Tactical Non-Voting Analysis

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

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).

The debate over compulsory vs. non-compulsory voting is a complex subject matter to say the least, that has sparked much controversy in recent times with almost all strongly in favor of one side of the argument and or the other. This highly polarized debate has sparked in popularity in recent times because of a quote by former president Barak Obama in which he said that “It would be transformative if everybody voted”. It is believed that if everyone voted that could and was eligible then the domination of hard core partisans within the political system would be in part quelled as the candidates went where the votes are, which would be away from the extremes. Moreover some studies show that mandatory voting decreases the rates of uninformed voters within an area as voting becomes more of a civic duty than right. While the institution of compulsory voting would have a short term effect of increasing the rate of uninformed voters,

The United States national elections have been experiencing a steady decline of eligible voters showing up to vote. This steady decline has been ongoing since experiencing a significant increase in voter turnout from 1948 through 1960. Over the years there has been significant, meticulous research done to try to pinpoint the cause of the decline in voter turnout over years. All of this research has led to the production of an enormous number of literatures written on the perceived causes. The vast amount of literature produced has led to a number of competing explanations about this decline. The quest for the answer to the question of, why this decline in voter turnout, is very important for an overwhelming majority of Americans and

A voter can be defined as an individual who votes, or has the right to vote, in elections. Voting behaviour is explained using the concepts of expressive voting and strategic voting. A rational voter would act more strategically, that is, the voter would vote to produce an election outcome which is as close as possible to his or her own policy preferences, rather than voting on the basis of party attachment, ideology, or social group membership (expressive voting). Strategic voting has become more important than voting on the basis of political cleavages (expressive voting), so voters have become more rational in their approach, however there is always an element of expressiveness in their behaviour. Political parties were initially formed to represent the interests of particular groups in society however, as these parties became more universal in the appeal of their policy programmes, voting behaviour shifted from expressive to strategic. This essay explores the reasons behind the declining importance of political cleavages, and the rise of strategic voting.

For example, a rational voter will only vote if the personal benefits outweigh the costs. Most Americans know that the likelihood of one vote determining the outcome of the election is very low, therefore many people do not see a direct tangible benefit from voting in an election. Studies also show that the poor, unemployed, less educated and minority population tend to feel alienated from politics. Unless a candidate is specifically addressing their specific needs, this population of people do not feel the need to go out and vote. Another factor of low voter turnout is the media predicting early winners. When media and news outlets predict the winner of a vote before the polls are even closed, voters may feel discouraged from voting, thinking that their candidate has already lost and their vote will not make a difference. However, this can also work in the reverse direction, where people choose to go and vote in order to ensure that the predicted candidate does not win, as was seen recently in the Michigan primary election where Hillary Clinton was predicted to win ended up losing to Bernie

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.

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

Despite some proponents of compulsory voting claiming that rising rates of informal voting are due to a lack of respect towards politics research suggests that it is not the case. In 2004 the electorate with the highest rate of informal voting was the NSW seat of Greenway. At 12% Greenway’s informal voting rate was twice the national average. However this was largely due to other factors, the AEC concluded that in the 2004 federal election’ The 10 divisions with the highest informality levels were in the 27 divisions with the highest non-English speaking background levels nationally’ (Hill and Young 2007). Education level is another important factor in voting rates with the lowest informal vote in 2004 held mostly in upper middle-class seats especially those the Liberals Party held including Indi, Kooyong and Higgins. The rate of informal voting can be as low as 3% in affluent electorates such as Higgins but as high as 12% in electorates such as Greenway with a large proportion of voters from non-English speaking households. (Hill and Young 2007)

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

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:

A transition to MMP at the federal level will result in marked improvement in a number of functional electoral areas. The first of which that will be addressed is that of greater voter turnout at elections. The majority of research conducted on electoral systems and voter turnout has supported the notion that voter turnout is greater in countries that have some form of proportional representation (PR) over countries with plurality or majoritarian electoral systems (Karp and Banducci 311). The average increase in voter turnout in countries with PR, as found across a number

The big dilemma here is should we vote for the "wasted vote" for a third party candidate that we know based on statistics they will not win, or do we not and vote where the rest of the people will vote for. We too every now and again take this difficulty gently - we ask how it truly matters or we don't ask by any stretch of the imagination. We have ended up self-satisfied following quite a while a representation that does not experience our benchmarks and now and again we have generally expected less from our delegates. We grumble severely about the political procedure and the absence of choices, however when a decent alternative tags along we offer into the framework about which we have griped. Voting in favor of an outsider hopeful is not

Voter turnout, as well as election results, depend upon and are effected by several different factors. Everything from family status to beliefs about abortion can determine how a person will vote. In my presentation, however, I focused on three aspects that effect voter turnout and elections. I found, in my research, that a voter's age, sex and party identification greatly factor into how a person will cast his or her vote.

Less than 50% of eligible voters will turn out to vote at national elections, and at the local elections there are less than 25%. There is a correlation between voting behavior and the demographic of those voting.