Voter Cynicism Research Paper

The major reason why people don’t is because they feel like the people running for positions of power aren’t the best people to be the leader of our country. People feel that they shouldn’t waste there vote so they don’t vote. ‘In the 2008 US Presidential election, people sensed a new political star in Obama, someone who would make a difference, and voter turnout was the highest for forty year”. This goes to show that if there is someone that has the potential to be a good leader people will go out and vote because they have a reason

Americans are fortunate enough to have the right to vote, so we should take opportunity to be heard. “...many Americans do not vote” (Doc BE). Some Americans do not take the chance to vote. For example, “Since World War II, no presidential election has ever involved 65% or more of registered voters!” (Doc BE). Voting is important because, “People express their consent or disapproval in many different ways” (Doc BE).

     I will now examine some of last election year’s results. Voter turnout has decreased in the past years. There are two main factors that have been coming up in the past years. First, many citizens say that who is elected in office is not as important as it once was. Secondly, younger Americans are more cynical and disconnected from politics than ever. I think there is too much information out there and another thing that might be the reason this is happening is

Political inactivity on the part of young Americans stems from one fundamental source -- a general cynicism of the American political process. This disdain for politics is further perpetuated by a lack of voter education and a needlessly archaic voting procedure that creates barriers to voting where they need not exist. While many of these existing problems can be rectified with relative ease through the implementation of programs such as Internet voting and better voter education, such programs create only a partial solution.

In the studying public opinion and political psychology, the major concern is whether citizens can form and uphold sensible attitudes and beliefs about politics. Previous studies have been skeptical about the capacities of mass public as they emphasized on the merits of basic heuristics in assisting citizens make sensible choices (Lupia 75). Milton Lodge and Charles Taber’s The Rationalizing Voter lays emphasis on the unique aspects of politics- how the masses respond to the prominent political issues and figures. Lodge and Taber focus on the ways in which the automatic affective responses define information processing and opinion updating. They argue that these sentimental responses are stored and rationalized in the long-term memory, and

Participation is key! There is nothing difficult about voting, so why don't more people take part in it? More importantly, what can be done to correct this issue?

In the 2000 presidential election 129.5 million people were eligible to vote, however of that number only 85.5% decided it would be a good idea to vote. Unfortunately statistics on the number of people who were informed voters are not available. Often those that do vote complain of a lack of choice, or having to choose the lesser of two evils. Are we really doing our democracy a favor by voting for the candidates that we dislike the least? When is the last time a candidate ran for office that actually enamored the masses? An individual that had the experience, had made the sacrifices, had the true interest of the nation; where is he or she? To represent and lead this previously mentioned group of “super citizens”, we should have a worthy leader. The headlines and the news channels are full of stories of the corrupt and the hypocritical. The leaders that we now elect to office are often pursuing their own interest or being corrupted by the decadent political machine that administers our nation. They make decisions without weighing the cost on the nation and its peoples, having for the most part made little if any sacrifice to obtain the position to which they have been elected. Most American elected officials come from privileged backgrounds, and have little if any idea of the concept “doing without”. They have always had their will, be it material or other. They lack the discipline and moral fortitude to be entrusted

Only 53.6% of eligible voters vote, leaving 46.4% not voting (“Political Participation in the US”). This 46.4% of people do not believe their votes count. They believe that the Electoral College system cancels out their votes and that the government will not listen anyway. People think that nothing will change due to the incumbency rate in Congress. That is where the people do not see what is really happening. Americans do not vote enough, so they cannot possibly make a change in government when they are not exercising one of their most powerful rights. Citizens of other countries yearn for the right to vote and Americans who fought so hard for this right do not even use it. “US voting rates are among the lowest in the developed world” (“Political Participation in the US”). Young people should be concerned with this issue. Because America has a democratic form of government, political participation is necessary, everyone’s vote counts, and corrections in government can only be made by the people first.

My fellow Americans, the upcoming national elections present a very important choice. We can forge a “true” representative democracy for the first time in history, and be led by our directly elected leaders. Or we can continue to live in an aristocratic republic run by over-educated elitists who are not beholden to the will of the people, but only to themselves.

The Journal Article, Fear in the Voting Booth: The 2004 Presidential Election, was chosen because it offers an analysis of the role that fear played in the first election following the 9/11 attacks. This source focuses on how the fear, anxiety and uncertainty of these attacks influenced voters’ behavior during the election between Republican nominee, George W. Bush and Democratic nominee, John Kerry. This article was chosen because of its specificity which compliments the rest of the sources. The next source comes from the Encyclopedia of U.S. Campaigns, Elections, and Electoral Behavior and is called “Issue Salience and Voting Behavior”. This encyclopedia article compliments the rest of the sources well because it allows one to understand

It seems as though the younger population of voters have all grown up in a world where they have been influenced to believe that their one vote will not make a difference, and therefore they do not bother to take the time out of their busy schedules to cast their meaningless vote. In the last presidential election, only one out of four citizens between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four casted their vote (“Is the System broken?”). The opinion that one vote will not make a difference appears to be directly respondent to the younger generation of voters. This generation needs to be educated on the difference that one vote can make.

Most voters aren’t in the mindset of making a change. Most believe that their vote will not matter. Most don’t even do any research at all. The population is so used to the electoral college that they don’t care or are too lazy to actually choose the better candidate.

Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines democracy "as a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by the people" (www.merriam-webster.com). But the one big problem is that "We the people" are not exercising their "supreme power" to determine the U.S. government. Less than half of the eligible electorate showed up at the polls for the 1996 U.S. presidential election. While lower turnout has marred previous presidential elections, 1996's voter turnout dipped below 50 percent for the first time in more than 30 years. It appears that the people's increasing cynicism about politicians that they lie to get elected and the perception that people have no respect or confidence in the

Many people keep complaining about how the government is a complete failure, but if you do your part and vote, you can make a change in the government system. Voting is your opinion on paper that could make a change in America on how a leader runs this country.

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