Download - Chapter 7
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Presentation by Eric Miller, Blinn College, Bryan, Texas.
Chapter 7Political Participation and Voting: Expressing the Popular Will
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Walter Lippmann
We are concerned in public affairs, but
immersed in our private ones.
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Voter Participation
• Essential component of the ideal of self-government
• Elections are a means by which… • People control the government• Government controls the people• Elections are the only form of
participation that involves a majority of citizens (in most countries)
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Voter Participation
• Suffrage- right to vote, has expanded over time• White property owning males• 15th Amendment (1870)- ended race as a barrier• 19th Amendment (1920)- ended sex as a barrier• 24th Amendment (1964)- no poll-tax• 26th Amendment (1971)- ended age as a barrier• Disenfranchisement- literacy tests, citizen tests,
whites-only primary elections• Voting Rights Act of 1965
• “Motor Voter Law” 1993• Linked voter registration to vehicle registration• Made it easier to register to vote
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Voter Participation
• Factors in Voter Turnout: The United States in Comparative Perspective• Registration Requirements
• Places a burden on the individual• Voter ID Laws- disenfranchisement?
• Voter ID cards serve to depress voter turnout• Georgia photo ID/voter identification card law
• Federal judge struck down monetary requirement• Supreme Court upheld Indiana voter ID card
requirement
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Should Voters be Required to Carry a Government-Issued Photo ID?
• Pro:• Voting fraud is widespread and detrimental• All citizens will be assisted in getting IDs
• Con:• Poor, elderly, and minorities will be disenfranchised• Little documentation of voter fraud
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Voter Participation
• Factors in Voter Turnout: The United States in Comparative Perspective• Frequency of Elections
• Elections at many levels of government frequent and staggered• State and local hold elections in off-years to insulate their
races from possible effects of presidential campaigns• Primary Elections
• Reduces voter turnout• Increases amount of personal effort needed to participate• Americans asked to vote two or three times as often as
Europeans• Party Differences
• No sharp differences between major parties• Overlapping policies
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Voter Participation
• Why Some Americans Vote and Others Do Not• Civic Attitudes
• Civic Duty• regular voters have a strong sense of civic duty
• Apathy• People just don’t care enough to vote
• Alienation• People feel powerless
• Age• Younger people vote the least• Older people vote the most
• Education• More education = more likely to participate
• Income• Political participation is dominated by the middle-
class • Hispanic and African Americans have had a
relatively low turnout for POTUS elections
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• Voter turnout for men and women are somewhat similar• Education level and income are bigger factors in participation
Voter Turnout and Levelof Income, 2008
Voter Turnout in PresidentialElections, 1960-2008
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Voter Participation
• The Impact of the Vote• Elections do not normally produce a “mandate”
• Prospective Voting• Based on knowledge of candidates’ positions
• Retrospective Voting• Based on past performance
• Economic conditions usually play a factor, with some consideration of foreign policy issues
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Voter Participation
• Presidential elections draw the most voters
• Presidential debates• Nixon-Kennedy- 60% of households w/ TV• Audiences have declined significantly since
1960 • Americans get most of their news from
TV• Passive participation• People who follow the news are generally
more informed about politics than those who do not• “the Fox anomaly”
• Older people follow the news more closely than younger people
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America’s Major News Sources
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Conventional Forms of Participation Other Than Voting
• Campaign Activities• Lobbying Group Activities• Following Politics in the Media• Virtual Participation
• Political campaigns and citizen mobilization• Democratizing effects but also political
polarization• Community Activities
• Decline in social capital?• The sum of face-to-face interactions among
citizens in a society
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Online Campaign Activities
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Campaign Activity
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Unconventional Activism: Social Movements and Protest Politics
• Social movements- a broad effort to achieve change• A way for those who are dissatisfied with gov. to get its
attention• More dramatic than conventional means• Politically weak can force gov. to be more responsive
• Protests go back to the Boston Tea Party.• Protests are often calculated acts usually involving
younger citizens rather than older ones• Political protests more planned today than in the past
• Protest movements seldom gain broad public support.• Political protests less common today, and low public
support for protesters• But protests are often tolerated.
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Protest Activity
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Participation and the Potential for Influence
• Most citizens take little interest in participation, except for voting
• Class bias: public versus private• Political = public (i.e. voting)• Economic = private (i.e. health insurance)
• Low participation rates of lower-income people
• Participation rates parallel private influence
• Americans are less likely to vote than Europeans but more likely to donate money or time to promote community causes and work in political campaigns
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States in the Nation