1. 10.3 Voting Trends

2. Key Terms Off-year elections ballot fatigue. political efficacy. Political socialization Barack Obama gender gap Ronald Reagan George H.W. Bush Bill Clinton party identification straight-ticket voting. split-ticket voting independents.

3. Voter Turnout in the United States In the United States, 71 percent of all eligible voters—but only 54 percent of eligible voters aged 18–24—are registered to vote. In this photo, young volunteers work to get out the youth vote in 2012.

4. Section One: Voting Trends “Your vote is your voice. Use it.” That’s the advice of Rock the Vote, an organization that encourages young voters ages 18 to 25 to participate in the election process. In the United States, and in other democratic countries, we believe all voices should be heard. That is, we believe in voting, because it is one of the processes that individuals can use to affect public policy. Most elections in this country are built around two-candidate contests. How many choices does a voter have in a two-candidate race? More than most people think. Not just two but, in fact, five options. He or she can vote FOR Candidate A vote AGAINST Candidate A vote FOR Candidate B vote AGAINST Candidate B Decide not to vote for either candidate.

5. Section One: Voting Trends The word idiot came to our language from the Greek. In ancient Athens, idiots (idiotes) were those citizens who did not vote or otherwise take part in public life. Off-year elections—that is, the congressional elections held in the even- numbered years between presidential elections—have even lower rates of turnout. There are millions of nonvoters among those who vote. Some 4 million persons who voted in the last presidential election could also have voted for a congressional candidate, but they did not choose to do so. As a general rule, the farther down the ballot an office is, the __less______ votes it will receive. This phenomenon is sometimes called ballot fatigue. The expression suggests that many voters exhaust their patience and/or their knowledge as they work their way down the ballot.

6. Voter Turnout in the United States This graph is based on the U.S. population aged 18 and over. What can you conclude about voter turnout in presidential as opposed to off-year elections from this graph?

7. Why People Do Not Vote Why so many nonvoters? Why, even in a presidential election, do as many as half of those who could vote stay away from the polls?

8. People who cannot vote Some Americans are barred from voting including: Resident aliens who are not citizens Some people in mental health facilities. Some states bar felons from voting.

9. Actual Nonvoters Many who believe that no matter who wins an election, things will continue to go well for them and for the country.. Many people who feel alienated, cynical, or distrustful of political institutions and processes Don't trust political institutions

10. Zone Fallout and Other Factors States in the Eastern and Central time zones close an hour or more before polls in the Mountain and Pacific time zones do. News media often project the outcome of the presidential contest before all voters in the West have gone to the polls.

11. Comparing Voters and Nonvoters People most likely to vote display such characteristics as higher levels of income, education, and occupational status Strong sense of party identification, voting is an important act Nonvoters are likely to be younger than age 35, unmarried, and unskilled Men are less likely to vote than women

12. Why People Do Not Vote dangerous Turnout tends to be higher in places like Iran where the right to vote has been newly won. In some of those places, people turn out to vote despite the fact that doing so can be dangerous.

13. Influences on Voters and Voting Behavior Most of what is known about voter behavior comes from three sources. 1. The results of particular elections. How individuals vote in a given election is secret in the United States. However, careful study of the returns from areas populated largely by, say, African Americans or Catholics or high-income families will indicate how those groups voted in a given election. 2. The field of survey research. The polling of scientifically determined cross sections of the population is the method by which public opinion is most often identified and measured. The Gallup Organization and the Pew Research Center conduct perhaps the best known of these polls today. 3. Studies of political socialization. Political socialization- is the process by which people gain their political attitudes and opinions. That complex process begins in early childhood and continues through each person’s life. Political socialization involves all of the experiences and relationships that lead people to see the political world, and to act in it, as they do.

14. Influences on Voters and Voting Behavior Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan organization that uses music, popular culture, and technology to engage young people and involve them in the political process.

15. Sociological Factors and Political Attitudes The first campaign buttons to display a candidate’s photo—like these Obama and Romney buttons—were distributed by Abraham Lincoln during his 1860 presidential campaign. concerning the development, structure, and functioning of human society. A campaign button is a pin used during an election as political advertising for (or against) a candidate or political party, or to proclaim the issues that are part of the political platform.... Campaign buttons bear some similarity to bumper stickers, which are also used for political and other promotional messages

16. Section Three: Sociological Factors and Political Attitudes Gender, Age There are often measurable differences between the partisan choices of men and women today. This phenomenon is known as the gender gap, and it first appeared in the 1980s. Women generally tend to favor the Democrats by a margin of five to ten percent, and men often give the GOP a similar edge. Religion, Ethnic Background Historically, a majority of Protestants have most often preferred the GOP. Catholics and Jews have tended to be Democrats. For decades now, African Americans have supported the Democratic Party consistently and massively. They form the only group that has given the Democratic candidate a clear majority in every presidential election since 1952. There are now some 40 million African Americans, and they make up the second largest minority in the country.

17. Sociological Factors and Political Attitudes Voters in urban areas tend to vote Democratic, even in States like Texas that vote overwhelmingly Republican.

18. Psychological factors —of, affecting, or arising in the mind; related to the mental and emotional state of a person including party identification and perception of the candidates and issues—also contribute to voter behavior. Party identification is loyalty to a political party. A person loyal to one party may vote only for candidates of that party, a practice called straight-ticket voting. Recently, many voters have declared themselves independents, or people not identified with a party. They may vote for candidates from more than one major party in the same election, which is called split-ticket voting.

19. DemocratCharacteristicRepublican X Poor Rich X College Graduates X X High School Drop-Outs X Women Men X X Youth Elderly X Protestant Christians X X Non-Christians Frequent Church-goers X X African-Americans Whites X X Latinos Southerners X X Northeasterners Please indicate the voting tendencies of each group in the chart below