Why Ghana Is A Democratic State

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

The Funnel of Causality model describes voting behaviour in terms of socio-demographics, party identification, issues, and candidates. In this essay I will focus on issues because they can be compared between countries. An issue is essentially a problem that is perceived to be important, and there is an actor with “ownership” of the issue, meaning that there is someone who is thought to be “the best man for the job” so to speak. The economy isn’t an issue because you can’t have “ownership” over the economy. Issues are important because they explain a lot about voting behaviour.

There is no doubt that the United States of America is a democracy, but how democratic are some of the components of our system of government? For example, the Electoral College is used when selecting the president of The United States, but the founders developed the Electoral College based on a theory of how it should work with no practical, real-world example of how it realistically works. Based on the three core principles of democracy which are popular sovereignty, political equality, and political freedom, the Electoral College falls short when assessed using these democratic values.

Voting in elections is the most important form of participation in American politics. Even though this is true, America has a very low voter turnout. This is defined as the percentage of eligible voters who actually show up to vote. Only 6 out of 10 Americans vote in the presidential election, and it is even lower for midterm and local elections (Ginsberg, 306, 2013). Voter participation today is substantially lower than it was in the 19th century. Although, the number of people that could vote was lower than it is now, considering that women and other minorities were not allowed to vote until later in the century (Schulman, n.d). Age, gender, education, income, ethnicity, and religious affiliation all have differing effects on voter turnout rates. Education and income are the top factors that determine whether someone votes or not. Someone with a higher income and educational knowledge about voting are more likely to vote verses someone with a lower income and no education. If citizens do not have any knowledge about the voting process or candidates, they become discouraged and do not turnout to vote. Also, Texas is one of the states with the lowest voter turnout rates in the country and ranks in the bottom third of voter participation (Ginsberg, 821). Reasons for this are because Texas has a lower average age than the national average, and young citizens are more likely not to vote. Also, Texas has a political culture that is traditionalistic and individualistic. In a traditionalistic political culture, the political and economic elite discourage voting. In an individualistic political culture, the people choose not to vote because of “ real or perceived corruption in government” (Ginsberg, 821). Texas has a tradition of keeping a decentralized government, which causes numerous elections. Voters become overwhelmed with the

This article presents the impression of a national "vote by mail" can do upon the political map of the United States and significant analyses why there implies such considerable objection to this technique for casting votes. Subjects covered are a summary of the "vote by mail" operation in two states, Colorado and Oregon.

How do people compensate for their lack of knowledge? Many people use information shortcuts to help them make decisions on how to vote. An information shortcut is voting for a party because they know the beliefs of the party but not the specific facts of the issue or the specific candidate. Voters use information shortcuts in order to learn about a topic without spending more time. For example, author Ilya Somin wrote that 57 percent of the population did not know who Newt Gingrich was in 1994. Somin also stated, “70 percent cannot name either of their states senators. Overall, close to a third of Americans can be categorized as ‘know-nothings’ who are almost completely ignorant of relevant political information” (Somin 416-417).

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

Voting behaviour is the way in which the individuals of the electorate vote. Typically this can be divided into a sociological approach based on entrenched characteristics such as class, age and region and rational choice approach based on individual decisions based on political issues, governance and party leaders or image.

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:

“He too could use an instructor and a book and a technique, but he would use them as subordinates, just as he would the jackknife” (Percy 489). Percy conveys to the reader that the experts must not be used to form and manipulate any experiences or ideas, but instead used as tools to help guide a person as that person has a genuine experience or forms an idea of their own. Voters who do not take the time to research candidate’s specific views tend to assume that because they belong to a particular party the candidate’s views will align with the voter’s view. If voters aren’t paying attention to specifically who they are voting for and instead voting out of convenience, they aren’t making their vote count and the candidate that the majority of the people share the most views with might not be elected.

In his book, Tyranny of the Minority, Benjamin Bishin refers to this occurrence through his very own proposed concept called the Subconstituency Politics Theory of Representation. Centered on social psychology and reinforced by multifaceted studies on the behavior pattern illustrated in legislators’ voting, the subconstituency theory is able to effectively explain how candidates ' behavior in campaigns and legislators ' behavior in Congress are affected by the degree of knowledge and participation harbored in the average citizen. According to Bishin, a candidate’s career depends on their ability to “transform passive citizens into active

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.

While readings in weeks three and four focused on spatial models of voting, this week’s reading elaborates on the strategic decisions taken by the candidates during elections. Under Down’s model, candidates should converge to median voter position, yet they fail to do so. To solve this anomaly, this week’s readings (Ansolabehere et al. 2001; Moon 2004; and more specifically Groseclose 2001) come up with a better model. For example, Groseclose incorporate all three important features into account, namely, candidates (with policy and ideological motivations), valence issues, and candidates’ uncertainty about the voters.

Liberia was Africa’s first country to proclaim independence, which was back in 1847. Liberia was heavily involved with the American Colonization Society (ACS) before it gained its independence, so naturally it has a governmental system modeled on the U.S . In 1980, however, Liberia underwent a coup d’état by its military and became an authoritarian government . This form of government lasted until 2003 when the United Nations stepped in and established an interim government while peace accords were being implemented. In 2005, Liberia finally was able to hold free and fair elections, electing a newly democratic government under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf . Though Liberia is seen as a democracy according to the Polity Scale , it is

Why do Americans have limited amount of political knowledge? It’s because the public lacks interest in politics. They rely on group/party loyalty, rather than reasoning. Their responses change randomly from survey to survey. Recent research shows that the public knows some basic things. For example, they know the location of the capital and the length of president’s term, but they lack knowledge about other basic things. About 50% know there are 2 senators for each state, and only 66% know which party controls the House. They show high instability of their preferences, so explosion of information sources has not helped. The authors Greenburg and Page believe that political “trivia” may not be a good measure of adequate knowledge. They also mentioned that the reason for the instability of preference is because people change their minds and reflect on multidimensional ideology. It’s understandable that American citizens have lost trust in the government as well as interest, but the group of people that show the least amount of interest in politics and voting are the young generation.