Essay

Republicans and Democrats have been the two main political parties who have battled for control of political positions in the United States since the mid 1850’s. While Republican’s and Democrat’s political ideologies have changed throughout their history, since the late 1960’s their parties coalition has relatively stayed the same. In this essay I will briefly summarize these political ideologies that define the Democratic and Republican parties today, before discussing some of the similarities between the two, and then closing with who I agree with more and why I will continue to vote for that party.

The Voter Guide Release Party was a non-partisan political event encouraging the community to vote, while also providing the necessary resources and knowledge which would prepare citizens for the upcoming election. MOVE is the nonprofit civic organization that hosted the event. The event had a successful turnout. I recall a person commenting "Wow, this place is bumpin'!" before sliding into a small gap between two people, then vanishing into the mingling crowd. The space was filled with people eager to be involved with the upcoming election. The age range varied, but everyone was either eighteen or older. The event also highlighted a journalist and writer who wrote a book regarding the importance of voter participation.

We have come a long way from a time when only white, affluent, property owning males could vote. In terms of ‘voting rights’ it was a gradual expansion of the vote, which slowly began to expand to all whites, individuals once labeled slaves or ‘aliens’, African Americans, military personal and women. To vote in the United States, no longer do you need to pass a literacy test, but you must be a U.S citizen and at least 18 years old on Election Day. In addition, some states also require various periods of residency before voting is permitted. Furthermore some states restrict felons or those mentally incompetent to vote. In Massachusetts, for the first time, there was Early Voting. During this period, October 24th to November 4th, registered voters were allowed to cast their ballots. During this period of Early voting, I along with a group of classmates had the engaging opportunity to be an exit pollster. We decided to canvas much of the Boston area, with hopes of a ranging demographic. This hands-on experience, working with a team in carrying out the exit poll, allowed for a greater insight to the dynamics of election administration, a deeper understanding on the rights of voters and voter turn out, technique for attaining a random sample, the role of the interviewer and importance of survey design.

With key aspects of the Voting Rights Act being returned to the regulation of the state governments, there has been a trend of the defunding and stricter rules directed toward voting registration drives. These drives have long been problematic with the concepts of “priming” and “fraud” being discussed in relation to their existence, but they have played a huge role in the outreach program to increase overall voter turnout. There have been arguments that they decrease the urgency of the vote which has also been applied to early voting periods and Election Day Registration acts, but they succeeded in increasing the voter turnout rate overall and decreasing the wait lines at the poll, bringing forth the question as to why voting urgency would be a necessity in the process of the vote. Since the changes to the VRA, many states have gone forth to defund these drives, seeing them as having no purpose and being a waste of money. Many states that kept the drives added strict regulations. These include not allowing blank registration

2 U. S. C. §441b. An electioneering communication is any type of broadcast that refers to an identified candidate for Federal office and is made within 30 days of a primary election. Unions or corporations can create a political actions committee to show their advocacy but cannot directly involve themselves with an identified candidate.

the connection from contact and voter turnout may be misleading. Also, the sample size was small for the study, leading to question the unreliability and perhaps overstating the outcome of the mobilization campaigns. This study did find that for competitive races the likelihood of voter turnout increased 5% and those voters were likely to contribute money. They also determined that those running the campaigns were most likely to target those who had resources, or were affiliated with parties, and had strong social networks. They concluded that those with certain associations were easier to be mobilized to vote.

This past weekend, mid-term elections took place nationwide. According to the United States Election Project headed by Dr. Michael McDonald at University of Florida,with just a voter turnout of 36.4%, it was the lowest overall turnout since World War II which occurred 70 years ago. Mid-term elections are congressional elections that occur halfway through the president’s term. Congressional ballots are held every two years and all House of Representative seats are contested as well as one-third of Senate seats. Most state legislature and governor elections(about thirty six out of fifty states) occur the same day(M.D.). These elections have the ability to change the way America is governed. For example, with the 1994 mid-term elections that occurred during President Clinton’s reign came a power shift within the House and the Senate from Democrats to Republicans. This power shift resulted in the reform of the welfare system. Therefore, it is important for people, especially minorities, to exercise the right to vote.

The author Jonathan Darman claims that the composition is the largest difference between the two parties when comparing today’s politics with politics around the 1960’s. All in all it used to be easier for voters to support the opposing party. When studying today’s politic polls, some similarities with the American presidential election in 1992 are visible as well. That year,

Perhaps there is something intrinsic to the state that causes the effects we have seen, such as increased turnout for special and local elections, or increased retention of high-resource voters. To this end, the work of Kousser and Mullin (2007) is beneficial. In California, every precinct with under 250 registrants is designated a VBM precinct. This includes two full counties, and many other precincts throughout the state. Thus, the authors used California as a natural experiment to investigate the effects of VBM in the 2000 and 2002 presidential and gubernational elections. To alleviate concern from lack of random assignment, they matched precincts as closely as possible by political context, partisan composition, and racial composition. Consist with the findings of Gronke and Miller (2012), the authors found no positive effect of VBM on turnout in these elections, and in fact found that VBM decreased turnout. This effect was small, but statistically significant. However, the authors conducted a separate experiment, matching several counties that used VBM or polling place elections to consider the effect VBM might have on local special elections (those which fill a seat or consider a local proposition). To this end, their results are consistent with the reviewed literature since Southwell and Burchett (2000) to indicate an increased turnout in special elections. The authors postulate that getting the ballot in the mail may increase the salience of a local or special election, essentially serving as a reminder to vote when the election is not particularly salient. This serves as an excellent explanation for the indications of all studies I have reviewed that investigated special or local elections and found turnout increases under VBM. Perhaps it is not the convenience of a mail ballot, but in fact the salience that tends to increase turnout. This also offers an

The new time frame representing two-weeks before Election Day. This includes two Sunday’s and two work day weekends to ensure that those based on non-salary jobs have the opportunity to make it to their closest polling station for convenience and to reduce religious discrimination. Polling stations are also subject to this reform. There needs to be an increased number of polling stations represented at universities, libraries, and other appropriate locations to ensure transportation is a limited factor when one is deciding to vote for a candidate in the two-week early-voting period, or on Election Day. These measures provide positive rational, sociological, and psychological aspects to voting based on reduced cost. A reduced difficulty of transportation cost, childcare cost, and loss of work will be limited due to new time-frames. This will promote eligible voters to make it to the polls with minimal systematic barriers so they can focus on the candidates and issues that are important for themselves and their

This past Tuesday, the people of LA elected into office, half the seats on the City Council and several school board and community college board seats and successfully passed two ballot measures with an overwhelming majority. This article is concerned with the extremely low voter turnout for local elections and the possible solution to increase involvement in local politics. On Tuesday, less than 1 in 10 citizens showed up to cast their ballots in the Los Angeles local election. The irony is that the ballot measures that passed pertained to the process of increasing the low voter turnout rates in L.A.’s local election process. The charter amendments 1 and 2 will move L.A.’s election dates to June and November of even-numbered years starting in

American voting patterns is often a topic studied by numerous people for a variety of reasons. Whether it is to gain an advantage in an election or trying to predict the outcome of an election, the study of American voters has always been researched. “The American Voter Unabridged Edition,” by Angus Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald Stokes, is regarded as the model for conducting voting research. The scope of the book is astounding, ranging from the political parties to the psychology of individual voters, the book laid the foundation for further voting examination.

In modern industrialized democracies, the broadcast media reach virtually all adults and provide a national forum for candidate and political parties. (Iyengar 19) Media systems today do this so much that they become repetitive and sometimes annoying to viewers. During the presidential campaign there is a lot of media time given to the candidates through debates, interviews, other outlets, and their own advertisements that they pay for themselves. I am fully aware that our country needs to be involved and notified of political events as they currently happen but recently there has been major coverage each day about small things. For example, if a candidate is just out around or doing something that we have already seen then it should not be

In today’s world, the live television broadcasts of the nominee’s campaign is the primary way messages are spread to majority of the nation.

In an effort to control mentioning of Donald Trump, close examination of popular media outlets with large audiences will enable the campaign to see changes to rhetoric or schedule of statement releases (there are, on average, over 200,000 mentions every month). (Politico Staff, 2016) Campaign staff as well as Trump himself will be speaking with media in a manner that promotes a tight hold on delegates over the course of the election. Rallies will require significant control efforts because of protesters. Press conferences will enable the campaign to release accurate information at appropriate times. This helps keep information circulating in the public to be favorable. Social media is now a substantial part of elections. Releasing information and ads on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube will generate needed feedback from audiences. Resources will be allocated to these sources of information because it is the most effective way of controlling what information flows around in the public, thus allowing the campaign to have a good amount of control on publicity and media coverage.