Voting Participation Research Paper

Political scientists have made tremendous efforts in discovering what factors influence the voting turnouts. Irrefutably within any country, older citizens and those with higher education and income are more likely to participate in elections; this possibly explains the partisanship, a method of the “ill-informed,” displayed along the east coast, for the educational requirements attributed to these provinces are less than the Canadian national average (Garnier , 2006). When an election has closely contested parties there is a higher voter turnout, for citizens believe that their votes will make more of a difference. In Canada it has been proven that citizens are more likely to vote in national elections than in municipal elections; municipal elections typically garner less than 50% of the voting populace’s support, while national elections have never experienced less than a 60% turnout (Heard, 2011). Proportional representation has been associated with higher voter turnouts; as opposed to Single member plurality systems, the system used in Canada, where voters feel their efforts to make a difference are futile due to the “First

Many scholars believe that falling civic organization membership and the general decline in our Social Capital has negatively impacted voter turnout.” (Kaufmann. 145) To summarize, people in the United States are “less involved” with other groups and other people as a whole, so it is only logical to feel they would be less involved or interest in our political and governmental future.

In our system of government we are privileged with the option to take part in the political process that runs the country. It is our right to vote that lets the people influence change in policy and set the guidelines that politicians must follow to be elected representatives. This precious ability, which is most coveted in most non-democratic countries, is taken for granted in our own.

Many women and African American men had long dreamed to have the right to vote. In many states, they could only vote if their state allowed them the privilege. The dedicated men and women fought for their right to vote in the Civil Rights Movement in the early and mid 1900s. Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act to give African Americans the rights to vote. It would have not occurred if the Civil Rights Movement had not taken place. The Nineteenth Amendment would not have occurred either if not for the Civil Rights Movement. The freedom to vote is now held by a majority because of the fight by the people involved in the Civil Rights Movement, and the African Americans and women who fought for their right to

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:

On May 26, 1965, in the U.S. Senate the voting rights bill developed the U.S. Senate by a 77-19 vote.On July 9, the U.S. House of Representatives finally developed the bill, after questioning it for over a month, by a tally of 333-85.On August 6, Johnson, as along with Martin Luther King Jr. and some other civil rights commanders at the ceremony.

Recently during the 2016 presidential election people have questioned if the Electoral College is reliable and not rigged. The U.S. uses the Electoral College to elect their president every four years. Some reasons why the 2016 presidential election is not rigged is records show that voter fraud is very rare, most of the time voting problem are accidental, and secretaries of state are charged with administering elections in each state. Therefore, I disagree with Donald Trump about the election being rigged and of the people committing voting fraud.

On a micro level, this issue affects the lives of convicted felons who currently do not have the right to vote. Social acceptance for felons voting would allow the criminal's voice to be heard as they can vote for who they want without relying on others to support their causes. Also, being able to participate in the social norm of voting would help the felon better acclimate into acceptable rather than deviant behaviors. There are also macro-level consequences. With this increase of voters, states have the potential to swing voting results from current trends impacting campaigns and what issues make it on the ballots. Also, voters who have already violated society with their deviant act have the potential to change social norms and alter the

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.

"Zombie voters" are votes that come from people who are deceased at the time of voting. This is obviously a form of voter fraud. As far as the affect on elections go there has been no substantiated evidence to this yet. In 2012 this was brought up as a possibility but was never proven to be true.

The United States of America is one of the oldest contemporary democracies, is currently the second largest democracy, and is ranked the 16th best democracy in the world (Campbell et. Al, 2014). Yet there is a legitimate question over whether or not the United States can still truly be considered a democracy, with some studies even suggesting it has begun to resemble an oligarchy (Chumley, 2014). In this essay, I will use Dahl’s criteria of voting equality and effective participation to determine whether or not the United States are truly a democracy.

Several factors contributed to these conditions. Just when women gained the right to vote, voter participation declined nationally. Fewer men and women attuned to national political issues which, increasingly, were defined by special-interest groups and lobbies. As Carrie Chapman Catt pointed out, winning the vote reformers lost the single unifying cause that appealed to a broad constituency of women. The amalgam of the other reform causes tended to splinter the women’s right movement, because smaller communities of women were investing their energies across a larger field of completing programs.

Many political science researchers study the forces that drive the vote. One of the earliest, and most well known, books about election studies is The American Voter. Written in 1960, the book tries to explain a model that describes what drives Americans to vote the way they do. The model suggests that social factors determine ones party identification, which determines one's issue positions and evaluation of candidate's characteristics. These forces all work together to determine how one will vote. This model may or may not still hold true today, as political researchers are not in agreement as to what exactly drives the vote. One thing that does remain true, however, is that factors such as social groups, party identification, issues,

Less than 50% of eligible voters will turn out to vote at national elections, and at the local elections there are less than 25%. There is a correlation between voting behavior and the demographic of those voting.

Gunmen on the grassy knoll, AIDS, landing on the moon, chemtrails, UFO’s, CIA mind control and Waco are some of the well-known conspiracies. But what about George W. Bush’s re-election? This cynicism goes beyond political rhetoric and focuses on our ability to participate in a representative democracy. Developed by the ancient Greeks, one of the first voting systems involved dropping bronze disks into barrels. As technology progressed, the advancements in voting systems surrendered an unacceptable system that lacks accuracy despite public outcry for a paper-verified trail.