Theories Of Voting

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

The behavior of voters has great importance to politics as the people decide mainly who wins. The study of the behavior of the electorate has increased as politicians seek to appeal to the voters and find ways to gain followers and most importantly votes. The two articles Democratic Practice and Democratic Theory and The Responsible Electorate discuss the behavior of voters in the United States, and the importance of the electorate.

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,

Voting plays an important role in the modern lives that can easily shape the whole world. While some people believe that voting should be voluntary, I believe that voting should be mandatory for more social benefits. This essay will discuss the reasons why voting should be compulsory.

The voter turnout rates can lead to a multitude of things like education and more accurate votes to the simple feel of completing a civic duty. The endgame of voter turnouts is the education of voters involved (Document F) as well as the accuracy of the vote being unquestionable (Document E). This increased voter turnout can lead to the connection of people through gathering, regardless of age (Document B). “...Civic virtue; it’s sentimentality,”(Document G). The previous quote shows that civic virtue can go a long way from not only yourself emotionally, but others too. Higher voter turnout rates cannot only improve a multitude of things in our country, but also can give our nation a legitimate name.

“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.

Voting in elections is the most important form of participation in American politics. Even though this is true, America has a very low voter turnout. This is defined as the percentage of eligible voters who actually show up to vote. Only 6 out of 10 Americans vote in the presidential election, and it is even lower for midterm and local elections (Ginsberg, 306, 2013). Voter participation today is substantially lower than it was in the 19th century. Although, the number of people that could vote was lower than it is now, considering that women and other minorities were not allowed to vote until later in the century (Schulman, n.d). Age, gender, education, income, ethnicity, and religious affiliation all have differing effects on voter turnout rates. Education and income are the top factors that determine whether someone votes or not. Someone with a higher income and educational knowledge about voting are more likely to vote verses someone with a lower income and no education. If citizens do not have any knowledge about the voting process or candidates, they become discouraged and do not turnout to vote. Also, Texas is one of the states with the lowest voter turnout rates in the country and ranks in the bottom third of voter participation (Ginsberg, 821). Reasons for this are because Texas has a lower average age than the national average, and young citizens are more likely not to vote. Also, Texas has a political culture that is traditionalistic and individualistic. In a traditionalistic political culture, the political and economic elite discourage voting. In an individualistic political culture, the people choose not to vote because of “ real or perceived corruption in government” (Ginsberg, 821). Texas has a tradition of keeping a decentralized government, which causes numerous elections. Voters become overwhelmed with the

The book “The Persuadable Voter” by Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields examines voters decisions and actions with a focus on persuadable voters. Hillygus and Shields define the persuadable voter as a reasoned voter who vote might change, is undetermined or may not agree with their party. Persuadable voters are often used synonymously with independents and those without a strong partisanship towards one party or the other. Persuadable voters have been often simplified without much examination that goes into what causes these voters to be persuadable or influenceable. Hillygus and Shields question modern myths about persuadable voters and offer their own thoughts on the topic. The authors found that the persuadable voters

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

Conservatives receive an increasing percentage of votes in correlation with age and Lib Dem and Labour have high performance among the younger groups. The writer G.B. Shaw once wrote that, 'If you are not a socialist by the time you are 25, you have no heart. If you are not a Conservative by the time you are 35, you have no head'.  There is the entrenched view that young people are more liberal whilst as individuals grow older they become more set in their ways, more wedded to traditional values and attitudes and more likely to believe that Conservative governments are more likely to safeguard their financial and personal security which appear increasingly important in later life. Considering this, surprisingly in the 2010 general election, the ages of 18-24 voted fairly equally between the three main parties with the age bias gap only really becoming apparent from the age 55 onwards. This shows that younger prejudices and party alignment are not as ingrained as that of the elderly meaning that old people may be influenced in their voting behaviour by their age but the same is not as apparent for young people, despite the surface recognition that it is. Yet the implication of young people sharing their votes between parties could be due to other factors, when

Hypothesis 2: Young voters are least likely to vote when compared with their older counterparts.

In this essay, I would like to discuss the major obstacles to voting, recent changes to overcome voting barriers and the political influence of changed rules. Low turnout in the U.S. reflects that there are obstacles for people to voting and changes to overcome these obstacles may also bring new problems to different social groups. I will elaborate on these aspects in the following parts.

The issue depends totally on whether the presidential voting framework is improved. That would take an interstate smaller between states with a larger part of constituent votes. That would set aside some time to go sufficiently through states – maybe 3-6 years once things got going – so it's somewhat of a long shot for the following 10 years. The presidential voting framework utilized as a part of the US is majority voting, sifted through the discretionary school. The experimental perception that this framework all around prompts two-gathering predominance is known as Duverger's law. It bodes well; the length of you can vote in favor of only one applicant, you would be advised to vote in favor of one of the two leaders.

How do your votes contribute to the nation as a whole? How do you know you if your vote even counts? How do they count all of the votes in a nation? Does every vote count? Do all countries use the same voting system? All of these questions will be answered throughout this term paper. Taking the time to fully research these can be time consuming, so to benefit all readers, all the information provided in this essay is to my knowledge 99% accurate.