PARTICIPATION & TURNOUT

American Political Behavior

Nature of Political Participation

Participation: a many-splendored thing

Run for office Civic activism:

demonstrations, sit-ins, etc Writing letters, sending e-

mails Bumper sticker politics Attend rallies, speeches,

and meetings Join a political organization Inform others about and

discuss politics Give Money Vote

Political Participation

Some kinds of participation are more popular than others.

Running for Office is the highest cost and most difficult in terms of entry. It is also the rarest kind of participation.

Voting is the most popular kind of participation.

However, the most common choice is: none of the above.

Voter Turnout: Rational Voters?

Why all the non-voting? Or, conversely, why all the voting?

Rational voters should only vote if the costs of voting are less than the benefits of having your preferred candidate win. (i.e. utility > transaction costs)

Problem? Well, that leaves the following equation:

Vote decision = U * P – C > 0, vote. Else, no vote. U = utility from getting preferred candidate P = probability of casting the decisive vote in the election C = transaction costs associated with voting

The Turnout Paradox

The problem is the rational model has a Nash equilibrium where voters choose not to vote.

The problems don’t stop there: Reality v. Theory: But, millions of people vote.

So we are still left with the question: why do people vote? And why don’t they?

One solution: a sense of duty (civic obligation) induces voters to vote:

Vote decision = U * P + D > C (vote) D = a sense of civic duty, allegiance, etc.

What is Civic Duty

Riker & Ordeshook defined it thusly:1. complying with the social obligation to vote; 2. affirming one's allegiance to the political system; 3. affirming a partisan preference (also known as

expressive voting, or voting for a candidate to express support, not to achieve any outcome);

4. affirming one's importance to the political system; and, for those who find politics interesting and

5. entertaining, researching and making a decision

Why care about Voter Turnout?

Why is voter turnout an important issue? Should we care whether people vote or not? A high turnout is generally seen as evidence of the

legitimacy of the current system. Contrary View: On the other hand, if low turnout is a

reflection of contentment of voters about likely winners or parties, then low turnout is as legitimate as high turnout, as long as the right to vote exists.

low turnouts can lead to unequal representation among various parts of the population. In developed countries, non-voters tend to be concentrated in particular demographic and socioeconomic groups, especially the young and the poor.

Voter Turnout: Comparative Perspective

Is voting on the decline?

Since the 1960’s voting in national elections in the major democracies of the world have been declining.

Turnout in the United States has fallen from the mid 60’s to the mid 50’s in presidential elections.

However, turnout has been on an upswing in the 2000’s.

Voting Turnout: Comparative Perspective

The United States is ranks 35th out of 37 democracies in voter turnout since the 1960’s (lower house elections).

Explanations for the low turnout ranking of the United States include: Negative campaigning The two-party system Number of elections Greater transaction costs (registration)

Arkansas was 22nd in turnout among the states in 2002.

http://www.state.sc.us/scsec/sta02.htm

More on Voter Turnout

Other explanations for low voter turnout in the U.S. Voter ignorance Lack of competition (especially true at the state level:

many candidates run unopposed) Uninteresting candidates No personal contact by candidate or parties

(especially tough in big states) Dissatisfaction with the system The media Education

State Voter Turnout

As we have seen, there is substantial variation among the states as to turnout. Some explanations for why states vary in turnout: Differences in Partisan Strength: the rise of the

independent voter Party Competition: (the One Party State effect) Differences in Registration Procedures

Election Day registration Voter ID Absentee Balloting Early Voting

National Voter Registration Act of 1993: Motor Voter Mandates that states offer people the opportunity to register

at state service locations Registration seems to have increased, not so much with

voter turnout

2000: Bush v. Gore

Media Predictions of “winners”Counting Ballots: The “Hanging Chad”

phenomonVoting Equipment Controversies

Touch screens The “butterfly ballot”

The Sociological Explanation: Bowling Alone

One of the primary scholars who argues that declining participation in America is due to a change in our culture is the political scientist, Robert Putnam.

In 2000 he published: Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.

Putnam surveys the decline of "social capital" in the United States of America since 1950, which he feels undermines the active civil engagement a strong democracy requires from its citizens.

Bowling Alone

Putnam discusses ways in which Americans have disengaged from political involvement including decreased voter turnout, public meeting attendance, serving on committees and working with political parties. Putnam also cites Americans' growing distrust in their government.

Though he measured the decline of social capital with data of many varieties, his most striking point was that many traditional civic, social and fraternal organizations -- typified by bowling leagues -- had undergone a massive decline in membership while the number of people bowling had increased dramatically.

Bowling Alone but Surfing Together?

Critics such as sociologist Claude Fischer argue that (a) Putnam concentrates on organizational forms of social capital, and pays much less attention to networks of interpersonal social capital; (b) neglects the emergence of new forms of supportive organizations on and off the Internet; and (c) the 1960s are a misleading baseline because the era had an unusually high number of traditional organizations.

Other Explanations

The Welfare State Explanation: Francis Fukuyama has blamed the welfare state, arguing that

the decrease in turnout has come shortly after the government became far more involved in people's lives.

He argues in Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity that the social capital essential to high voter turnouts is easily dissipated by government actions.

The Media & Campaigns Explanation Rosenstone and Hansen contend that the decline in turnout is

the product of a change in campaigning strategies as a result of the so-called new media.

Before the introduction of television, almost all of a party's resources would be directed towards intensive local campaigning and get out the vote initiatives.

In the modern era, these resources have been redirected to expensive media campaigns in which the potential voter is a passive participant.

Turnout: What Decline?

Is the “Disappearing American Voter” a myth?The most typical way to calculate the turnout rate is to

divide the number of votes by what is called the "voting-age population" which consists of everyone age 18 and older residing in the United States. 

This includes persons ineligible to vote, mainly non-citizens and ineligible felons, and excludes overseas eligible voters. 

When turnout rates are calculated for those eligible to vote, a new picture of turnout emerges, which exhibits no decline since 1972.

By 2004, ineligible voters constituted nearly 10%. Ineligible voters are not evenly distributed across the country - 20% of California's voting-age population is ineligible to vote - which confounds comparisons of states.

Turnout: United States (VAP & EP)

Voter Turnout Demographics

In each nation, some parts of society are more likely to vote than others. In high-turnout nations, these differences tend to be limited: as turnout approaches 90% it becomes difficult to find differences of much significance between voters and nonvoters, but in low turnout nations the differences between voters and non-voters can be quite marked.

These differences appear to persist over time—the best predictor of individual turnout is whether or not a person voted in the previous election.[15] As a result, many scholars think of turnout as habitual behavior that can be learned or unlearned, especially among young adults.[16]

Voting Demographics: Education, Income, Age

The most important socioeconomic factor in voter turnout is education. The more educated a person is, the more likely he or she is to vote, even when controlled for other factors such as income and class that are closely associated with education level.

Income has some effect independently: wealthier people are more likely to vote, regardless of their educational background.

Young people are far less likely to vote than the elderly; and single people are less likely to vote than those who are married. Occupation has little effect on turnout, with the notable exception of higher voting rates among government employees in many countries.

Rock the Vote

The decline in voter turnout is almost wholly concentrated among young people. Those who began voting prior to 1960 maintain the same high turnout rates of that era.

For each subsequent generation, starting with the one that came of age in the 1960s, turnout has steadily declined. Recent programs to increase the rates of voting among young people—such as MTV's "Rock the Vote" and the "Vote or Die" initiatives in the United States—may have marginally increased turnouts of those between the ages of 18 and 25 to vote

Voting Demographics: Gender

Traditionally, women have not participated in politics as much as men have.

Women are underrepresented among our elected officials.

However, participation by women has been on the rise in the 20th and 21st century.

Women have seen substantial gains in terms of serving in elected office: 23% of today’s state legislators are women 27 women have served as their state’s governor (1970’s

saw the first non-husband succession)President?

The Gender Gap

There is a substantial difference between men and women in their political views, party affiliation and voting choices.

Women are more likely to identify with the Democratic party than men, who tend to identify with the Republican party.

Women give Democratic gubernatorial candidates 5 – 10% more support than men do.

Voting & Ethnicity

http://www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/News-Research/NewVoters/Ethnicity_tbls.html#table1

Black turnout lagged behind that of Whites substantially in the early decades of the 20th century.

However, that gap has closed in the second half as reforms and anti-discrimination initiatives have opened up the process for blacks and other minorities.

However, minority participation is still fairly low.

Civil Rights: A Historical Perspective

Slavery: The Unresolved Constitutional Question

Missouri Compromise: 1820 Missouri petitions to be admitted as a slave

state – which threatens to reform the delicate balance in Congress between slave states and free states

Compromise admits Missouri as slave, but paired with the entry of Maine – maintaining the balance.

South agreed to accept Missouri’s southern border as the northern boundary beyond which slavery could not extend. (36/30 parallel)

The End of Compromise

Compromise begins to breakdown Abolitionist movement (Free Soil Party) Southerner’s realize the ‘compromise’ spells their

political doom Dred Scott v. Sanford

Every justice wrote a separate decision (5-4) African Americans enjoy “no rights which a white man

was bound to respect.” State laws banning slavery may be unconstitutional

Result: Lincoln wins 1860 election and South secedes

Reconstruction

Constitutional Amendments Thirteenth Amendment – formal emancipation Fourteenth Amendment – granted citizenship Fifteenth Amendment – guaranteed the right to vote

Amendments had mixed results: South largely resistant Black codes

Reconstruction & Electoral Politics

Republican party faced a quandary: the 3/5ths compromise was over and the South

stood to gain considerably as a result of blacks counted as full citizens (despite they didn’t have de facto voting rights in the South)

The First Reconstruction Act of 1867 Disbanded the governments of the Southern

States (void their votes against 14th amendment) Replaced them with military districts Made readmission to the union contingent on the

Southern states’ ratification of the 14th amendment

Legacy of Reconstruction

Reconstruction failed to grant equal rights to blacks Jim Crow laws Segregation White Primary (only whites could vote in

primaries) Poll Tax Literacy Test Grandfather Clauses (exempted voters from

various rules like literacy test if your grandfather had the vote b/f the Civil War)

Plessy v. Ferguson – separate but equal doctrine

Democratic Party & Civil Rights

The Great Depression – seeds of the Reconstruction Era’s demise

The New Deal – garnered black support despite continued neglect of Southern segregation Opposed anti-lynching legislation

Roosevelt Administration did make overtures 1. 100’s of black administrators 2. Reinstituted civil rights division 3. Banned employment discrimination in federal

agencies

Migration of blacks from South to North keyed move to Democratic party

Dems & Civil Rights Continued

Truman sees blacks as key to 1948 re-election 1. Issued executive order integrating the armed

services 2. Sponsored the first civil rights bill since

Reconstruction Made racial lynching a federal crime Provided federal guarantees for voting rights Died in the Senate where strong Southern D’s opposed it

Dixecrats bolt party: nominate Strom Thurmond 1. Ran under State’s Rights Party banner 2. Despite this, Truman wins re-election

Establishing Civil Rights Coalition

NAACP Litigation Strategy 1. Challenged the legal structure of segregation 2. NAACP successes presaged by 20 years of Democratic Judicial

appointments 3. Smith v. Allwright – ends White Primaries 4. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka – ends segregation

Uneven enforcement – Federal troops were ordered into Little Rock in 1957 by Ike to enroll black students in LRHS. Oral Faubus had failed to comply.

1957 Civil Rights Act 1.Permitted blacks who felt their right to vote had been denied to

sue in federal court 2.More important as a political symbol than substantive legislation 3. Democratic dominance in Congress set the stage for major civil

rights legislation in the 1960’s

The Civil Rights Movement

Martin Luther King – nonviolent resistance Supported a societal strategy that aimed at substantive

legislative success rather than using the courts

The Birmingham Demonstration Eugene “Bull” Connor plays into hands of demonstration

organizers hoping to bring national attention to the movement 2000 demonstrators were jailed King writes “Letters from a Birmingham Jail” which provide

the philosophical underpinnings of the Civil Rights movement

As Civil Rights became a prominent national issue, Kennedy could no longer ignore it.

Key Civil Rights Legislation

The 1964 Civil Rights Act 1. Authorized federal government to end segregation in public

education and public accommodations 2. Goldwater moves Republican Party away from support for Civil

Rights on limited government principles. 3. Resulted in a large landslide for Johnson.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 1.Authorized federal agencies to guarantee the right to vote by

taking over voter registration or supervising local officials Solved the problem inherent to previous legislation that had required

proof of discrimination 2. Democrats new it would result in mostly new Democratic voters 3. Justice Department could suspend restrictive electoral tests in

states with low black turnout 4. Registration soared

24th Amendment to the Constitution: makes poll taxes unconstitutional

Post-Civil Rights Movement

1970’s to the PresentA. School Bussing implemented to remediate de

facto segregation de jure segregation is mandated by law Affirmative Action

Requires proof of past discrimination Had to give special consideration to minorities

The Bakke case makes the use of ‘quotas’ in AA unconstitutional, but upholds AA which uses race as a ‘factor’

Adarand Constructors, Inc. v, Pena Broad AA policies unconstitutional AA must be ‘narrowly tailored’ to achieve a ‘compelling

governmental interest.’ California Prop 209

Redistricting

Redistricting: the process of redrawing district lines.

Politics of Redistricting - Gerrymandering: Drawing district lines to advantage a particular group and/or disadvantage a particular group.

There are 2 kinds of gerrymandering: 1. Packing – place all the members of the other

party into one district. 2. Dilution – spread out the members of the other

party so that they don’t have enough votes to win any district, though they have a block of voters in each district.

Gerrymandered District

Gerrymandering: Urban vs. Rural

The folks in the rural districts wanted to ‘disadvantage’ the urban districts (the rural leadership controlled the state legislatures).

This was accomplished by having one really BIG district (in terms of population) with all the urban voters ‘packed’ into it while the rest of the state consisted of numerous equal size (geographically) but smaller (population) rural districts.

In the 1960’s, the Supreme Court decided this sort of district packing was held to be illegal. The Key Case was: Baker v. Carr.

Baker v. Carr: established the principle of one man, one vote. Equal voting power should be distributed across a population equally.

SC explicitly made an exception for the United States Senate.

Hypothetical ‘Packed’ District

FIGURE 1: PACKING A DISTRICT 500K 500K 1MIL 500K 500K

Gerrymandering: Party vs. Racial

Party vs. Minority Discrimination Gerrymandering for the purposes of ‘party’ is legal. Gerrymandering for the purposes of ‘racial’ discrimination

is illegal.The distinction: racial characteristics are easily

identified…while party is hard to define and not a necessarily reliable distinction.

Gerrymandering IV: Affirmative Action Blacks are ‘represented’ in Congress disproportionate to

their numbers in the population. In the early 1990’s a new Voting Rights Act was passed that

allowed gerrymandering for the purpose of affirmative action.

Hypothetical Majority-Minority District

FIGURE 1: MAJORITY-MINORITY DISTRICTS 10% BLK 5% BLK 70% BLK 10% BLK 5% BLK

Majority-Minority Districts

The result was gerrymandering to create Majority-Minority Districts. It was ‘effective’ in that blacks were being elected to Congress.

Congressman sued for loosing their seats on the basis of racial gerrymandering.

The Supreme Court decided that race cannot be a predominant factor in drawing district lines in a 1993 Supreme Court decision (Shaw v. Reno). They determined that creation of a "majority-minority" district solely for racial reasons was unconstitutional.

Gerrymandering cannot be explicitly about race. Those districts were held unconstitutional, though Majority-Minority districts were not held unconstitutional.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, joined by the court's conservatives [in the 1993 opinion], wrote for the majority that the oddly shaped district embodied unfounded assumptions about how blacks and whites vote, and that racial gerrymandering threatened to "balkanize" the country."

Racially Gerrymandered District 1992

Supreme Court & Racial Redistricting

The Court returns to the issue in 2000 (Miller v. Johnson): by a 5 to 4 vote, the justices upheld a congressional district challenged because of its heavy minority voting population.

It rejected a claim that the state legislature violated the constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination when it shifted heavily black precincts into the 12th Congressional District.

Supreme Court ruling sets a precedent allowing states to create "majority minority" voting districts as long as the redistricting criteria are primarily concerned with factors such as voting behavior. Since blacks and Hispanics vote heavily Democratic, then in a district with a large number of Democrats a high proportion of them could well be racial minorities.

Supreme Court Stephen G. Breyer's opinion: "The evidence taken together . . . does not show that racial considerations predominated in the drawing of District 12's boundaries. That is because race closely correlates with political behavior" in North Carolina. Blacks in this state traditionally vote 90% Democratic.

Racially Gerrymandered District 1998

Racial Gerrymandering Reconsidered

Some points to consider…It didn’t always work.The argument can be made that affirmative action

gerrymandering helped the Republicans. It had a ‘whitening’ effect on other districts.

This was racial ‘packing’ in that you were throwing all these solid Democrats into one district. Some in fact argue that the 94’ revolution might, in part, be the result of this.

This raises questions about Representation: are you ‘better off’ having someone who looks like you represent you.