...Local Politics 10/20/2014 Voting Requirements Effect on Turnout The right to vote is a very important aspect of United States government, the voting process present itself as the representative act that the fundamental basis to our Democratic system here in the USA. Unfortunately if you go back not even a century ago African Americans and women was denied this fundamental right to vote, securing the right to vote in United States was a long battle both for African-Americans and women. We can see how voting outcomes is essential to the true democratic process by having tight voting requirement it hinders the process and effects turnout. Voting Turnout, while undergoing new legislation since the repeal of the Jim Crow Laws, are still undergoing voting suppression, still disproportionately effecting racial minorities and the poor. To truly understand how voting requirements effect voter’s turnout we would have to look at the history of voting requirements in the U.S. Throughout United States history there have been many barriers that states have imposed that restrict voting rights especially for racial minorities and the poor. One requirement that definitely made voting a little more difficult was with requiring Americans to register prior to voting this meant that not only a citizen was care enough to go out and vote on election night they also must register prior to doing so. Registration was mainly intended to stop voter fraud, so each state was allowed to create their own...
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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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...electors. Rather, it provides only that the electors shall be appointed as the state legislatures direct. Once a state determines that electors shall be chosen by popular vote it has wide latitude to determine eligibility to vote” (Hardaway 106). The electors are chosen based on the amount of House of Representatives and Senators each state has in Congress; the few hundred electors controls the United States vote (ABC News). This system is not democratic because the people are not the direct electors of the President, elite men and women of both political parties are in charge of choosing. If the system is kept that way, there is no real reason in having the eligible voters in voting because at the end of the day, their vote does not count causing various effects in the elections such as low voter turnout and lower voter efficacy.Citizens of the United States are discouraged to vote because they feel that their vote does not count since their government has established a group of people to “double-check” their preferred candidate. Why hasn’t the government abolish the Electoral College if more than 54% of the United States population believes that the popular vote should be the only counted votes? (Polling Report).Based on the polls, the majority of the United States population believes the current electoral system is incorrect, just by simply eliminating the Electoral College the system will become democratic because the people will directly elect the President. Allowing the members...
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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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...ending discriminating, but the United States has one last step. If the America is going to truly provide equal representation for all people then it ought to grant suffrage to those of age 16 and up. Before proposing that the voting age should be lowered it is necessary to examine the arguments of those opposed. Those opposed to lowering the voting age make three main arguments. The first being that teens under the age of 18 lack the maturity and brain development to make an informed decisions for themselves. The second argument contends that voter turnout among young people is already dismal and lowering the voting age would have negligible effects. The last argument claims that there is no valid reason...
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...campaigning has also drawn out a negative side, one that seeks to cast a damaging shadow on any opposition in order to attain the support of the majority. The types of political message given out by both politicians and the media vary in how they are constructed and what they intend to achieve, and despite widespread criticism surrounding its ethical fragilities, attack politics in particular have become a fundamental component of any political campaign and evidence has shown the electorate to show a greater interest in a more pessimistic tone of politics. This essay intends to address whether negative publicity in the form of attack advertising is an effective tool of electoral manipulation by evaluating its influence in engaging and mobilizing voters. Indeed, where research has shown it to be counterproductive, or to produce unintended consequences, its...
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...in a number of differing forms throughout the developed world. A referendum is broadly defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “a general vote by the electorate on a single political question”; however this definition fails to make distinctions between the many types of referendum which exist, or the modern day importance of referendums. In an initial classification there are three types of referendum as defined by the Britannica Concise Encyclopaedia. Obligatory referendums; which are required by law, optional referendums; which are put on the ballot when a sufficient number of voters sign a petition demanding that a law passed by the legislature be ratified by the people, and voluntary referendums; when legislatures submit to voters to decide an issue or to test public opinion. In the majority of political systems across the world we are witnessing a worrying downward trend in voter turnout. This can be attributed to a number of causes including; partisan dealignment, disenchantment with the political system and indifference to politics. Referendums can be used to help promote political participation by enabling the electorate to become better educated and informed and therefore reduce the feeling of alienation. By providing people with the opportunity to participate in referendums they are presented with the opportunity to educate and inform themselves on political issues. There is clearly a link between an informed electorate and higher levels of political participation...
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...democratic process should treat all citizens as free and equal persons. As applied to the electoral process this requires that each citizen equal opportunity to have his or her vote equally counted. Contention 1: Super PACs decrease voter turnout Subpoint A: Voter turnout is a pre-requisite to the election process A flourishing democracy presupposes citizens who care, who are willing to take part, and who are capable of helping to shape the common agenda of a society. Participation through the act of voting, is always seen as an essential prerequisite of stable democracy. Subpoint B: Super PACs decrease voter turnout by 25% “Unlimited spending by supposedly independent super PACs is creating widespread perceptions of corruption and undermining public confidence that elected officials serve in the public interest, The perception that super PACs are corrupting government is making Americans disillusioned, and an alarming number say they are less likely to vote this year. Americans say they are less likely to vote because big donors to super PACs have so much more influence over elected officials than average Americans. Americans believe super PAC spending will lead to corruption Subpoint C: Negative campaigning also leads to decreased voter turnout One reason the campaign has been so negative is the skyrocketing involvement of interest groups, who have increased their activity by 1100 percent over four years ago Contention 2: State Level Judicial Elections are harmed...
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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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...Make-up Position Paper - Wk4, Ch7 - Political Participation ASSIGNMENT INTRODUCTION - SUBMIT AS MAKEUP ONLY - READ FOR AIC. Dear class, Welcome to this week's Makeup Position Paper on Public Opinion and Participation. This make-up assignment is reserved for students who have failed to submit at least one, required position paper. Students must submit two makeup position papers in order to makeup for the credit lost on one required paper. If you wish to submit this assignment, please be sure to disable the TFE and topic text links before doing so. Furthermore, be sure to submit it in the proper folder. ASSIGNMENT BACKGROUND - IMPORTANT POINTS As usual, before I direct you to the week's assignment questions, there are a few remarks I would like to make regarding important, related issues and/or background material. Please consider the comments below, which touch upon a number of topics addressed in our text and which include a number of related observations taken from my own research. Purposes of Elections Firstly, one key point to remember is that elections, originally designed in order to allow citizens to select their own leaders, are also used by governments in order to build support for their policies. This is particularly true of parliamentary governments, which generally require simple plurality votes in order to pass sweeping legislation. In parliamentary governments, political parties are represented in direct proportion to the percentage of votes that they...
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...society. However, recent years have shown a slow but steady trend in declining voter turnouts at our triennial elections. There are many reasons that account for the turnout decline in New Zealand over time, many of which can be attributed to the changes in New Zealand society causing citizens to be less engaged in politics, especially youth. It is important to prevent the further decline of voter turnout and there are many ways that this trend can be rectified. New Zealand voter turnout has experienced a slow but steady decline throughout the 20th century; from an average of 85-90% in the...
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...traditional “wise man” approach to a social science- centric approach. The “wise man” approach was very critical in the start but soon began to fall behind the curve, and to meet this demeaned and changes of time a new approach needed to move in. the social science-centric approaches provide the basis for more successful campaigns, and many different elements to produce varying accurate data used in technology advanced political campaigns. The first approach called “Wise Men” established the bases for political strategy. “Wise men” were men who studied the area of political consultants as a result they were hired to help produce successful campaigns and voter turnout, which include many men like Dick Morris. “Wise men” used many different events of which included debates, party conventions, and television ads to win the voters choice. These big events gained popularity for the candidates which helped produce correct results for the “wise men”, but there still was no way in telling if the results were true or not or from which event caused the win in votes. “Wise man’s” data could not be decided if it was true or not because “there was no governing theory of where people got their information and how the processed it, or the relative role that parties, issues, and candidates profiles played in the minds as they weighted their choices before election day.” (20) An example of this is when Bob Shrum a democratic media consultant said, “ A campaigns rally is three people around a television...
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...Joseph Carr POL 205 Lanahan Essay #3 Low voter turnout is a direct danger to our democratic practices and the result of the elite pushing their special interests over the interests of the common man. Essay numbers sixty-six through seventy all deal with voting issues, showing the expanding flaws of American democracy in our modern world. First discussing the Exhibition season and the importance of the New Hampshire primary in grass roots politics, Dante Scala in Stormy Weather asserts that the first presidential primaries either give or take away a candidate’s momentum with the influence of the media fishbowl. Reading number sixty-seven No Place for Amateurs by Dennis Johnson focuses on the effect of political consultants on a candidate’s campaign for election. Discussing negative campaigning, reading sixty-eight Going Dirty by David Mark gives detail on political marketing, 527 groups and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform of 2002. Reading number sixty-nine Why we vote by David Campbell highlights the different reasons why people vote. Finally, reading number seventy How Barack Obama Won by Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser discusses the landmarks leading up to the 2008 election and the possibility of an alignment of the democrats. In Stormy Weather by Dante Scala the author describes the first stage of the election process as the exhibition season and the second stage as the media fishbowl. Scala describes the exhibition season as “the period that extends from the...
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...their campaign efforts towards these states because they can be the key to victory. In fact. “Swing states are usually the only ones who ever see the candidates campaigning for election” because of the advantages associated with them. Furthermore, the Electoral College system has created divisiveness between states by the use of the red-state blue-state system. These terms have become the basis for discrimination and prejudice over the course of American history. They have also “imposed the false notion that political ideology is entirely defined by geography” (Rich, Alex K., Heather Newton.). Simply put, red and blue state labels assign false identities to the many Democrats in red states, Republicans in blue states, and independent voters everywhere. In addition, these terms give candidates the “mistaken impression that an entire state supports them simply because they won the plurality in that state” (Rich, Alex K., Heather Newton.). This can also alter their campaign efforts, as well as create false information about the...
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...Moore Department of 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...
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