Copyright 2006 Prentice Hall Prentice Hall PoliticalScienceInteractive Shea, Green, and Smith Living Democracy Chapter 1 Special Topic Voter Turnout.

Copyright 2006 Prentice Hall

Prentice HallPoliticalScienceInteractive

Shea, Green, and SmithLiving Democracy

Chapter 1Special TopicVoter Turnout


Securing the Right to Vote

The elimination of property qualifications (1800-1840)

The Fifteenth Amendment (1870)

Continued denial of voting rights (1871-1964)

The Civil Rights Act, the Twenty-Fourth Amendment, and the Voting Rights Act, 1964-1965


Voter Turnout in Presidential and Congressional Elections


Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections, 1800-2004


Voting: Registration

Spanish language

registration forms, where

they are used, may ease the burden of

registration for some


Voting: Registration

In an effort to make registration easier, states have made registration forms available at motor vehicle stations, schools, public buildings, and even highway tollbooths


Changes in Voting Eligibility Standards since 1870


The Politics of Voter Turnout

The stimulus of competition

Political alienation

Intensity of opinions


The Politics of Voter Turnout

These college students feel responsible to vote and line up on campus to fill out absentee ballots


Voter Turnout in Western Democracies

Average Turnout 1991-2000


Registration and Voting in the World’s Parliamentary

Elections


Percentage of African Americans Registered to Vote, 1980-2004


Nonvoting: What Difference Does It Make?

“I’m not going to shed any crocodile tears if people don’t care enough to vote….I’d be extremely happy if nobody in the United States voted except for the people who

thought about the issues and made up their own minds and wanted to vote.”

- the late Senator Sam Ervin

A huge army of nonvoters, “hangs over the democratic process like a bomb ready to

explode and change the course of history.”-Arthur Hadley


Why People Don’t Vote


Voting on the Basis of Party

In the absence of reasons to vote otherwise, people depend on party identification to simplify their voting choices.

Dramatic increase in self-declared Independents since 1970s

Party Identification

An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most people acquire in

childhood


Voting on the Basis of Candidates

1980s mark a critical threshold in the emergence of a candidate-centered era

Increasingly, campaigns focus on the negative elements of candidates’ history and personality

Candidate Appeal

How voters feel about a candidate’s background, personality, leadership ability, and

other personal qualities


Voting on the Basis of Issues

Prospective Issue Voting

Voting based on what a candidate pledges

to do in the future about an issue if

elected

Retrospective Issue Voting

Holding incumbents responsible for past

performance on issues

Copyright 2006 Prentice Hall Prentice Hall PoliticalScienceInteractive Shea, Green, and Smith Living Democracy Chapter 1 Special Topic Voter Turnout.

Documents

voting rights act

voting choices

registration easier

voting eligibility standards

burden of registration

registration forms available

people dont care

absentee ballotsvoter