Political Participation and Voter Behavior

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Political Participation and Voter Behavior

• Who Participates?
• Voter Turnout
• Voter Registration

2
Political Participation

• Encompasses the various activities that citizens
  employ in their efforts to influence policy
  making and the selection of leaders

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Political Participation

• People participate in politics in many ways
• They may write their representative or senator
• Work for a candidate or political party
• Make presentations to their local school board or
  city council

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Political Participation

• Partly because our federalist system, people have
  many opportunities to participate in our
  democracy on
• National level
• State level
• Local level

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Political Participation

• Some forms of participation are more common than
  others
• Some citizens participate more than others

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Political Participation

• Americans in general are comparatively active in
  politics
• However, the U.S. is notorious among modern
  democracies in voter turnout rates

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Political Participation

• Turnout for the U.S. presidential election of
  2000 was about 50
• By contrast, most western democracies in Europe
  have vote rates well above 70

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Types of Participation

• Researchers have found for years that American
  citizens most commonly participate in national
  politics by following presidential campaigns
  voting in presidential elections

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Types of Participation

• According to the National Election studies from
  the Center for Political Studies at the
  University of Michigan, Americans reported the
  following types of political participation during
  the campaign election of 2000

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Types of Participation

• 82 watched the campaign on TV
• 73 voted in the election
• 34 tried to influence others how to vote
• 10 put a sticker on their car or wore a button

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Types of Participation

• 9 gave money to help a campaign
• 5 attended a political meeting
• 3 worked for a party or candidate
• Lesser participated in protests

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Types of Participation

• These statistics can be deceptive because they
  reflect how people say they participate
• Despite the fact that 73 said they voted in the
  2000 election, about 50 actually did

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Types of Participation

• One explanation is that people know that they
  should vote dont want to admit it if they did
  not

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Who Participates?

• Experts have found several demographics (social
  economic characteristics) to be strongly
  associated with high levels of political
  participation

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Who Participates?

• 1. Education
• 2. Religious Involvement
• 3. Race Ethnicity
• 4. Age
• 5. Gender

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Education

• Single most important characteristic of a
  politically active citizen is a high level of
  education
• Generally, the more education an individual has,
  the more likely he or she is to vote

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Education

• Generally, the more education an individual has,
  the more likely he or she is to vote

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Why?
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Education

• Perhaps the well educated better understand
  complex societal issues
• Maybe they better understand the importance of
  civic responsibility

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Education

• Or it could just be that their occupation are
  more flexible in allowing them to take time to go
  to the polls

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Religious Involvement

• As religious involvement increases, so does
  political participation

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Why?
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Religious Involvement

• Some possibilities are that church involvement
  leads to
• 1. Social connectedness
• 2. Teaches organizational skills
• 3. Increases ones awareness or larger societal
  issues

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Race Ethnicity

• If only race ethnicity are considered, whites
  have higher voting rates than do blacks Latinos

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Race Ethnicity

• However, that tendency is somewhat deceptive
• Some studies that control for income education
  differences have found that voting races are
  about the same for white, blacks, and Latinos

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Age

• Despite the big push in the early 1970s to allow
  18 yr. olds to vote, voting levels for 18-24 year
  olds are the lowest of any age category

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Age

• Older people are more likely to vote than are
  younger people
• The highest percentages of eligible voters who
  actually vote are in those groups 45 and above

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Gender

• For many years women were underrepresented in the
  voting booths
• In recent elections, they have turned out in at
  least equal numbers to men

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Age

• Since 1992, turnout among women voters has
  exceeded that of men
• This trend is relatively new

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Who Participates?

• It is important to note that an individual is
  affected by many factors his or her age, social
  class, education level, race, gender, and party
  affiliation

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Who Participates?

• These factors form cross-cutting cleavages
• Making it very important to control for other
  factors that may produce a counter influence

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Who Participates?

• For example, in order to compare gender
  differences in voting rates, a researcher would
  have to compare men women of similar ages,
  education level, race, party affiliation

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Who Participates?

• Otherwise, the voting behavior may be caused by a
  factor other than gender