1. The Electorate Do Now: Who should be able to participate in democracy?

3. This slide is a placeholder for a Polleverwhere.com poll slide. Use the instructions included in the documents section to create a poll using the following question. Is it time to end women’s suffrage? Yes No Not Sure

5. Suffrage “The right to vote”

6. The Electorate “The potential voting population”

7. The “Non-Electorate” In your groups discuss the following: If you were creating a democratic nation, who would not be able to vote?

8. Expanding the Electorate At America’s birth only property owning white men and freed male slaves were allowed to vote. Over the course of America’s history there were 5 crucial expansions of the electorate.

9. Expanding the Electorate While states set voting requirements (even for federal elections) the federal government has intervened multiple times in order to protect the voting rights of certain groups.

10. Expanding the Electorate White Males (state statutes) All Races (15 th Amendment) Women’s Suffrage (19 th Amendment) All Races (Voting Rights Act of 1965) Voting Age (26 th Amendment)

11. Voter Qualifications Citizenship Residence Age Registration

12. “Persons” Denied “The Vote” Mentally Incompetent Criminals (Felonies/Dishonorable Discharge)

13. David Hanson, TED 2009 “Robots That Show Emotion” David Hanson's robot faces look and act like yours: They recognize and respond to emotion, and make expressions of their own. Here, an "emotional" live demo of the Einstein robot offers a peek at a future where robots truly mimic humans.

14. David Hanson, TED 2009 What does this video say about defining “personhood?”

15. So, who should vote? What are we really looking for in potential voters? Could “others” fulfill these same requirements? Intelligence? Self-Awareness? Political Awareness? A pulse? Another species? Primates? Dolphins? Robots?

16. The American Middle Class Notes on demographics, public opinion and trends.

17. The American Middle Class The middle class has long been publicized as the most important class from which a candidate needs support. The large middle class in the United States has traditionally wielded considerable voting and monetary power.

18. This slide is a placeholder for a Polleverwhere.com poll slide. Use the instructions included in the documents section to create a poll using the following question. What class does your family fall into? Upper Middle Lower

19. How do we define “Middle Class?”

23. Richard Wilkinson Watch the following video about economic inequality which splits populations into quintiles for statistical analysis.

24. Using Income Quintiles Quintile Upper Upper-Middle- Middle- Lower-Middle- Lower Class- Income Range Greater than $101,583 $62,435-$101,582 $38,521-$62,434 $20,263-$38,520 Less than $20,262 Average $178,020 $80,080 $49,842 $29,204 $11,239

25. This slide is a placeholder for a Polleverwhere.com poll slide. Use the instructions included in the documents section to create a poll using the following question. What quartile does your family fall into? Upper Upper Middle Middle Lower Middle Lower

26. This slide is a placeholder for a Polleverwhere.com poll slide. Use the instructions included in the documents section to create a poll using the following question. How should we define middle class? $50,000-250,000 $40,000-120,000 Self-Identification Cultural Values Quintiles

30. The Problem Electoral campaigns focus on the middle class because they have been the largest group of voters in the US. As the middle class shrinks and the lower and upper classes grow we face a society increasingly dominated by the upper class. In a world where money buys power this is an obvious problem (the very few ruling the many).

31. 4.1 Assignment Politicians seem to be bowing to the very wealthy views of the very few and ignoring the will of the less wealthy masses. How do we ensure that individual votes are determining our course (true representative democracy) and not the few votes with money behind them?