1. The Vanishing Voter ‘Myth or fact?’
20 November: Oliver Parsons

2. ‘If voting changed anything they’d abolish it’
- Title of books by Ken Livingstone (1987)

3. Who votes?
How can you explain the level of turnout in elections?
What factors affect turnout?
US system
UK System
What “non-voting” forms of participation need to be considered?

4. Participation of the people in essential for a healthy democracy.
‘Demo’ – of the people
‘Cracy’ – power
It forms the key principle of the essence of democracy and confers legitimacy to the winning party(s). In a representative system, such as the US and UK, political participation in the form of voting is the single most direct influence the population will have on the formation of the government and future direction of the country.
Ways of participation?

5. ‘Voting requires minimum commitment for a brief period, but involves by far the greatest number of people. Indeed a healthy democracy is often judged on its turnout’.

6. Who Votes?
High Income, Highly Educated, Older, Urban, Strong Party Identity – The Profile of the standard voter

7. Is Voting becoming an elitist hobby of the educated and politically aware?

8. Level of Turnout in Elections

9. Use of compulsory voting
FACTORS:
Use of compulsory voting
The age at which citizens become eligible to vote
Type of electoral system
Closeness of the electoral outcome
Number of parties
Levels of socioeconomic development
Size of country
Executive Importance
Blais and Dobrynska, Analysing 91 democracies

10. ‘Comfort Democracy?’

11. 50% stated that they found the campaign boring
Why do more people vote for the winner of big brother than for the government in the general election?
50% stated that they found the campaign boring
69% said that they heard nothing during the course of the campaign that changed their minds about anything.
27% believed that voting in the election would make no difference to the way the country is run
37% believed that politics was too confusing to follow
41% believed that nobody in government ever listened to them
55% said that anything they said or did would have no influence on how the country is run
- How the Other Half Votes by Professor Stephen Coleman

12. Rational Choice Theory –
2 Main Theories
Rational Choice Theory –
Cost and benefit of voting
Cultural Theory –
Cultural modernisation, civic skills and motivational attitudes

13. Rational Choice Theory
Political Institutions – Electoral System, Type of party system, Executive presidential or parliamentary.
Legal Systems – Compulsory voting system, age qualification.
Electoral Administration – Age of voting, registration process, distribution of polling stations.
Multiple costs involved including time and effort required to vote and legal sanctions imposed for failure to turnout. Would expect higher turnout in post-industrial societies. Effective electoral engineering.

14. Cultural Theory
Common social trends including rising affluence, growth of service sector, expanded educational opportunities. Leads to new style of citizen politics, especially in western democracies.
More – Direct, Active, Single Issue, Social Movements
Less – Church, Parties, Unions, Voting
Electors influenced by social economic status and political attitudes, beliefs and values generating habitual and deeply rooted patterns of participation. Sluggish reaction to electoral engineering, if at all.

15. US Participation
The world’s most foremost liberal democracy actually has one of the worst voting participation rates.
Average 47% during the 1990’s
However vote goes up during presidential elections.
This alone disproves theory over educated, affluent voters mean higher turnout but at the same time show that the cultural theory argument could be correct. More direct action, social movements rather than party political support.

16. US Presidential Turnout
2004 – 55.3%
2000 – 51.3%
1996 – 49.1%
1992 – 55.1%
1988 – 50.1% %
1980 – 52.6%
1976 – 53.6%
1972 – 55.2%
1968 – 60.8%
1964 – 61.9%
1960 – 63.1%

17. Thanks to increasing voter apathy, turnout keeps dwindling.
However …
MYTHS:
Thanks to increasing voter apathy, turnout keeps dwindling.
Other countries' higher turnout indicates more vibrant democracies.
Negative ads turn off voters and reduce turnout.
The Republican "72-hour campaign" will win the election.
Making voter registration easier would dramatically increase turnout.

18. UK Participation

19. “Non-Voting” forms of participation

20. ‘Going to the polls is an activity motivated primarily by the desire to affect the course of public policy. It is true that the stick of compulsory voting and the carrot of postal voting do lead more people to vote than otherwise would do so, but the major factors determining turnout –the importance of the electoral contest and the likelihood of one’s vote will be influential – could only operate if people were motivated to use their votes to achieve a political goal.’