Low Voter Turnout is NOT a Significant Problem in the United States

Political scientists have made tremendous efforts in discovering what factors influence the voting turnouts. Irrefutably within any country, older citizens and those with higher education and income are more likely to participate in elections; this possibly explains the partisanship, a method of the “ill-informed,” displayed along the east coast, for the educational requirements attributed to these provinces are less than the Canadian national average (Garnier , 2006). When an election has closely contested parties there is a higher voter turnout, for citizens believe that their votes will make more of a difference. In Canada it has been proven that citizens are more likely to vote in national elections than in municipal elections; municipal elections typically garner less than 50% of the voting populace’s support, while national elections have never experienced less than a 60% turnout (Heard, 2011). Proportional representation has been associated with higher voter turnouts; as opposed to Single member plurality systems, the system used in Canada, where voters feel their efforts to make a difference are futile due to the “First

One factor that decreases voter turnout is the misconception that a person’s vote does not matter. Alienation is a feeling of personal powerlessness that includes the feeling that the government does not care about individual people. These people believe that the government will not respond to their concerns even if they do vote. The problem is that a large portion of the population shares this attitude. People can have negative

     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

In the article “The Myth of the Vanishing Voter” by Michael P. McDonald and Samuel L. Popkin, it is argued that the decline in voter participation in national elections since 1972 is an illusion created by the Bureau of the Census because it uses the voting-age population to calculate voter turnout instead of calculating the population of citizens who are eligible to vote (2001, 963).

Many scholars believe that falling civic organization membership and the general decline in our Social Capital has negatively impacted voter turnout.” (Kaufmann. 145) To summarize, people in the United States are “less involved” with other groups and other people as a whole, so it is only logical to feel they would be less involved or interest in our political and governmental future.

US parties are often described as organisationally weak because they are essentially ‘broad coalitions’. For example they contain moderates like McCain republican) and Obama democrat), while also having a more conservative wing. Therefore stronger party organisation would give parties a narrower appeal and potentially alienate large ‘voting blocs’ or proportions of the electorate. This is a reason why it is argued that having ‘organisationally weak’ parties is a necessity in the US political system. It has therefore been argued that symptoms of weak organisation e.g issue centred or candidate-centered election campaigns are deliberate as parties attempt to gain a maximum

I believe that the low voter turnout in most elections is appalling. Why do people want to willingly give up their voice in our governmental system? Fewer than 37% of all eligible voters actually cast a ballot in the last presidential election. Many claim ignorance of political issues, but I believe that must stem from laziness. If people would

Essentially, vigorous voter turnout is very paramount to a healthy economy. In most cases, low turnout is attributed to low participation in political issues and the misguided notion that voting in one candidate will have less impact on public policy. In the United States, voter participation keeps on fluctuating which has been an area of concern especially in midterm elections. More specifically, the 2014 midterm election reported the lowest voter participation in a period of more than seven decades. This paper delves into analyzing the reasons for the low voter turnout in 2014 midterm elections in the United States. The paper will also provide recommendations on how voter turnout may be increased in the 2016 general elections.

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

This chapter reviews the much-discussed low voter turnout and the poor percentage of other forms of political participation in the United States. After reading and reviewing the material in this chapter, the student should be able to do each of the following:

As politics and government becomes more complex and involved, more effort is required to keep up with and understand it. As a result, many Americans have lost touch with current events and happenings. Therefore, when election time rolls around, many people lack enough information to develop an educated opinion and support a candidate with their vote, so they just do not vote at all. This lack of information is also related to the belief that one vote will not matter. People believe that their vote will not count, and are therefore following the news less and becoming out of touch with public affairs and politics (Is the System Broken?”). This lack of information is also more strongly apparent among the younger voting population. When interviewed

Obstacles to voting and the absent voting of pure independents are the reason of low turnout in the U.S. today, which may also have great influence both politically and legally. The voter turnout is the percentage of qualified voters who actually go to an election to cast a ballot. Overall, the voter turnout in America is low, with only between 51 and 57 percent of eligible voters going to polls in presidential elections from 2004 to 2012. The reason why America has such a low turnout is because of several obstacles in voting. The U.S. do not provide paid holiday for voters who are workers to vote or well-structured politics for different racial voters, other obstacles like advanced registration and absentee voting also make the voting more difficult for voters. The pure independents, who are unlike independent leaners or behaviour independents, are less well informed and less care about the election information and also definitely less likely to vote on the Election Day, they do not have any preference for any candidates or parties. As Hershey mentioned in his book,

The change from partisan to personal electoral politics is usually associated to changes in the political environment that increased the growth of individual politicians’ aspects and weakened traditional party organizations. This means that candidate-centered politics have raised in the past years causing changes in the role of political parties. These changes can be attributed to campaign advertising technologies such as the popularity of television, the replacement of patronage with civil service employment, and the rise in personal assets available to elected officials for constituency service. These factors influenced voters to see parties as increasingly insignificant, and party attachments have dropped.

Today, political parties are an authoritative and essential component of the United States political system. However, it is important to examine how the political parties began and evolved over hundreds of years, since they were first established. In 1794, the major political parties were the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. The major difference between these two was that the Federalists favored a strong central government, while the Democratic-Republicans preferred a central government with limited power and more state control. At the time of the election, it seemed that the prominent, distinguished Federalist Party clearly had the upper hand, but in the end the

this low voting rate was attributed to a general lack of feeling of responsibility. As young adults age, marry, and become parents, their sense of community and responsibility increases, while their apathy toward voting decreases, (Abramson 116). Another reason for low voter turnout numbers for 18 to 24-year-olds is their generally low levels of party loyalties. Not having strong party ties decreases one's incentive to vote.