1. Political Participation
and Voting

2. Forms of Political Participation
Traditional political participation: various activities designed to influence government.
Voting, protest, campaign contributions, contact elected officials, wearing a campaign button, volunteering at a campaign office
Online participation: interactive political engagement facilitated by vast opportunities to connect to causes, people, events, and information online.
1. There are many more opportunities to engage in nonvoting political participation.
2. Elections are rare events, national contests every other year.
3. People can, and do, participate in other political activities year-round, on- and offline.

3. Forms of Political Participation
Benefits of online participation:
Access to information
Accidental mobilization
Format advantages
Images, interaction, and unlimited space
Diversity of sources and voices
Lowers entry barriers
Citizen journalism: blogs, video, social media
1. Online format features and content combine to offer unique opportunities for the public to engage.
2. People online for other reasons (FB, shopping, weather, or sports, for example) can come across political information “accidentally.” People post things to their wall, a headline on the side of the website, or some other text on the webpage catches attention.
3. People find themselves interested in topics, pursuing more information or engagement. Minimally, they have many more chances to run into political information, even if they were not seeking it out.
4. Online participation is a new kind of community building unto itself. It “counts” as participation, as next slide illustrates.

4. Political Participation
FIGURE 8.1 Political Participation
Political activities such as volunteering generally take more time and effort than voting. When asked about various forms of political participation, 76 percent of respondents said they had voted in the most recent election. (This number is higher than the actual turnout because people tend to overstate their voting habits in surveys.)
SOURCE: The American National Election Studies (ANES).

5. Voting
Suffrage extended to different groups at different points in American history. Initially only wealthy (property-owning) white men 21 and older.
Wealth limitation eliminated early 1800s
15th Amendment enfranchises black men (1870)
19th Amendment enfranchises women (1920)
24th Amendment ends poll taxes (1964)
26th Amendment lowers age to 18 (1971)
Jim Crow laws emerged in response to the Fifteenth Amendment. Though black men had the right to vote, many states and communities worked vehemently to keep them from participating, using laws, discriminatory social norms, and violence.
Black voting rights have no parallel in American history; women and young voters never encountered the systematic and extreme backlash to their enfranchisement.

6. Voting Right to vote: all American citizens >18 yrs. old
10 states allow for a lifetime voting bans for convicted
felons (a clemency hearing decides voter rights individually)
Turnout relatively low today
Lower than other democracies, points in American history
60% national average presidential elections
33% national average off-year national races
Significant state and regional differences
Students can look up which states have lifetime bans on voting.
There is a common misunderstanding that this law is a national rule but, in fact, the vast majority of American states (40 as of 2012) do not have this policy in place.
We need points of comparison to determine whether turnout is high or low.
Most often, we compare contemporary turnout to two variables: prior turnout rates at different points in American history, and nations with comparable governments (democracies).

7. Voter turnout in democratic nations 1945–2008
Voting
Voter turnout in democratic nations 1945–2008
Voter Turnout around the World, 1945–2008
Although the United States is the oldest mass democracy, rates of voter turnout are substantially higher in other countries. In many of these countries, election days are holidays and voting is compulsory. Do you think that either of these reforms would increase voting in the United States?
SOURCE: International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance. (accessed 12/5/09); note that for some of the countries, the most recent election data are from 2007; for Brazil, the average is calculated for the period after 1989, when democracy was restored.
NOTE: Average between 1945 and 2008.

8. Voting

9. Voting

10. Voting Why do people vote? Individual preferences and traits
Partisanship, ideology, religion, sex, income, etc.
Political environment
Campaigns, issues, mobilization, party competition
State policies
Registration deadlines and methods, identification, ballot types (paper, mail only, etc.)
1. It is easy to identify who votes, but a more complicated question is why people vote.
2. This list gives information about variables that predict and explain underlying experiences that influence turnout.
3. For example, there is nothing magical about age; someone does not automatically turn into a voter because they hit a certain number.
4. Rather, these factors, in combination, do tell us a great deal about individual and contextual factors that influence the propensity to vote.
5. Of course, there are always people of X set of traits that do or do not vote; that does not invalidate these consistent, well-established findings.

11. Voting Individual traits and preferences Demographic indicators
Education, income, sex, race/ethnicity, age
Education: highest impact because influences so many other factors correlated with voter turnout information, efficacy, income
Preferences and attitudes
Party attachment, ideology, issue positions
Makes sense: people with well-formed opinions vote
Demographic traits shape personal and group experiences, which may influence what issues matter to people.
Demographic traits shape sensibility about the merits and impact of electoral participation
Preferences and attitudes: people who care about an issue(s), party, or feel vested in the outcome, vote.

12. Voting Political environment Context can attract voters to the polls
Candidates, pressing issues (is it a time of crisis? War?)
Mobilization strategies and investment
Party competition (or lack thereof)
Consistently competitive or noncompetitive
Voters, candidates, parties and contributors ALL take party competition into account.
Candidates want heated competition, but don’t want it to turn so negative that voters stay home
Compelling candidates (Clinton v. Obama is a case in point) draw voter attention and turnout.
Issues that the public cares about that are of immediate importance may influence turnout (wars, economy).
Turnout is a two-way street. Campaigns strategically invest in mobilizing their base, people who are asked are more likely to vote.
Highly competitive races have higher turnout; just like more competitive sports matchups get higher ratings. No one feels compelled to participate in a blow-out. On the other hand, if it is seemingly close, the incentive to turn out rises.

13. Voting
State policies
All states implement voting and election laws differently. Some make it easier than others.
Registration deadlines prior to election day
Length of residency at current address
Identification requirements (controversy of voter ID laws)
Early and absentee voting rules
Variable vote locations
Ballot method: mail only, paper ballot, kiosk, etc.
Making the process of registration, remaining on the voter roll, and the act of voting more user-friendly, or not, can influence turnout.
Students can look up different rules for a few different states and compare turnout rates.

14. Turnout = state rules + political context + individual traits
American Voters
Why is turnout different across groups?
Turnout = state rules + political context + individual traits
Variation in all three areas explains voter turnout trends.
Think about the permutations of these three variables. Make a hypothetical voter, give the voter personal traits (income, education, employment). Assign that hypothetical voter to a state, then look up the rules and degree of party competition in the state. Is your person more or less likely to turn out, given the set of variables? Repeat for three to five more hypothetical voters, then rank their likelihood of voting in the next election.