...actually take the time to register to vote? Not many of us do; in Texas the lack of voter participation is particularly alarming B. Credibility Claim – I’ve done extensive research on the issue of voter apathy and I’ve found a solution C. Preview – Voter turnout is suffering, especially in Texas, because of the way the current voter registration process works, but by enabling Election Day Registration (EDR), voter turnout can be increased. II. Body A. Problem 1. For Example – In the recent gubernatorial race, we had the lowest voter turnout in the country; The Intercept, a reputable non-partisan journalism site, reports 33% turnout, down from 38% 4 years ago 2. Politifact, an organization dedicated to fact-checking the statements made by politicians, points out that the U.S. Census Bureau ranked Texas 48th in turnout in 2012, 47th in 2008 and 49th in 2006. 3. The cause? – Rock the Vote, a nationwide effort to promote voter participation, shows that the Texas registration deadline is a mere 30 days before the election. Many citizens become most interested and engaged with elections in the last few weeks before Election Day, when candidate debates and campaigns reach their peak. But registration deadlines may already have passed at that point. 4. Inaccurate voter rolls; Many previously-registered voters lose their eligibility merely because they have moved. Others are never added to the voter rolls because of bureaucratic errors, which Election Protection...
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...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 candidates for office. The precinct chair heads the precinct convention and serves on the county executive committee. The county executive committee is responsible for running the county’s primary elections and planning the county convention. Conventions are held at the precinct, county, and state levels. Participation in Texas elections has changed over time. Texas has had a...
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...Dior Hunter Bailey-Hofmann English 103 17 January 2015 Should Voting Be Mandatory? In the United States, voter turnout during elections has decreased over the last fifteen years. In 2012 the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) compared voter turnout rates, for the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, The BPC states “Despite an increase of over eight million citizens in the eligible population, turnout declined from 131 million voters in 2008 to an estimated 126 million voters in 2012 when all ballots are tallied. Some 93 million eligible citizens did not vote.” Many Americans feel like their vote doesn’t count anyway, mainly citizens who are already disadvantaged. Australian professor of Politics Lisa Hill states in her article What We’ve Seen in Australia With Mandatory Voting that, “Places with mandatory voting also have less wealth inequality, lower levels of political corruption and higher levels of satisfaction with the way democracy is working than voluntary systems.” Critics say that implementing mandatory voting is against the constitution, and what we value the most, freedom. Furthermore, Hill states “ Is being required to vote a violation of autonomy? Sure, but so is mandatory taxation, jury duty and the requirement to educate our children. Yet, these are all good ideas.” Voting should be mandatory because as American citizens we live in a democratic society where everyone should have an opinion. Although, Americans value independence and the free-will to do...
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...Voting Problem in America Voting Problem in America Numerous studies have been steered to support with observing for influences that will demonstration by public do not contribute in voting. It has remained a mounting difficulties with appropriate voters not registering and object their ballot. Over the decades, Americans have vanished trace with the antiquity of voting. Voting for in determinations supports in providing underpinning on why society do not participate in voting. Analyses provide tangible influences with why societies do not vote with illustration clusters support. Discovery of behaviors will show the unabridged development with the existing system supports with the American community. The 2008 elections enquiry provides awareness with the diverse motives from highest to lowest. Giving some understanding on the origin of the unruly and outcome resolutions to battle these problems. Examination can transform that are currently in domicile and assuring voting contributions on the ability to speak on the issues and distresses. Observing at other countries for potential solutions to the problem can be one riposte for the United States voting delinquent. Using tads and shards can support with altering he existing classification that does not work. Without transformation, the voting contribution will endure to diminish. The history behind the voting in America helps wonder why this pass civil liberty has fallen to many Americans waist side in today’s world. As America...
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...Matt Hamilton American Government PS1350 August 10, 2015 Mr. R. S. MCCULOUGH “American Voters” In the United States the voter turnout during elections has decreased over the last fifteen years. In 2012 the Bipartisan Policy Center compared voter turnout rates for the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, The BPC said “Despite an increase of over 8 million citizens in the eligible population, turnout declined from 131 million voters in 2008 to an estimated 126 million voters in 2012 when all ballots are tallied. Some 93 million eligible citizens did not vote.” Many Americans feel like their vote doesn’t count anyway, mainly citizens who are already disadvantaged. Australian professor of Politics Lisa Hill states in her article What We’ve Seen in Australia With Mandatory Voting that, “Places with mandatory voting also have less wealth inequality, lower levels of political corruption and higher levels of satisfaction with the way democracy is working than voluntary systems.” Critics say that implementing mandatory voting is against the constitution, and what we value the most, freedom. Furthermore, Hill states “ Is being required to vote a violation of autonomy? Sure, but so is mandatory taxation, jury duty and the requirement to educate our children. Yet these are all good ideas. Voting should be mandatory because as American citizens we live in a democratic society where everyone should have an opinion. Although, Americans value independence and the free-will to do whatever...
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...Economics University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Vmail: 301-442-1785 Email: moore@econ.umd.edu August 2008 Abstract Candidates in major political contests are commonly endorsed by other politicians, interest groups and celebrities. Prior to the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, Barack Obama was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey, a celebrity with a proven track record of influencing her fans’ commercial decisions. In this paper, we use geographic differences in subscriptions to O! – The Oprah Magazine and the sale of books Winfrey recommended as part of Oprah's Book Club to assess whether her endorsement affected the Primary outcomes. We find her endorsement had a positive effect on the votes Obama received, increased the overall voter participation rate, and increased the number of contributions received by Obama. No connection is found between the measures of Oprah's influence and Obama's success in previous elections, nor with underlying local political preferences. Our results suggest that Winfrey’s endorsement was responsible for approximately 1,000,000 additional votes for Obama. JEL Classification Numbers: D7; D72 We are grateful to Bill Evans for his comments and guidance. We also would like to thank Kerwin Charles, Allan Drazen, Mark Duggan, Kyle Handley, Judy Hellerstein, Dan Hungerman, Melissa Kearney, Brian Knight, Sebastian Miller and seminar participants at the University of Maryland for useful suggestions. For access to their data, we thank the...
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...necessitated selected areas with a history of voter discrimination to get approval from either the U.S. District Court for D.C. or the U.S. Attorney General before they amending voting processes. This was to preempt any minority voter disenfranchisement through the use of any variety of voting "test," such as a literacy test, educational or knowledge requirements, proof of good moral character, and requirements that a person must be vouched for in order to exercise their right to vote. It has also been updated to protect against the use of gerrymandering, prohibitive voting hours, and abusive ID requirements. Chief Justice Roberts delivered the majority opinion that ruled Section 4(b) as being unconstitutional. He described the Voting Rights Act as "strong medicine" for a time when minority voter disenfranchisement was nation wide. The Census Bureau has since reported that the number of African American voters in five of the nine states listed in the Voting Rights Act actually surpasses white voter turnout. The majority opinion granted that voter discrimination still exists, but questioned whether the laws outlined in Section 4(b) were truly the best means of ensuring minority voting rights. Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that Sections 4 and 5 were only meant to be temporary, and had been set to expire after five years. However, Congress has repeatedly extended the time limits and coverage of the Act to include areas where voter discrimination was apparent. In 1982, the...
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...elections they both had a central theme. Ethics, though, was the determinative factor for both. Street Fight showed the 2002 Newark, New Jersey non-partisan mayoral election between the longtime Democrat incumbent Sharpe James and Cory Booker. The old joke “the only way an incumbent leaves office is death or conviction” held true for this election as Sharpe James blatantly abused the power of his office to disrupt Cory Booker’s campaign, having the housing authority prevent Booker from canvasing buildings, sending code enforcement to threaten or shut down businesses for supporting Booker and having the police department tear down campaign signs on the day of the election. (Curry, 2005) Last Man Standing on the other hand had been about a rural Texas state legislature election in 2002 between the Republican incumbent, Rick Green and a Democrat challenger, Patrick Rose. With the number of ethical conflicts that had arisen for Green he was forced to acknowledge Rose and challenge him to several debates, backlashing, giving Rose even more of an opportunity to strike against Green’s ethics while in office and have more media face time within the district. The only thing working against Rose was that he was young, inexperienced, and the sheer fact that he was running as a Democrat, in a state that at the time was becoming overwhelmingly Republican. (Stekler, 2004) In Street Fight, Cory Booker is described by a Newark citizen as a “golden boy.” He grew up in the suburbs of Harrington Park...
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...have not yet acquired the right to vote, which is one of the main reasons the Hispanic population is known as the ‘sleeping giants’ as their full potential of their impact towards the electorate has not been ‘awoken’ due to them not being able to vote. so over the years they will become increasingly important. Many Hispanic communities are also located in several vital swing states, for example, in California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas and New Mexico. Where the Hispanics make up more than 25% of the population. Particularly in Florida where they have a high number of electoral college votes, where their votes are even more important because of the closeness of the vote in these battle ground states. The fact that Hispanics are a disparate group- from Mexico, Puerto Ricco and Cuba as well as other central American countries. Means that all the different groups may all have their own political leanings. They are by no means a unified bloc, and so could heavily influence party votes in US elections. In particular, they can be seen as important ‘swing voters’ due to this, especially over social issues such as abortion and same sex marriage. These issues can sway the Hispanic subcultures to...
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...Angela Choi 111 ND-A Achoi5892@gmail.com Informative Speech Outline Topic: The importance of voting Type of Speech: issue Strategy for Presenting Content: Explanation General Purpose: To inform Specific Purpose: To inform my audience the importance of voting. Thesis Statement: Voting is essential and should be exercised by everyone because one vote can make a difference. Introduction: How many people are registered to vote? How many people are registered to vote and have voted? This is the dilemma the United States is facing today. Many people are registered to vote, but choose not to vote. It is important to exercise your voting rights because the decision our government officials make can have a huge impact on our lives. Voting in any type of election, from local races to Presidential primaries, provides an important way to voice your opinions regarding elected leaders and overall policies. In addition, voting decides our future by electing officials who reflect your own views. Therefore, voting is essential and should be exercised by everyone because one vote can make a difference. The ability to vote is one of the most cherished Constitutional Rights that many have fought, marched, and died for over the centuries. 1. Many people do not realize that voting is so vital that it can even have an impact on your daily life. Voting is the best way to...
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...Political advertising – a brief survey The empirical political advertising literature is limited. Most authors refer to Rothschild’s seminal (1978) article, which is both a review and a report on his tests of an involvement model. The level of involvement of voters in a particular election could depend on a wide range of factors, but Rothschild offers three general ones: 1. the level of the election (national/local etc.); 2. the closeness of the race; and 3. the volatility of the issues or candidates. There is some more recent work examining voter recall of political messages. Faber and Storey (1984), note voter responses to different messages and presentations (see, for example, Thorson et al., 1991), in particular negative ones (Faber et al., 1993; Garramone, 1984; Tinkham and Weaver-Lariscy, 1994). These studies used subjects in experimental groups rather than actual electoral or opinion poll data. More recently Ansolabehere and Iyengar (1995) have substantially added to the literature on negative advertising through the use of a very rounded and full quantitative and qualitative study which shows that a highly focused negative campaign can increase the turnout of those potential supporters predisposed to abstain by something in the order of approximately 29 per cent, thus maximising your supporters’ vote. Weaver-Lariscy and Tinkham (1987) investigated how Congressional election candidates evaluated different media and proposed six levels of response to political...
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...Imagine standing in a long line, in a hot, crowded courthouse, why are you there? Are you there to renew your driver’s license? Are you there to get new tags for your vehicle? You’re not there to renew your license, or get new tags for your vehicle, you’re there to VOTE. Ignore the crowd around you and keep in mind that you are there for a great reason. As a registered American voter, I would like to share with you the 4 steps for voting, show you the importance of voting, and encourage you to become a registered voter. Let me take you back to a critical time in America’s history. Let us begin by talking about the time or the civil war. It started in 1861. By the time of the Civil War, most white men were allowed to vote. In 1869, the 15th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to black men, with most women of all races still unable to vote. Before the civil rights movement, which started in 1955, only free, rich, white men who owned property could vote. Although freed African Americans could vote in four states, white working men, almost all women, and all people of color were denied the right to vote. There is no doubt that people lost their lives fighting for rights to vote. People have lost their lives for us to vote in war. Also, some people performed courageous acts on their own to try and prove a point and died. Who fought so hard for us to vote? Women and men who supported the cause fought. Susan b Anthony, perhaps the most well-known women’s rights...
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...Enticed by the offer of a $100 stipend, I signed up a few weeks ago with the Registrar of Voters in Broward County to become a poll worker on election day. As a soon to be High school graduate working as a cafe barista in the local mall, I figured the experience would offer a good opportunity to earn some extra spending money. Of course, as I soon figured out, the stipend, spread out over 15 hours, amounts to less than the minimum wage. So my real motivation for working on election day would be to fulfill a sense of civic duty -- and simultaneously satisfy my curiosity about how the mechanics of a democracy really work, all the way down at the level of punch cards and chads. Despite lacking any prior election experience, I was assigned by the county registrar to the highest post there is: inspector. This meant that I was in charge of opening and closing the polls, managing three election clerks and arbitrating often-murky cases of voter eligibility. A few days before the vote, I attended a pre-election training class at University of Miami For an hour and a half, I listened to an energetic, spastic man speak to us about voting procedures. Like a motivational speaker, he circulated around the room with a wireless microphone and did his best to raise our level of enthusiasm. Thanks to him, I learned how to dislodge faulty punch-card ballots from voting machines -- but not much else. Many in the room appeared to be recently naturalized citizens with little grasp of English. An official...
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...Mandatory Voting as a Response to Declining Voter Turnout In many parts of the world, the act of voting is seen as an act that empowers citizens and an act that gives them a voice. However, with the decline of voter turnout, this voice seems to be coming from a select few, leaving political scientists wondering about the remaining of the population. In response to this situation, many have suggested making the act of voting, a mandatory one. Making voting a compulsory act for all citizens does provide both the citizens and the political system with many benefits. However, there are those that oppose this idea, stating possible disadvantages and contradiction in ideologies. The matter in hand is tough for any nation to deal with but making voting a mandatory act proves to have more advantages than disadvantages. With the issue on hand, each side of the debate has to be given an equal opportunity to present their ideas in hopes of coming up with a viable way to deal with the situation. The hopeful outcome of making voting mandatory in countries has shown is to have an increase in voter turnout. This can be approached in different ways. For example, countries such as Switzerland, Peru, Argentina and Australia impose fines on people who do not vote. (Henry Milner 11). Other countries use other methods to single out non-voters. In Peru, voters carry around stamped cards that confirm they have voted in the election and these cards are presented at public offices for services to...
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...Sun Star Davao By Ivy C. Tejano Thursday, August 1, 2013 THOUSANDS more registrants trooped to the Commission on Elections (Comelec) office at Magsaysay Park during Wednesday's final day of registration for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections. While many of them made it, many failed to make it on time and blamed Comelec for its snail-paced processing. Still, others were hoping Comelec will extend the registration period. Analiza Mantimo, 15, of Tamugan Calinan, said it will be disappointing if ever she would not be registered. Mantino added that she had been at the Comelec office twice, but still she has not been accommodated. "Dili namo masabtan ang sistema nila diri. Bisan ako na mag pa transfer ra, wa gani ka sulod didto unya katulo na ni nako na adlaw diri (I can’t understand their system here. I just need to file for transfer of registration and yet I never made it into their office even on my third day of lining up)," said Marites Premitiba, 44, of Dumoy, Talomo District. "Sa kadaghan sa mga registrants kulang lang jud ang 10-day registration. Dagsa kayo ang mga mag pa rehistro unya pulo lang ka adlaw ilang gitagana para didto sa mga wala pa ka rehistro. Kulang ra pud kaayo ang adlaw (With the number of registrants, the ten-day registration is not enough. There were mobs every day. Ten days is not enough)," said May Ann Ambos, 15, of Tamugan Calinan. Exhausted registrants were still seen at the long lines Wednesday as they waited for several hours...
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