Voting Stereotypes

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

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.

I believe that the low voter turnout in most elections is appalling. Why do people want to willingly give up their voice in our governmental system? Fewer than 37% of all eligible voters actually cast a ballot in the last presidential election. Many claim ignorance of political issues, but I believe that must stem from laziness. If people would

As society rapidly changes with an influx of new ideas and issues, studying the college educated and those who are not will help evaluate behaviors and attitudes towards the government, ultimately, clearing the way to adaption into a modern society that perhaps offer remedies of educational and voting discrepancies or even close the gaps between political ideology or identification. Hence, this paper proposes the research question: How does education level influence political party identification.

For example, a rational voter will only vote if the personal benefits outweigh the costs. Most Americans know that the likelihood of one vote determining the outcome of the election is very low, therefore many people do not see a direct tangible benefit from voting in an election. Studies also show that the poor, unemployed, less educated and minority population tend to feel alienated from politics. Unless a candidate is specifically addressing their specific needs, this population of people do not feel the need to go out and vote. Another factor of low voter turnout is the media predicting early winners. When media and news outlets predict the winner of a vote before the polls are even closed, voters may feel discouraged from voting, thinking that their candidate has already lost and their vote will not make a difference. However, this can also work in the reverse direction, where people choose to go and vote in order to ensure that the predicted candidate does not win, as was seen recently in the Michigan primary election where Hillary Clinton was predicted to win ended up losing to Bernie

In contrast Midwestern states, as well as New Hampshire and Rhode Island are more likely to have white populations at or above the national average of 79% as well as higher GDP per state than their Southern counterparts as seen in Appendixes 4 and 5. Unlike Southern states, Midwestern states, plus New Hampshire and Rhode Island, have less need to keep minority and poorer populations, who are less likely to have a form of voter Id, from the voting booth because they do not hold as much sway in elections as they do in the south. In addition, a few of these states are Democratic strongholds negating any need to disenfranchise these populations as they make up the majority of the Democratic voting base. While political culture and region, race, and poverty level appear to be strong indicators of voter ID laws in the south, the Midwest alongside New

Furthermore, in her review "Burdening The Right To Vote: Assessing The Impact Of Mandatory Photo Identification Requirements On Minority Voting Strength,” Kristen Clarke discusses how requiring photo ID’s can greatly affect African Americans and Latinos and their participation in elections. In his article "Lower Voter Turnout is seen in States that Require ID,” Christopher Drew also discusses some of the inconveniences possibly causing potential voters not to vote such as having proper identification or being unaware of further requirements needed when arriving at the polls. Both political parties have completely different views on the real purpose of some of the voter restriction laws and requiring photo ID’s which would be one more obstacle

The newest generation, also known as the Millennials, has sparked one of the latest topics of debate and that is voting. Recent examples of young voters excelling political candidates have occurred with Bernie Sanders and even helped bring Barrack Obama into the presidency. These articles by The New York Times delve into the underlying cause of the low turnout rates. Most of these articles place the blame for low voter turnouts on colleges. Colleges are not to blame for these turnouts as they don’t discourage political thinking.

Non-Hispanic Whites make up forty-three percent of the voting age in California, but are seventy percent of the state’s likely voters. Anglos consistently have high voter turnout, partly because of their composition among demographics that actually vote more often, including the educated, the older generations, and the affluent.

It is believed that higher voter turnout favors the Democratic candidate. If turnout is high, then it would be expected that the percentage of Democratic votes would be high as well. This theory is based on the idea that Democrats have less of a voter turnout than Republicans, so low voter turnout would be beneficial to Republican candidates. This paper will explore this theory and will utilize data in order to confirm if this is, in fact, the case. This paper will also look into other reasons that might contribute to a higher percent Democratic vote, such as the percentage of African Americans in a state due to the fact that African American people tend to vote for the Democratic candidate. For this study, the hypothesis is that with a higher

Voting used to be something special; a privilege. Now, elections are held so frequently that they no longer have that allure to them. That combined with the feeling that your vote won’t change the overall outcome causes for more potential voters to avoid the polls.

A persons social, educational and/or economic background can affect how or they vote. A person’s social background can affect the way they vote by the fact that their social background defines how one was raised. You can be raised to be or think a certain way. People raised into a family of wealth will tend to have a better educational and economic background which also affects the voting turnout. According to Bardes, Shelley, and Schmidt, authors of, “American Government and Politics Today: The Essentials 2015-2016 Edition,” “the more [educated a voter is, the more likely they are to vote].” This indicates that people who have been well educated and have gone

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

Obstacles to voting and the absent voting of pure independents are the reason of low turnout in the U.S. today, which may also have great influence both politically and legally. The voter turnout is the percentage of qualified voters who actually go to an election to cast a ballot. Overall, the voter turnout in America is low, with only between 51 and 57 percent of eligible voters going to polls in presidential elections from 2004 to 2012. The reason why America has such a low turnout is because of several obstacles in voting. The U.S. do not provide paid holiday for voters who are workers to vote or well-structured politics for different racial voters, other obstacles like advanced registration and absentee voting also make the voting more difficult for voters. The pure independents, who are unlike independent leaners or behaviour independents, are less well informed and less care about the election information and also definitely less likely to vote on the Election Day, they do not have any preference for any candidates or parties. As Hershey mentioned in his book,

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,