The Importance Of Absentee Voting

Even after the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment, African Americans were “disenfranchised in the South by intimidation and electoral trickery, including whites-only primaries, rigged literacy tests, and poll taxes” (Patterson 2011, p. 180). The Freedom Riders rode through the South, enduring harassment and imprisonment to encourage other African Americans to vote. Voter turnout in African American communities is greatly encouraged. Personally, coming from an African American family, I was strongly encouraged by my parents and grandparents to vote when I was of legal age. My family instilled the importance of voting in me at a very young age. Although voter turnout among African Americans is still fairly low, in the 2008 presidential election African Americans had the second highest voter turnout, behind non-Hispanic Caucasians (African Americans, n.d.). Race can influence voter turnout because with African Americans specifically, although rates are getting better, they are still not high.

Voting has not always been as easy as it is today. It is interesting to examine how far America has progressed in its process of allowing different types of people to be able to vote. Voting was once aimed at a particular group of people, which were white males that owned their own property. Today, most people over the age of eighteen can vote, except for the mentally incompetent or people who have been convicted of major felonies in some states. The decline of voter participation has always been a debate in the public arena. According to McDonald and Popkin, it is “the most important, most familiar, most analyzed, and most conjectured trend in recent American political history (2001, 963)” The question is, how important is voter

The outcome of the 2016 election left many Americans feeling confused, angry, cheated, and terrified of the future. Somehow, the sexist, racist, homophobic candidate Donald Trump had become the nation’s president, though Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton received the majority of popular vote. This raised many questions over the constitutionality of the Electoral College system, and whether it was unfair to the people of the United States. In the electoral system, created by the Founding Fathers due to their lack of trust in the people, the constituents of each state vote for their preferred candidate, and all of the state’s electoral votes go to the candidate with a majority. Clearly, the Electoral

Voters Identification law may suppress minority voting and it may not suppress minority voting. We have so many different races that enter this country with permission and without. The laws for visiting or becoming a legal resident in this country is complicated especially because of the terrorist attacks. Identification laws are necessary in my opinion. It helps identify people, most importantly it helps to decrease any fraudulent activities in this country. I can say if it has anything to do with racial and ethnic minorities, maybe it’s a coincidence that majority of African Americans and Hispanic have less access to photo IDs, some of us are not legal citizens, or maybe not. The law complicates everything in general for good reasons so they feel. I can understand what the research and studies demonstrates, about the decrease in minority audience and increase Republican Party turnouts. I do believe if you have a higher mindset you can attain all things that seem impossible. I know firsthand how difficult it is for African Americans to register to vote without an ID, the law won’t even to let you register if its expired. So what the law has gotten strict, so what, that should motivate African Americans and other races in this country to push through any obstructions to get an ID so they can be apart in making changes in this society. I know African Americans went through what may have seem like Hell but they overcame it and contribute to adding Amendments, why go through

Many African American voters all across the country were disenfranchised by being turned away or not having their vote counted due to errors. Over 1.9 million# Americans cast ballots which were either rejected or not counted, and roughly 1 million of them belonged to African Americans nationwide. Florida’s Gadsden County, which had the highest percentage of African Americans in the whole state, disregarded and did not count 1 out of every 8 ballots cast. One of the reasons votes were not being counted was due to ‘stray marks’. Stray marks render votes invalid as it is unclear who the voter was choosing, because it appeared as if they chose more than one candidate. Another was when the voter writes in a candidate’s name, as the machine or person cannot understand what the intention was therefore the vote goes to neither candidate and is disregarded. In many cases, African Americans wrote in ‘Al Gore’, however, optical reading machines marked these as rejects because ‘Al’ was interpreted as a stray mark. Of the nearly 180,000 ballots that were cast out by Florida officials, 53% of them belonged to African American voters. In the more caucasian districts such as Tallahassee, everything seemed to run smoothly, it was almost unheard of to hear about an uncounted or discarded ballot. In contrast, in the predominantly African American populated districts, hundreds of African Americans showed up at the polls to have their votes simply disappear, and this was even after if they managed to escape the purge

Even though Alexander Hamilton accurately predicted foreign powers attempting to gain a stake in the American election, he missed several other pitfalls in the Electoral system, and those are all becoming apparent in modern times (Salon). Currently, the issue leaves the public feeling as though they are unrepresented, and this not only weakens the trust Americans have in their government, it weakens the process of determining a new president

Absentee ballots became big in the 2016 presidential election. There were nearly 78,000 returning ballots for the state of South Carolina in the Republican and Democratic parties. These numbers were double the numbers of the 2008 elections, which was also marked as a record high turnout. Absentee ballots are used by an immense number of Americans in our society today. The absentee ballot process is quick and easy and benefits everyone who is eligible for the ballot.

Robert Smalls preludes his essay Election Methods in the South by stating how important the right to vote is and how it is our given right by the Constitution to be able to vote no matter perceived differences. Smalls goes into detail how the government in South Carolina is corrupt in counting the ballot and in how there is no “free ballot.” “Elections since then have been carried by perjury and fraud – two things worshipped and adored by the South Carolina Democracy.” Smalls shows us two extremes polls not being open or being open but corrupt in counting for Republicans. He shows us how much the African American people and their votes are needed to make our government stronger as a whole.

The U.S Constitution gives the states considerable latitude in the way of conducting elections. The American citizens have many opportunities to vote. However, a turnout in American elections has dramatically decreased over the past several decades. In order to address this issue, majority of states have allowed absentee voting reforms. These convenient reforms are thought to increase the voter turnout in the elections, as well as to reduce administrative costs.

The Supreme Court’s decision has raised many concerns. While some individuals see this ruling as America taking another step in the right direction, in order to build a stronger more united nation that’s no longer haunted by the dark past of slavery. Others fear that this ruling will continue to perpetuate voting discrimination in states where discrimination was and is still very common. In Justice Ginsburg dissent to the court’s majority ruling she states that “everyone can agree that race-based voting discrimination still persists2”. Yet, despite this mutual understanding of race issues in America the section 4 coverage of the Voters Rights Act was still stroke down. A decision that many activists, leaders and government officials disagree

Tensions and emotions are running high, and some days it feels like the United States may be on the brink of a Civil War. Millions of constituents are furious as the turn of events that have taken place, and they feel as though the electoral system has slighted them. Despite all the progress that has been made for democracy over the past century, the country seems to be moving backwards. In 2013, the Voting Rights Act was gutted, allowing for the voter ID laws to take hold. During this year’s election, the impact of voter suppression has had a staggering effect on the results.

The citizens of the United States of America populate a very privileged nation relative to the majority of developing countries. Americans are able to exercise a multitude of rights. Despite having freedom to the most basic of rights, Americans do not take full advantage of their liberties. One such instance relates to American’s right to vote in elections. Presently, U.S citizens of differing heritage, skin color, gender, and social standing has the liberty to vote for the authoritative figures who will run their government at the local, state, and nationwide scale, yet very few U.S citizens are present at voting polls during off year elections. The cause of the nationwide absence at the polls is reflective of U.S. citizens’ distrust of the political system and their state of ignorance concerning current national issues.

There could be so many reasons why the voter’s turnout is so low. Most of them decline, because they have no public interest for elections. Back before the Constitution was sign African American couldn’t vote, it was called white privileges and women did have the right to vote. So I thing that still plays a part in the African American communities. Then most of them feel that their vote does not matter anyway. American have no motivation to vote like they once did. The voter turnout in the United States is low due to the fact that voters either choose not to vote, they are not a citizenship, or they have been in prison, and or other legal barriers that makes them ineligibility. A large percentage of the individuals are not voting because political

The laws and provisions that will be discussed disproportionately affect racial minorities, the poor and unenthusiastic voters (as in people who do not enthusiastically research voting laws and instead choose to spontaneously vote). This paper will first present the context of contemporary voting laws and how they affect suppression. The detailed scope of the problem will be explored, along with what general outcomes should be sought. Second, change strategies pursued by other organizations will be discussed. Third, a specific initiative at Clark University will be presented, which holistically considers the nature of the problem and what kind of obstacles

Another way to address low voter turnout is to lump elections together. According to a text (Dye & MacManus, 2015), when city and county elections are held separately from national elections they usually produce turnouts of 25 to 35 percent. When local voter turnout is low the implications extend much further than the ballot box. American lives are busy and continue to get busier each year, that’s why some states have adopted a vote by mail system. A vote by mail system would eliminate the need to get to a polling place during certain hours and wait in long lines. According to an article (Office of the Comptroller City of New York, 2016), Washington saw significant and immediate increases in turnout after transitioning to all mail elections