Political Participation 1.What is political participation? 2. Types of Participants: Voting specialists20% Campaigners15% (most vote) Group members 20% (most vote) Contactors 5% (most vote) Inactives 20-25% Complete activists 10% 3. types of voters: regular 38% marginal 17% habitual nonvoters 45%

4.Is voting rational? Is C<Bp ? C= cost of voting B=benefit if your side wins p=probability your vote will be decisive Are there other reasons for voting? 5.Who votes?better educated middle aged people those who are organizationally active those who are more highly partisan 6.Negative system effects:voter registration nonpartisan elections at large elections less competition

7. Participation and franchise extensions a. end to property requirements b. women and the vote: 19 th Amendment c. ending race impediments: 15 th Amendment, 24 th Amendment, 1965 VRA and amendments d. 18 year old vote: 26 th Amendment 8. Factors encouraging the decline in rates a. new groups that vote at lower rates b. irrelevance? (more people report interest) c. decline of efficacy d. decline in parties and partisanship e. decline in organized mobilization efforts e. have we created a new world that is too confusing? with fewer guides for individual political choice?