Essay on What Factors Affect Voter Turnout and Election Results

Since 1972, youth voter turnout has been on the decline. According to the Child Trends Databank, 50 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 participated in the 1972 presidential election (2015). Nearly three decades later, the percentage of young adults aged 18 to 24 who voted in the 2000 presidential election had dropped eighteen

There are six types of voter participation but voting is by far the most common form of political participation. People participate in elections because of their strong sense of civil duty they have but many people tend not to because political parties aren’t as forceful in getting it’s members to vote than in other places. People that vote are usually educated, older, and have a higher income, Throughout the history of the United States o America, many of the citizens have been suppressed in regarding their right to vote. Even though most of the citizens, that are old enough, are eligible to vote there is still low voter turn out. Low voter turnout is most commonly explained by apathy among citizens and problems with registration. Campaigns become more personalistic when they are for primary elections, there is a reliance on the candidate’s image, and there is decline in party identification. There is a lot of strategy involved in political campaigns. The overall strategy should be to appeal to voters in a party for that party’s nomination even if it means becoming more radical so that way you can attract the main group of that party. Once the nomination is secured it is better to have more centrist views to convince those of the opposite party whose votes are wavering, to vote for the candidate. The main reasons that

“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.

Education is a noticable factor to consider when examining voter turnout. Those who are less educated about politics and their rights don't vote because they simply don't understand the imporatance of their vote in the first place. The more interested a person is in politics obviously the more likey they are to vote. Wealthier people are connected and constantly encouraged and reminded that their vote is important by community leaders and politicians. They also feel as if they have more at stake when it comes to taxes and public services, therefore they feel they have more reasons to vote. Whereas people with lower incomes are underepresented, disappointed and feel like nothing seems to change, the rich just gets richer and the poor gets poorer. The same applies for the age difference amoungst voters. Older people are more politically invovled than the younger voters.

The United States national elections have been experiencing a steady decline of eligible voters showing up to vote. This steady decline has been ongoing since experiencing a significant increase in voter turnout from 1948 through 1960. Over the years there has been significant, meticulous research done to try to pinpoint the cause of the decline in voter turnout over years. All of this research has led to the production of an enormous number of literatures written on the perceived causes. The vast amount of literature produced has led to a number of competing explanations about this decline. The quest for the answer to the question of, why this decline in voter turnout, is very important for an overwhelming majority of Americans and

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:

Adding to the belief that social pressures influence voter turnout, Alan Gerber, Donald Green and Christopher Larimer in Social Pressure and Voter Turnout: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment, test the effects of priming intrinsic motives and applying varying degrees and extrinsic pressure. Their research attempts to show the extent by which social pressure increases voter turnout. Before the Michigan primary election in August of 2006, researchers sent out one of four various mailings to several register voters in the state, so about 80,000 households. These various mailings were sent out to encourage these individuals to vote

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

trails most developed countries in voter turnout” written by Drew DeSilver focuses why the voting-age population (VAP) is low within the United States. According to the Census Bureau there are 245.5 million Americans 18 and older who are eligible voters. While only 157.6 million of these VAP citizens are registered voters. In the 2016 election 55.7% of VAP turned out to vote, this placed the U.S. in 28 out of 35 members of the OECD. DeSilver references that the countries with a high turnout of VAP might be due to the face that in these countries, there are compulsory-voting laws within 24 countries that require their citizens to vote. DeSilver references when Chile took away their compulsory-voting laws their percentage drastically dropped from 87% in 2010 to 42% in 2013 with voluntary voting. Within the U.S voting registration is the responsibility of the individual citizen. DeSilver state “64% of the U.S. voting-age population… was registered in 2016, according to the new census report,” This is different from countries including the UK and Canada who have laws in place that automatically register their citizens. The UK and Canada have 91% of their citizens as registered voters. Around the world VAP percentage turnout is changing the U.S. is consistently at the bottom. According to DeSilver the voting-age turnout since 1976 has remained within an 8.5-percentage-point

Voter turnout is the rate by which people vote in elections. The simplest way to calculate a given election's turnout rate is to compare the actual number of voters with the voting-age population. “Voter turnout in the United States is among the worlds’ lowest.” (E.S. 371) The graph below taken from an article written for the Huffington Post in 2012, illustrates how poor United States voter turnout has been as compared to other industrialized nations. Our voter turnout

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).

1. In 2012, 38 percent of 18-24 year olds voted, the least out of all the age demographics. The nation’s youngsters aren’t voting (Kamami, 2015).

The main point according Martin P. Wattenberg in Is Voting For Young People is that young people today do not vote during elections as much compared to other voting groups. Young people today are politically unengaged. “These state patterns of voting participation can be confirmed on the national level by the Census Bureau’s 2010 survey data. Among U.S. citizens under the age of 30 in 2010, only 24 percent reported that they voted.” (Page-188, IVYP) The low attendance of young people voting in Presidential elections indicates that young people do not care enough about politics to participate.

Old people are the most reliable voters for this country. They have the highest percentage of voters of any age group because they know candidates will focus on Social Security and Medicare. However, young people do not like to vote they think it is a waste of time. They are focused on college, social life, and cars, etc. If a lot of young people show up and vote, the politicians will get the message that young people have a voice just as much as the old people.

1. Only 21 percent of the voting eligible population in 2014 were young adults ages 18-29 (“why student voters matter”, 2016).