1. UNIT.III / Political Participation
AP GOVERNMENT / Mr. Wnorowski

2. THE RESULTS ARE IN: An Advanced Placement Government Survey
TOPIC: Qualifications for the Presidency
Who will choose the Presidents of the next several decades? Who will determine which Senators and Representatives make laws during the 21st century? Who will cast the votes that will influence public policy of the future? The answer is: YOU. As a member of the next generation of American voters, your opinion counts. That’s why the Close Up Foundation and Prentice Hall teamed up to sponsor a national survey of high school students’ views about government and politics.
On the Magruder’s American Government Web site at the results of the entire survey can be found. Follow the link to the Close Up Foundation and click on Student Opinion on Government and Politics

3. THE RESULTS ARE IN: An Advanced Placement Government Survey
1.Conduct a poll of your classmates about what they feel are the qualities needed in a President 2. Ask your Elective Teachers for Permission to conduct the survey 3. Hand-out the Survey slip and have students check off the best answer for each box 4. They do not put their names on it 5. Collect the survey’s and return them to class: Assigned – Return to class In-class we will tally the results 7. place your data on the spread sheet 8. Create an Austin HS Bar graph displaying the answers 9. Compare your data to the 2000 poll 10. Analyze and answer the questions

4. Political Participation
Most common way people participate is:
voting in Presidential elections
Other conventional ways:
Join a political Party or interest group
Run for office
volunteer to work for a candidate
Unconventional:
Riots/protests
Civil disobedience—purposely breaking a law that you see as wrong

5. Obstacles to voting Demographics: Age income Institutional:
education is the biggest factor in whether you will vote
Age
income
Institutional:
voter registration—motor voter tried to help—you can register when you get your drivers license
lots of elections
ballot fatigue
Tuesday elections

6. Voter qualifications & disqualifications
Qualifications in Texas
18 or older Registered
U.S. Citizen Resident for at least 30 days
Photo ID
Disqualification
convicted felon
mentally incompetent
dishonorable discharge from the military

7. The Development of Voting Rights in the U.S.
You don’t need to know the dates.
1788 States determined voter qualifications. In most States, only
**white, male, property owners, 21 or older & protestant could vote!
Early 1800's most States drop the “protestant” requirement
States drop the property ownership requirement, so by this time, white males, 21 or older could vote!

8. The Development of Voting Rights in the U.S.
You don’t need to know the dates.
1870 *****15th Amendment - prohibits the denial of the right to vote on the basis of race—intent was to allow former male slaves to vote
1915 Guinn v. U.S. - the grandfather clause is declared unconstitutional. Most grandfather clauses allowed you to vote IF your father or grandfather could voter before —hmmmm--coincident??
**need to know what the grandfather clause was
1920**19th Amendment FINALLY gave women the right to vote!!:)

9. The Development of Voting Rights in the U.S.
You don’t need to know the dates.
1944 Smith v. Allwright - declared "white primaries” to be unconstitutional. These were primaries in which you had to be a member of a party to vote—closed primaries AND you had to be white to join a party
1957 Civil Rights Act establishes the Civil Rights Commission-this sounds good, right?? Unfortunately, Congress gave them very little power—law doesn’t do much to help people vote!
1960 Gomillion v. Lightfoot - outlaws gerrymandering when used for racial discrimination. This is when the single member districts are drawn to the advantage of a race—for example—dividing El Paso into 5 districts to prevent a Hispanic from being elected to office

10. The Development of Voting Rights in the U.S.
You don’t need to know the dates.
The various Civil Rights Act allows federal gov’t to appoint voting officials to oversee registration & voting procedures but only for federal elections—States were where the problem was, not the federal government, so this doesn’t accomplish much.
1964***24th Amendment – abolishes the use of poll taxes in federal elections—you no longer have to pay to vote!!:)
1964 ***Civil Rights Act - forbids the use of any discriminatory registration requirements—Congress finally gets it right!!! This law does a lot more—outlaws segregation in public places among other things.

11. The Development of Voting Rights in the U.S.
You don’t need to know the dates.
1965****Voting Rights Act - applies the 15th Amendment to ALL elections. This law suspends the use of literacy tests, appoints voting examiners to oversee the registration and election process AND provides for federal approval of new election laws in States with a history of discrimination. This part of the law was just overturned. This law also requires that any state with more than 5% of voting population belonging to a "language minority" must print ballots in a 2nd language.
1966 Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections - the Court rules that poll taxes are illegal in State elections!!
1971***26th Amendment- lowered the voting age to 18—Vietnam War

12. ASSIGNMENTS STUDENT ELECTION POLL READER # 4, 5, & 6 Ch. 7 Reading
Conduct Poll Between
Data Analysis 9.22 & 9.23
READER # 4, 5, & 6
Ch. 7 Reading
READING QUIZ. 9/22(B) & 9/23 (A) 
Ch.6 & Ch.7
Reader # 4-6