age can expect to see a drop of 3.8% in a span of 40 years (Franklin, 2004). Additionally the analysis discovered that the Baby Boomers, which earlier were stated to be 20% more active voters in Canada, are 7% less likely to vote globally than their parenting generation. The conclusion for this article is that there is a reduction in the competitive nature of elections (less likely to bring about policy changes), and a decrease in the age when voters become eligible. Both of these declines generate an environment where the younger

The U.S Constitution gives the states considerable latitude in the way of conducting elections. The American citizens have many opportunities to vote. However, a turnout in American elections has dramatically decreased over the past several decades. In order to address this issue, majority of states have allowed absentee voting reforms. These convenient reforms are thought to increase the voter turnout in the elections, as well as to reduce administrative costs.

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?

Voting has not always been as easy as it is today. It is interesting to examine how far America has progressed in its process of allowing different types of people to be able to vote. Voting was once aimed at a particular group of people, which were white males that owned their own property. Today, most people over the age of eighteen can vote, except for the mentally incompetent or people who have been convicted of major felonies in some states. The decline of voter participation has always been a debate in the public arena. According to McDonald and Popkin, it is “the most important, most familiar, most analyzed, and most conjectured trend in recent American political history (2001, 963)” The question is, how important is voter

Under the 15th amendment, there is a right to vote by every people who are the citizens of the United States even though; they are Latinos, African-American or Asian. Voting is the important issues in political process as well as for the people themselves to decide the upcoming government in election. Moreover that, immigrants citizen must be very concerned about voting as there are few candidate who shows interest in the favor of immigrants people. Among the immigrants, Hispanic or Latinos are the largest minority group i.e. 44.3 million or 15 percent according to the U.S. census bureau (2006) (Zulema Valdez). They got rights to choose a candidate as they can rely on for their needs to be fulfilled by that candidate. As shown, most of the Immigrants people are not utilizing their rights to vote even though, they are eligible to vote. Such kind of people who don’t participate to vote in the election, known as a voter apathy as their lack of interest in voting. Voter apathy is one of the main factors that impact the political process making very large difference in the upcoming government. A group-based discrimination has been the reason behind the voter apathy affecting the political participation. The political incorporation of immigrants or Latinos group is caused by the group based on resources or by their own perception for the election that’s the reason for not participating in the electoral political process which affect their political participation