The Extent to Which Voting by Ethnic Minorities Reflects the Voting Behaviour of the Whole Electorate

Linkage institutions can be defined as institutions that connect citizens with the government. Examples of linkage institutions include elections, political parties, interest groups, and the media. Elections specifically are supposed to encourage public participation in the selection of governmental officials. Unfortunately, low voter turnout has proved that elections are an imperfect linkage institution. Elections depend on voters to be successful, and some factors that relate to the likelihood of voting include age, education, and race. Although some people underestimate the power of the vote, voter turnout is

The result showed that there were racial preference in the voting patterns for the mayoral race, where 82% of Latino voters supported the Latino candidate Villaraigosa, 79% of black voters supported the white candidate Hahn and 58% of whites voted for Hahn (Abrajano, Nagler, & Alverez, 2005). Delgadillo won the city attorney race receiving the majority support from the Latino voters and black voters (Abrajano, Nagler, & Alverez, 2005). White voters who crossed over to vote for a Latino candidate voted based on the issue and position that the candidate was running on, but for Latino voters who voted for the white candidate, the context of the race mattered less (Abrajano, Nagler, & Alverez, 2005). In the spatial model, voter’s ideology had a positive significance in both races (Abrajano, Nagler, & Alverez, 2005). The more liberal the voters in the mayor race were, increased the chances that they would vote for the Latino candidate while in the city attorney race the more conservative the voter were the more likely they would vote for the Latino candidate (Abrajano, Nagler, & Alverez, 2005).

‘Voting behaviour at UK elections is determined more by issues of personality and image than on the basis of policies or performance in office’. Discuss.

In contrast Midwestern states, as well as New Hampshire and Rhode Island are more likely to have white populations at or above the national average of 79% as well as higher GDP per state than their Southern counterparts as seen in Appendixes 4 and 5. Unlike Southern states, Midwestern states, plus New Hampshire and Rhode Island, have less need to keep minority and poorer populations, who are less likely to have a form of voter Id, from the voting booth because they do not hold as much sway in elections as they do in the south. In addition, a few of these states are Democratic strongholds negating any need to disenfranchise these populations as they make up the majority of the Democratic voting base. While political culture and region, race, and poverty level appear to be strong indicators of voter ID laws in the south, the Midwest alongside New

In 1848 the Treaty of Gaudalupe-Hidalgo ends the Mexican-American War guarantying U.S. citizenship to Mexicans living in the territories conquered by the U.S. This may be touted as a victorious expansion of enfranchisement, however, English language requirements and violent intimidation limited access to voting. (Cox & Miles, 2008) This idea of progress on one end and regression on the other is a common theme with the franchise in America.

The purpose of enabling an individual or group of people watch over an election is to bring order and security to the voters. Elections have various rules and regulations that electoral parties and voters much abide by. This ensures a non-bias election has taken place and allows for the knowledge of what the people really want. Canada supports this statement with the creation of the chief electoral office, who most importantly is an independent office with no government ties. This office oversee the election and creates the rules and requirements for the entire country to ensure a non-bias election has taken place. The system used by the United States however is much different as they leave the decision making to each individual state. Each

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

To analyze this variable, I will look at country-level prevalence of visible minorities according to the 2011 National Household Survey by Statistics Canada (“Visible minority population”, 2011). It is necessary to know how many MPs that identify with these groups are currently in the House of Commons and the total percentage of seats occupied by these MPs to compare and see how severe the underrepresentation of these groups are (Tolley, 2015; “Current Members Data Set”, 2015). The article by Erin Tolley provides data based on visible minorities in Parliament and how well the population is reflected. The data set from the Commons website displays the name and constituency of each current MP, which I will use to match names to the MPs of diverse ethnic

In politics, racial and ethnic backgrounds tend to outline the outcomes of public policies- especially in minority communities. Minorities in the United States yearly increase due to both legal and illegal immigration (Shaw et al. 332). The trend will continue and by the middle of the 21st century, the minority population, cumulatively, will surpass the so-called White majority in the United States. The definitions of pluralism and two-tiered pluralism differ between the person’s race and ethnic backgrounds. As for the minorities, it may both bring some advantages and as well as disadvantages in public participation and the passing of public policies; however, in current times, two-tiered pluralism is becoming more dominant in politics as the racial divide within the United States continues to worsen.

The research will examine voting rights in relation to voting right inequalities and the society’s effort to have an all minority groups included in the civic process. The research will look into several historical factors that contributed to voting rights inequalities and how the society has evolved to solve issues related to the right to vote.

Voting behaviour is the way in which the individuals of the electorate vote. Typically this can be divided into a sociological approach based on entrenched characteristics such as class, age and region and rational choice approach based on individual decisions based on political issues, governance and party leaders or image.

Historically in America, voting has been a relatively discriminatory practice. It has limited and deprived many individuals of many diverse races, ethnicities, and walks of life from casting their votes to select the individual who they feel is most educated, and skilled to represent their interests. Not only has this been proven to be wrong by discriminating minority groups in voting, it also has proved to be a process, which minimizes the largest growing demographics in the country. Furthermore, with millennials growing to become more politically active, minority groups are becoming more politically involved than ever. Taking this into account an important question that is raised by the author William Eskridge in his book “Legislation and Statutory Interpretation” is “Would minorities be better off with more representatives who had to pay attention to their interests because they are a powerful and organized constituency, rather than with a few representatives of minority districts who specialize in protecting only their interests?” (Eskridge,Frickley,& Garrett, 2006, pp.55).

In the 1999 European elections the voter turnout for Britain was just 23%. The party ‘List’ method of elections has caused a great deal of controversy and there

Under the 15th amendment, there is a right to vote by every people who are the citizens of the United States even though; they are Latinos, African-American or Asian. Voting is the important issues in political process as well as for the people themselves to decide the upcoming government in election. Moreover that, immigrants citizen must be very concerned about voting as there are few candidate who shows interest in the favor of immigrants people. Among the immigrants, Hispanic or Latinos are the largest minority group i.e. 44.3 million or 15 percent according to the U.S. census bureau (2006) (Zulema Valdez). They got rights to choose a candidate as they can rely on for their needs to be fulfilled by that candidate. As shown, most of the Immigrants people are not utilizing their rights to vote even though, they are eligible to vote. Such kind of people who don’t participate to vote in the election, known as a voter apathy as their lack of interest in voting. Voter apathy is one of the main factors that impact the political process making very large difference in the upcoming government. A group-based discrimination has been the reason behind the voter apathy affecting the political participation. The political incorporation of immigrants or Latinos group is caused by the group based on resources or by their own perception for the election that’s the reason for not participating in the electoral political process which affect their political participation

It is not merely that different voting systems count votes differently, but that different voting-system arrangements alter the incentives that voters and parties face to do certain things: to vote for one party over another, to try to appeal to one group of voters over another, and so on (Pilon 12)6.