Max LeonovAmerican GovernmentProfessor Fahey21 April 16

Voting Trends i n the United States Exploring the reasons and causes for the trends from the 1800’s to 2016

Introduction

The United States has largely been considered the world's leader and enforcer of

democracy. For better or for worse, we have waged wars and took charge on the international

stage against countries that infringe on the personal liberties of their citizens. One very important

liberty that is bestowed upon us is freedom of expression, given by the first Amendment of the

United States Constitution (www.law.cornell.edu). An important aspect of this liberty is the

expression of our opinions through voting, specifically voting for our political candidates.

The voting trends of the United States are a very complex and interesting case to

explore. Our country is still relatively young and the amount of change that has happened since

our country was established has been astonishing. In this essay main objective is to explore

several factors that have historically influenced voting trends and what impact those factors have

had. From this, I’d like to do my best to draw an accurate conclusion on what that means for

current voter turnout rates and how, if possible, can they be improved.

I will be proceeding through the research paper in the following order. First, I will

explore the voter turnout rates of the nineteenth century, what they are and what are the reasons

behind them. From here I will dive into several case studies of both African Americans and

women after thy received the right to vote. Then I’d like revisit the data itself and tie in the case

studies to better shed light on the trends. After this I will explore how we compare to other

countries, including voter turnout rates among younger voters. Then I will go onto explore the

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impact of different socioeconomic factors like race and education and I will also take a look at

how theses specifically effect new immigrant populations. Finally, I will conclude with a look

into the effectiveness of political campaigns. And from here, after taking into account all the

information, I hope to draw an accurate conclusion on the past, present and future state of our

voter-turnout rates. The hypothesis I have drawn is that our relatively low voting trends in the

United States are mainly a matter of the lack of government involvement we have in comparison

to our (primarily) European counterparts.

Voter Turnout in The Nineteenth Century

Let’s first discuss the

voter turnout trend in the

nineteenth century, since that is

the beginning of the time-frame

that I’ll be examining.

According to the data, the voter

turnout in the nineteenth

century was much higher than

it is today (Wilson 173). Below

we can see a graph that represents the relevant voting data starting from the 1780’s and going all

the way until 2010. It represents both turnout for the presidential and midterm election. For the

purposes of this essay we will only be looking at the data associated with the presidential

election (dark, solid line).

Source: ("National-1789-Present - United States Elections Project")

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First it is important to note that when the constitution was first written, voting was

limited to white taxpayers or property owners (Wilson 171). It wasn’t until the ratification of the

Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 that the vote extended to African Americans; stating that “the

right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied…on the account of race, color or

previous condition of servitude (Wilson 170). And further it wasn’t until 1919 that women were

granted the right to vote, with the ratification of the nineteenth Amendment ("National-1789-

Present - United States Elections Project"). And finally the ratification of the 26th amendment in

1971 gave the right to eighteen year olds to vote, prior to this you had to be 21. These three

improvements were some of the most vital changes to our election process.

This provides some interesting insight into early voting trends. However, it’s important to

observe that the graph doesn’t actually seem to actually reflect these changes to our constitution

through the trends. One could ask themselves, why weren’t these minority groups chomping at

the bit to take advantage of their new rights? If blacks were allowed to vote after 1870, then why

wasn’t there a significant spike in voter trends? If women were allowed to vote after 1919, why

did voting trends stay relatively stagnant after that period? If young people were allowed to vote

after 1971, then why didn’t the turn-out increase? The simple answer…rights, accessibility and

interest don’t always happen simultaneously. Just because one of these groups have been granted

the right to vote, that doesn’t mean that they physically will be able to or will have interest to

vote.

The Case With Blacks

One case where this was relevant was with African Americans after they were given the

right to vote in 1870. Wilson says the following on the subject: “throughout the South, blacks

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were systematically barred from the polls by all manner of state stratagems after the end of

Reconstruction. Between 1915 and 1944, the Supreme Court overturned some of these

discriminatory rules, but still only a small portion of voting-age southern blacks were able to

register and vote (Wilson 172). However, as I stated, rights and accessibility don’t always align

simultaneously. Wilson further noted that “dramatic change did not take place until the passage

of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This law suspended the use of literacy tests and (which had

been used in a blatantly discriminatory fashion) and authorized the appointment of federal

examiners who could order the registration of blacks in states and counties (mostly in the south)

where fewer than 50% of the voting age population were registered or had voted in the previous

presidential election” (Wilson 172).

After these improvements to the elections process, in some places the turn-out was still

lagging but in some other areas, particularly in the south, voting trends rose sharply. Wilson says

the following: “in Mississippi for example, the portion of voting-age blacks who registered

increased from 5% to more than 70 percent in just ten years” (Wilson 172). So as you can see,

change was not immediate. In many parts of the country it took a long while to see significant

change in voting trends among blacks.

The Case With Women After The End of Suffrage

Separately, the case with female voters after 1919 was not much different than the case

with blacks. One conclusion drawn from The Journal Of Politics on post suffrage female voter

turnout states the the following:

“The ratification of the nineteenth Amendment in 1920 ushered in the largest expansion

of the electorate in American history, nearly doubling the number of citizens eligible to

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vote. […] In theory—and many would claim, practice—women of this period inhabited

the private world of the home rather than the public world of politics and lacked the

experience, interest, and information necessary for effective, and ordered, democratic

participation. Many of their contemporaries, as well as later scholars, assumed that

women were generally disinclined to vote, and thus unlikely to turn out” (Corder, J.

Kevin, and Christina Wolbrecht).

The conclusion that women didn’t vote after suffrage due to their long exclusion from the scene

and also the social norms associated with female roles would answer why voting trends stayed

relatively stagnant during this period, in spite of such advances in voting rights.

However, as stated before, interest and accessibility don’t always align with rights.

During this time-frame a women’s place was still very much seen as “in the home,” so even

though the battle was fought for women’s suffrage, the much tougher battle would go on for

decades after. The battle to change the social norms associated with what role women play in

society. However, we do find some dissent to this argument. The same study on female voters

after suffrage also states the following:

“Few of these expectations have been subjected to empirical analysis. Indeed, we have

very little reliable information about most aspects of women's voting behavior

immediately after suffrage, despite a more than 70-year battle over women's fitness as

voters” (Corder, J. Kevin, and Christina Wolbrecht).

Luckily, through the studies analysis and using new approaches to aggregating data about that

timeframe, the authors were able to draw the following, very interesting, conclusions:

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“In general, we find that the responsiveness of women's turnout overall was remarkably

similar to that of men, and quickly became more so over time” (Corder, J. Kevin, and

Christina Wolbrecht).

So what does this mean for the case study on women after suffrage? It could possible mean that

the general conclusions about women “not voting” was simply wrong and concluded from very

sparse data.

However, what is accurate is that even though women maybe weren’t as affected by

social norms as previously thought, they still faced barriers to entry after they were given the

right to vote. The study states that “the legal requirements for voting have long been

identified as deterrents to participation (Patterson and Caldeira 1983;

Powell 1986; Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980). Many of the major Progressive-era

reforms, particularly the Australian ballot, were in widespread use by this time.

Yet, states and localities varied considerably in the types and stringency of the

provisions they employed. Here, again, it seems possible that women's turnout was

especially responsive to variation in the legal costs associated with voting.

Restrictive electoral laws may have particularly discouraged already disinclined

female voters from exercising their rights” (Corder, J. Kevin, and Christina Wolbrecht).

So while women didn’t and couldn’t exactly run to the polls after being granted the right

to vote, they did hastily walk. In actuality, the voter turnout among women was gradual and only

slightly behind the males. It was not this “title wave” of new female voters that many were

expecting but women were still very much so involved. The authors of the study conclude with

the following the following:

“Of course, for many who had high hopes that women voters would revolutionize

politics, the general similarity of male and female turnout (and the level of female turnout

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itself) was a source of much disappointment. Suffragists and antisuffragists alike often

claimed that female enfranchisement would dramatically disrupt American politics. In the

aftermath, most agreed, as do we, that women's suffrage, while important and

consequential for many reasons, did not dramatically reshape the structure of electoral

participation” (Corder, J. Kevin, and Christina Wolbrecht).

So what can we conclude about these two cases? We can conclude that voter

disenfranchisement isn’t corrected overnight. With both blacks and women, it took a while for

social norms and accessibility to catch up with rights and this accurately explains the trends we

see in voter turnout during the nineteenth century.

Theories/Inconclusiveness of The Trends

So what can we say about the voter turnout rates themselves in the nineteenth century? A

few things. The trends averaged fairly high (roughly 60-82%). This is in comparison to voter

trends after this period, which stay relatively constant at a rate of approximately 49-60%. One

theory for the decline in voter participation is data driven. Specifically - inaccurate data about

nineteenth century trends that gives a false impression of the reality. Wilson says the following:

“Though nineteenth-century elections were certainly more of a popular sport than they

are today, the parties were no more democratic in those days than now, and the voters

may have been more have been more easily manipulated. Until the early twentieth

century, vote frauds - including ballot-box stuffing - were common. (Wilson 173).

So if we account for at least some discrepancy in voter fraud through miscounting (either on

purpose or human error) and ballot-stuffing, we can draw the following conclusion. The

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proposed decline in voter turnout after approximately 1900 would be much smaller. Further, the

significant decline in voter turnout may have been more apparent than real.

However, this is just one theory. Another view “is that […] [it] is the result of a decline

of popular interest in elections and a weakening of the extent to which the two major parties are

competitive” (Wilson 173). According to Wilson, during the nineteenth century parties fought

hard to engage voters and made participatory activity easy and engaging. This was until around

1986 when the south became majority democratic and the north became majority republican.

This lead to both parties becoming more conservative, as well as lop-sided republican wins,

which consequentially caused citizens to loose interest in political participation.

To find out which is true we must first accurately calculate voter turnout; meaning an

accurate count of both how many voted and how many could have voted. Unfortunately,

according to Wilson, we do not have very accurate figures for either of these. It’s important to

keep in mind that before the nineteenth century, people often voted publicly, not privately.

Meaning political parties would hand out ballots and there was no registration required in

advance, so it’s hard to be certain about the accuracy of the counts during this time. This was

improved after the implementation of the so-called “Australian ballot”. Which instead of public

voting handled by parties, the government distributed ballots and they were secretly cast in a

private election booth by each voter and moreover local officials generally became tougher on

voter registration (Wilson 174).

However, Wilson says “well into the twentieth century, many cities and town grew lax

about registration and indifferent (or fraudulent about) accurate vote counts”. From this he says

that “the big drop in turnout that that is supposed to have happened between 1900 and 1948 may

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or may not have been real; we cannot know because we cannot know weather the vote counts

were accurate” (Wilson 174). Today we obviously have a more accurate voting count system but

it’s still not perfect – as seen with the 2000 presidential recount efforts in Florida.

How Do We Compare?

Now focusing on contemporary relevance - how do

we compare to other developed countries? The graph here

paints a stark picture of our voter turnout: This data from the

Pew Research Center (http://www.pewresearch.org) puts

us around 27th in terms of voter turnout today (53.6%). So why

is there such a large gap between us and our counterparts?

One reason, according to Wilson, is that voting enrollment is automatic in many Europeans

countries and in Australia, voting is compulsory. Unlike in the U.S. where none these things take

place. In the United States non-voting is perfectly legal and the voting registration remains up to

the citizen. American citizens need to go out and find their own information and register

themselves, which may cause some voters to become discouraged in participating in politics.

Also, if a person moves from one state to another then they need to register all over again. The

United States has tried to simplify registration procedures with the

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passage of the “motor-voter” law - allowing people to register to vote when applying for license

or to vote by mail (Wilson 174).

While this effort were definitely a smart decision, its impact wasn’t very big. Wilson

talks about why these efforts to increase voting may not be effective. He says “in the 2006

congressional elections and again in the 2008 presidential election, some 80 million voting-age

citizens did not vote: About 40 million of these nonvoters were not registered to vote, and

another 40 million or so were registered and did not vote. When registered nonvoters were

surveyed regarding why they did not vote, their number one answer was scheduling conflicts

(school or work, mostly). To address this particular issue the government tries to employ various

get-out-the-vote tactics or GOTV for short. These efforts consist of campaign leaflets, direct

mail, radio or television ads and Election Day festivals. According to Wilson, these had only

either ambiguous or no effect on voter turnout (Wilson 176).

Wilson derives that despite all these efforts, “one reason that voter turnout is lower here

than abroad is that politics [including political parties] is not as important to Americans as it is to

Swedes or Belgians” (Wilson 176). And another reason is that parties in the United States don’t

mobilize citizens with the same efficiency as many European countries (Wilson 176). These both

stem from the fact that government plays a much smaller role here than in the lives of Europeans.

So simply put, voting is just not as much a priority for Americans as it is for our counterparts.

Voting Among the Youth

The youth in America have always been an interesting case to explore in relation to

voting trends. Surprisingly, the numbers don’t seem to match the perceptions. From my

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experience, there seems to be a general

perception that young people just don’t

care about politics or are too lazy to

vote; as the numbers in the graph here

show, this isn’t the case. The youth

turnout averages from the year 2000 at

48%, this is only 5.6% below the

national turnout rate of 53.6%. So

overall, while additional efforts to

mobilize younger voters could improve the national average for voter participation, the gap is

much smaller than perceived.

However, the question does arise of how to effectively engage young voters? It seems to

me, possibly due to the technological overstimulation young people already receive, they need a

lot of different GOTV tactics, like the ones we earlier mentioned to actually get them out to vote.

However, younger voters tend to respond best to in-person stimuli. A study from George

Washington University’s “Circle” Institute concluded the following:

“Canvassing has the greatest impact on turning out young people to vote. For between

$11 and $14, you can get to the polls a new voter that would not have otherwise voted.

Overall, we consistently found a 7 to 10 percentage point increase among young voters

contacted through a door-to-door canvass – a good reason to keep young voters on your

walk lists. Canvassing is especially beneficial in dense student neighborhoods and

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apartment buildings where you can reach more people in less time, helping keep costs

low” (http://www.civicyouth.org).

You can see this type of engagement put to test during the last election with the Bernie Sanders

campaign, he was very effective in mobilizing young voters and this was partially due to his

“boots on the ground” effort to engage with them.

Role of Education and Race

The role of education in

the United States plays a vital

role in voter turnout. As we can

see with the graph here, there is

a direct correlation between

voter turnout and education.

More specifically, if you’re

more educated you’re more

likely to vote.

That being said, it’s interesting to note that this is not the case everywhere in the world.

In my many European countries there does not seem to be the direct correlation between

education and voter turnout. I wasn’t able to find data on why exactly the case is different in the

United Sates but I speculate that it’s due to the high education rates that already exist in Europe.

So it would make sense that additional improvements to the average citizen are very marginal

and don’t have a high impact on the turn-out rate. One very in depth study on the correlation

between education and voter turnout rates found the following:

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“Empirical research has not convincingly established a causal positive relationship

between education and voter turnout. Recent studies using institutional changes as

exogenous sources of variation for years of education have produced mixed results. Dee

(2004) and Milligan et al. (2004) find a positive impact of education on voting for the

United States, but fail to find a relationship for the United Kingdom, while Siedler’s

(2009) study on Germany finds no effects and attributes this to special features of the

German school system” (Pelkonen, Panu).

Another important factor in voter turnout is race. There is some debate over the effects of

race on voter turnout but in general it seems that less represented racial groups in the Unites

States are less likely to vote. One study from Boundless, an academic source on sociology, found

the following:

Generally, racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to vote in elections and are also

underrepresented in political positions. If blacks were represented in proportion to their

numbers in the U.S., there should be 12 Senators and 52 Members of the House. In 2009,

there was 1 black Senator (Roland Burris) and 39 Members of the House. In 2010, the

number in the House increased slightly to 41 (7.8 percent), but remained at just 1 percent

of the Senate (Boundless).

The lack of minority representation in the house and senate may cause a general feeling of

disfranchisement of minorities, which would explain why they are less likely to vote. As we saw

with Back Obama’s victory, he rallied a great portion of the black community in support of him.

So from this we can draw that the black community, for example, felt more represented and the

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voter turnout rate among that specific group increased. It would make sense then that the same

result can be replicated among other minority groups.

Voting Among New Immigrant Populations

Wendy K. Tam Cho, an assistant professor of political science and assistant professor of

statistics at the University of Illinois drew some conclusions that were very useful to my analysis

of voting among new immigrant populations. The study found the following things:

A rise in socioeconomic status does not universally increase the inclination to vote. In

fact, socioeconomic status variables such as education exhibit a clear effect only insofar

as they socialize one to a greater sense of civic duty, greater efficacy in voting, and

tighter adherence to democratic ideals (Cho, Wendy).

From this we can draw, as also earlier mentioned, that education (as a singular factor) does not

always correlate to higher voting rates. However, the secondary factors that arise from education

do have a positive impact on voting trends. Such as greater civic engagement, efficacy and

assimilation into American culture.

The positive correlation between the secondary socio-economic factorial outcomes found

among immigrant populations is the case for all populations, I would argue. This is due to the

fact that higher socio-economic status usually removes barriers to entry to voting that is often

seen among minorities and new immigrants alike. Such as literacy and ability to register to vote,

for example. Cho found the following:

“Higher voter turnout thus correlates positively with higher socioeconomic status in later

generations. As the ability to speak English increases as the years spent in the United

States increases, one should expect increasing numbers of English-speaking minorities

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appearing on the rolls of the electorate. […] Hence, overall turnout levels for minorities

should increase as the primary barriers to political participation for these groups lessen”

(Cho, Wendy).

The conclusion we can draw here is that in general immigrant populations respond positively to

voting as they move up the socio-economic ladder and subsequently overcome the barriers to

entry, like literacy, that they experienced upon arriving to the United States.

Effectiveness of Political Campaigns

The actual effectiveness of political campaigns themselves in mobilizing voters has long

been a topic of interest. Naturally it’s something every politician and campaign manager worry

about. Unfortunately, the millions of campaign dollars that are spent, seem to mainly be spent on

faith. Wilson concluded that “it is hard to know if whether campaigns make a difference, and if

so, which aspects influence the voters” (Wilson 181). This is partially because the voter is

introduced to so many different stimuli, in general, during the campaign season that it’s hard to

say if the campaign itself is making an impact.

The singularly largest factor that people respond to is social pressure. Wilson says that

“showing one hundred voters their past participation rate produces five more votes; telling them

both their own and their neighbors participation rate produces eight more votes”. So in short, as

stated, people respond to social pressures. And even though the gains may seem small, political

campaigns are often won by small margins.

Another factor that people respond to is negative ads and negative ads are directly

campaign related. Some scholars did believe that negative ads had no effect on voter turnout but

according to Wilson “the latest research confirms what many campaign managers have long

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believed: Negative ads are an effective way of generating votes” (Wilson 182). So in general, do

campaigns have no effect? Unlikely. The sheer amount of content that is generated by campaigns

is so far-reaching that it’s hard to imagine it’s totally lost on the voting population; however the

extent they are effective is still up for debate.

In terms of contemporary relevance of political campaigns, I would say that the Trump

campaign was very effective in mobilizing voters. Whether it be through political strategy, his

persona, or a combination – Donald Trump was able to muster up the “silent majority”, as he

calls them, and win against the odds to upset a candidate that seemed more qualified by all

accounts. But even taking his success into account, we only saw actually see a small spike in

election turnout of 2016; an increase from 58% in 2012 to 58.9% (www.forbes.com).

Conclusion

To reiterate, we explored the voter turnout rates of the nineteenth century, what they are

and the reasons behind them. From here we dove into case studies of both African Americans

and women after they received the right to vote, then revisited the data and tied the case studies

back in. After this we explored how we compare to other countries, including voter turnout rates

among younger voters. Then we explored the impact of different socioeconomic factors like race

and education and took a look at how these specifically affected new immigrant populations.

Concluding with the effectiveness of political campaigns.

My original hypothesis was that our relatively low voting trends in the United States are

mainly a matter of the lack of government involvement that we have in comparison to our

(primarily) European counterparts. After conducting my research I have come to realize that

while government involvement is not the same in U.S. as it is in other countries, there are many

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other factors that tie into our voter turnout rates. And there is absolutely room for improvement.

For starters, upward social mobility will positively impact voter turnout. Upward social mobility

generally reduces barriers to entry and allows more people to partake in voting – particularly

new immigrant populations, low-income citizens and minorities. Furthermore, in terms of

minorities, higher representation rates among the house and the senate and also presidential

candidates themselves may also lead to a positive effect on voter turnout. Outside of immigrants

and minorities, a stronger effort through direct in person communication to engage with younger

voters may also have a positive impact on the voter turnout rate.

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