Using Data From The British Election Study

Since 1970’s it is possible to conclude that there has been a decline in the influence of social class on voting behavior. In other words, a decline in the historical class-party link (the working classes are more Labour then Conservative and the middle classes are more conservative then labour).

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 author, V. O. Key, states the results of a survey that shows that voters tend to vote for people who vote for candidates that will help them financially. He also states that people tend to vote for a certain party’s candidate because of their ties to the party. Key then declares that one can predict a person’s vote based on their personality and attributes. Key also shows that although these behaviors show strangeness, the voters have great importance to politics. Key says that the voters’ behavior has importance as it helps candidates discover the nature of the voters’ interests to try gain an advantage. Finally, Key states that voters behave as well as possible, considering the possibilities of other

There is a number of systems that use PR such as the Single Transferable Vote (STV) (the Regional and National Lists) and the Alternative Vote. There is a third system that combines these two, known as the Additional Member System (AMS) or the hybrid or top-up system. The AMS system is presently used in elections for the Scottish Parliament, where voters can vote for single candidates in their constituencies but also for candidates from regional 'lists' put forward by each party. If there is a discrepancy between the percentage of seats the party has won and the percentage of votes cast, the seats are 'topped up' from the

‘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.

Concentrating on historically beneficial voting regions, the data of people workforce and economic situations can have drastic effects on the outcomes of this

It is not uncommon for voters in the 20th and 40th percentiles to support a Republican candidate despite the economic trends associated with the political party. This concept enforces Bartels’ notion that “voters in a two-party system sometimes sacrifice secondary concerns to support candidates who share their views on the issues they care most about, (Bartels, 64). The growing conservative trend in California has given rise in the priority of public policy issues among voters. Over time Americans nation-wide have come to view inequality as “both natural and unobjectionable,” therefore decreasing the likelihood that lower income individuals will aim to achieve greater forms of equality among the more affluent, (Bartels,

The information used in this report was gained from several different sources. For example, I have used information from my P4 survey, as well as my P3, M2 presentation and my M1 table of various data collection methods.

A socioeconomic status is the level of education and income a person has. People with higher educations and incomes are more likely to vote than people with lower educations and incomes. When it comes to voting one's “education level is the single most important factor in predicting whether an individual will vote” (218). Other socioeconomic groups that influence whether or not a person will vote is their partisan tie. “Individuals with strong partisan ties to one of the major political parties are more likely to vote then nonpartisans or independents” (218). Nonpartisans and independents may not feel as if they owe as much to a certain party. Therefore, they don’t feel obligated to vote in an

Between the years of 1945-1970 social class dominantly shaped the voting behaviour of individuals. Whilst there has been a decline in prominence of class voting: Labour remains the most popular working class party and Conservatives perform best among middle-class voters. Social classes are defined by economic and social

The basis of this analysis is the calculation of the strength of correlation between the change in national economic performance and change in percentage of the presidential election vote for the incumbent party in three New Hampshire counties. This is designed to 1) measure the extent to which economic conditions affect voter choice in presidential elections, and 2) explore whether economic performance is equally important across areas of differing income class in terms of voter choice in presidential elections. The underlying presumption for all three counties is that if the economy has performed well on average in the four years an incumbent president was in office, the incumbent party would therefore expect to receive an increase in voter share received. Alternatively, if the economic performance under a president was, on average, lackluster, the voter share for that president’s party in the next election would be expected to decrease. As a result, the variables developed in this paper are designed to categorize political change versus economic change and elucidate the strength of correlation between the two categories for three areas of differing per capita income.

The media has a lot to do with a party's image, as it is the main and

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

Firstly, some political scientists have questioned the representativeness of BES studies altogether (Mellon & Prosser 2015), which would cast doubt upon the usefulness of Figure 1. Furthermore, looking more closely at the Figure 1, what can be seen is that while Labour has increased its share of the vote with the wealthier classes, the amount of votes gained from the lowest two classes – the ‘Unskilled Working Class’ and ‘Skilled Working Class’ groups – has remained relatively steady over the time period. Hence, there is evidence to suggest that modern political parties still do better with the class they traditionally represented, even after Labour’s move to the centre ideologically. Therefore, while social class has certainly diminished in significance over the time period, it remains a somewhat important factor in explaining voting

Criticisms are heard about the composition of election and boundary commissions and how they are appointed or removed the manner and integrity with which the voter list is compiled, who is allowed to vote. There is also controversy as to whether persons in the diaspora should be allowed to vote given that their remittance makes a substantial contribution to the wellbeing of the people who remains on the ''rock''.