1. Voting and Political Participation in Texas
Chapter 7
Voting and Political Participation in Texas

2. Identify the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
Upon completing this chapter, you will be able to…
Identify the rights and responsibilities of citizens.

3. Then Senate candidate Ted Cruz speaking with reporters during his campaign. Cruz assumed office in 2013 and is currently serving a 6-year term as the junior U.S. Senator from Texas.

4. Political Participation
Activities related to governance
Levels and types of activities
Key term:
political participation

7. Voter Turnout in Texas Proportion of people who cast ballots
Registration
United States Election Project
Voter turnout in Texas
Key terms:
voter turnout
registered voters
voter registration
same-day voter registration
voting-age population
voting-eligible population

8. Voters waiting in line to cast ballots

12. Explaining Voter Turnout
Legal Restrictions Today
The Legacy of Restricted Ballot Access in Texas
Key terms:
poll tax
annual registration
permanent registration
white primary

13. Smith v Allright (1944)
The white primary was designed to keep African Americans from voting in the primary elections, as white Democrats declared the Democratic Party primary to be the internal election of a private organization, an organization that could and did exclude blacks.
 In Texas, the law stated, "Be it resolved that all white citizens who are qualified to vote shall be eligible to membership in the Democratic party."
After S.S. Allwright, a white election official, denied Lonnie E. Smith, a black man, the right to vote in the 1940 Texas Democratic primary, the NAACP's Thurgood Marshall and William Hastie fought Smith's case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Marshall argued that as a citizen of the precinct who had paid his "poll tax," Smith had the right to vote in the Democratic Primary election. The Democratic Party argued that it was an independent organization that could include or exclude as a part of its organization anyone it pleased. In 1944 Court ruled in Marshall's favor: "The right to vote in a primary for the nomination of candidates without discrimination by the State, like the right to vote in a general election, is a right secured by the Constitution." 

15. National Anti-Suffrage Association headquarters, 1911

16. Explaining Voter Turnout
Social and Economic Factors
Age
Race
Key term:
socioeconomic factors

19. Explaining Voter Turnout
Felony Conviction and Voting
Party Competition
Other Factors Affecting Voter Turnout
Rationalist Explanations for Low Voter Turnout

20. Other Forms of Political Participation
Forms of participation
Donating money
Donating time
Civic skills