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Copyright 2006 Prentice Hall
Prentice HallPoliticalScienceInteractive
Shea, Green, and SmithLiving Democracy
Chapter 1Special TopicVoter Turnout
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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
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Voter Turnout in Presidential and Congressional Elections
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Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections, 1800-2004
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Voting: Registration
Spanish language
registration forms, where
they are used, may ease the burden of
registration for some
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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
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Changes in Voting Eligibility Standards since 1870
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The Politics of Voter Turnout
The stimulus of competition
Political alienation
Intensity of opinions
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The Politics of Voter Turnout
These college students feel responsible to vote and line up on campus to fill out absentee ballots
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Voter Turnout in Western Democracies
Average Turnout 1991-2000
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Registration and Voting in the World’s Parliamentary
Elections
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Percentage of African Americans Registered to Vote, 1980-2004
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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
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Why People Don’t Vote
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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
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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
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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