The Relationship Between Voter Demographics And Early Voting Turnout

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.

Since 1972, youth voter turnout has been on the decline. According to the Child Trends Databank, 50 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 participated in the 1972 presidential election (2015). Nearly three decades later, the percentage of young adults aged 18 to 24 who voted in the 2000 presidential election had dropped eighteen

The most important factor to evaluate if voter turnout has decreased is calculating and constructing the turnout rate, “when it equals the total number of votes cast divided by the eligible electorate” (McDonald and Popkin 2001, 963). This means that researchers rely upon the Bureau of Census statistics of the voting-age population (VAP) for the denominator. According to the Bureau of the Census, the VAP includes people ineligible to vote. This group of people consists of noncitizens, felons, and the mentally incompetent. The voting-age population also fails to include the citizens who are living overseas whose votes can count. The inclusion of ineligible populations in the VAP creates a negative skew to the data used to calculate voter participation. This, in turn, would make voter participation appear to be declining more than it actually is since, according to McDonald and Popkin, the population of those ineligible to vote, like noncitizens and felons, has been

Yet it is a swing state. The record shows despite the victory of President Obama in the state of North Carolina, the state is dominantly Republican since 1960s. Based on the facts, there are slightly more Democratic voters in North Carolina (2.8 million) than Republican voters (2.0 million). 54% of the voters consist of women. These facts favor Hillary Clinton but still both parties would campaign heavily for those 15 electoral votes. According to the early vote in North Carolina, 40 percent of the electorate already cast the ballot and the amount portrays a significant lead towards the former Secretary of State. Overall, Mrs. Clinton led the early votes by 51 to 39 percent in three way race and 53-39 percent in two-way race. Researchers found out the amount of Democratic voters in North Carolina declined in 2016 compared to the amount four years ago. On the other hand, the amount of Republican voters increased this year compared to the amount in 2012. The number of registered Democratic voters declined by 5.1 percent and the number of early voters have dipped by 3.1 percent. This shows the number of Democratic turnout hasn’t dropped as much as the number of registered Democrats. Another side of the early votes show the early votes of Black voters dropped from 28 percent in 2008 to 23 percent in 2016. This shows the lack of enthusiasm from the North Carolina black voters. It

The Blanket Primary in Louisiana is “unique primary system”. The Blanket Primary is also known as a “Jungle” Primary in Partisan elections. The reason it’s called a blanket primary is because the party affiliation is not mentioned on the ballot. The winner of the primary is the candidate who has the majority of the vote. If two candidates have the majority of the vote, they run against each other in a run off regardless of their party affiliation. In Louisiana, there is a possibility that a Republican can run against another Republican if two Republicans happen to have the majority of the vote.

In the last half of the twentieth century, voter turnout in federal elections has declined. During the same period, voter turnout has been higher in presidential elections than in midterm elections.

The voter barrier explanation for the decline in voter turnout in US national elections was researched and analyzed by, Fair Vote- The Center for Voting and Democracy, organization. They classify these barriers as being registration and the scheduling of elections during the workweek that intensify the disparity in turnout between low and high income voters (Fair Vote, 2012). Given that Fair Vote does recognize and acknowledge that this is not the only problem that has affected voter turnout to decline, they do believe that it plays a substantial role in it. However, not only do they state that these

There was 72% white, 13% black, 10% Hispanic, 3% Asians, and 2% others (Ginsbert et al, 2013). Voters between age 18-29 was 19%, 30-44 years old was 27%, 45-64 years old was 38%, 65 years old or greater was 16% (Ginsbert et al, 2013). Voters with annual income less than $30,000 was 20%, income of $30,000-$49,000 were 21%, and income greater than $50,000 was 59% (Ginsbert et al, 2013). There were 53% who voted that had no college degree, 20% voted who had a college graduate, and 18% voted that had a post graduate degree (Ginsbert et al, 2013). There was 38% that voted Democrat, 32% voted Republican and 29% voted Independent (Ginsbert et al, 2013).

“From 1972 to 2012, citizens 18-29 turned out at a rate 15 to 20 points lower than citizens 30 years older” from this data we can conclude that age is a demographic that affects voter turnout (What Affects Voter Turnout). Voting laws such as those of identification or registration impact voter turnout. For example, the introduction of early voting was meant to increase voter turnout, but has in fact decreased turnout (What Affects Voter Turnout). In response to the argument that the system lowers voter turnout rate, one should take the many other variables that contribute to turnout into account.

Matsubayashi and Ueda (2010) analyzed whether white voters used candidate race as a voting cues in an election between a white and Black candidate. The data were gathered from local precinct level

The percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics who voted in 2008 for the Democratic party was significantly higher than in the 2000 or 2004 election. This graph depicts how the percentage of African-Americans who voted in 2008 (Barak Obama) increased from 88% in 2004 to 95% in 2008. The percentage of Hispanics who voted for the Democratic party from 2004 to 2008 also jumped 14%. A reason for this increase in voter turnout is because Hispanic and African-American voters felt that Barak Obama, the Democratic Presidential candidate, was more capable of solving the problems these minorities felt than a Republican candidate would be.

The main point according Martin P. Wattenberg in Is Voting For Young People is that young people today do not vote during elections as much compared to other voting groups. Young people today are politically unengaged. “These state patterns of voting participation can be confirmed on the national level by the Census Bureau’s 2010 survey data. Among U.S. citizens under the age of 30 in 2010, only 24 percent reported that they voted.” (Page-188, IVYP) The low attendance of young people voting in Presidential elections indicates that young people do not care enough about politics to participate.

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

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:

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.