Explain the low turnout in U.S. elections.
"Miller light and bud light…either way you end up with a mighty weak beer!" This is how Jim Hightower (a Texan populist speaker) described the choices that the U.S. electorate had in the 2000 elections. This insinuates that there is a clear lack of distinction between the parties. Along with numerous others, this is one of the reasons why the turnout is so low in the U.S. elections. In trying to explain the low figures at the U.S. elections, analysts have called American voters apathetic to indifferent to downright lazy. I disagree that the 50% (in recent elections) of voters that fail to turnout to vote are lazy and that they have just reason not too. I will also show that the problem lies within the system itself in that the institutional arrangements, electoral and governmental, do not create an environment that is conducive to mass participation. I will address these main issues and several others that have an effect on voter participation. In doing so I will compare America to other established democracies.
Some registration laws in the past had clearly been designed to abstain certain races and types of people from registering, these restricted rather than assisted voter turnout. In the South they made provisions to stop African-Americans voting and the North implemented obstacles such as the poll tax and literacy tests. These were blatant attempts to stop people who were not of the typical voter, an educated white male landowner from casting a ballot. Typically in the South turnout historically tends to be lower than that of the North. An example of this is the contest between Kennedy and Nixon when only 40% of the south turned out to vote compared with 70% of the rest of the nation. These southern states tend to be the ones who were part of the old Confederacy. They still seem to have similar political ideologies, as in the most recent election George W. Bush took all these states in defeating Al Gore. It seems that the stigma connected to the civil war that ended over 130 years ago still seems to loom over American politics. However due to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, procedures for registration have become much more user friendly in allowing a much wider scope of American citizens to register. Because of this Act I am going to concentrate on the more recent elections and explanations for the low turnout.
On January 20th, 1692, a nine-year-old girl, Elizabeth “Betty” Parris, and an eleven-year-old cousin, Abigail Williams, decided to play a game of magic out of boredom. Abigail Williams, niece of the village reverend, was always envious of her cousin “Betty,” and decided to take the game of illusion to the extreme. The mysterious Ouija board, given to her by an indian slave by the name of Tituba, was removed from a secret hiding place, and she began to pretend to call on the Spirit of Death. Suddenly, Abigail and her cousin began to exhibit sudden, strange behaviors. Abigail and “Betty” screamed blasphemous statements, had horrific convulsions, went into motionless catatonic states, and murmured strange conjurations, and, like clockwork, spread the craze of the game to other children in the village. The Salem children began to evoke the same cryptic behaviors in the puritan village. The game of two girls, due to personal resentments and
Among the many ways Americans can participate in politics, voting is considered one of the most common and important ways for Americans to get involved. The outcome of any election, especially at the national level, determines who will be making and enforcing the laws that all Americans must abide by. With this in mind one might assume that all Americans are active voters, but studies show the voter turnout is actually astonishingly low. With this unsettling trend it is important to know what statistics say about voter turnout as was as the four major factors that influence participation: Socioeconomic status, education, political environment, and state electoral laws, in order to help boost turnout in future elections.
Voter turnout, according to the text, “. . .means the portion of the eligible citizens who actually cast ballots--not the portion of those registered, . . . (142).” Data reveals that the voter turnout of Texas is relatively lower than that of the United States as a whole. During presidential elections, voter turnout is higher than that of state and local elections. For example, the text states that in the 2008 presidential balloting, Texas voter turnout was about eight percentage points below the national turnout level(142). However, the voter turnout of the United States compared to that of other countries is lower than the global level. In a graph presented for voter turnout rate of registered voters, the United States is located on the bottom of the list. From U.S News, Flock states,“The U.S has one of the lowest voter turnout rates of any rich democracy in the world(Flock).” Factors that influence voting around the world, for example, may be the choice to submit a vote online, such as in India, rather than going into a v...
In early January of 1692, the nine-year-old Betty Parris and her cousin, Abigail Williams, began having nightmares, acting like animals, complaining of strange pricks in their skin, wailing like "a banshee from the afterlife,” and contorting into shapes that wasn’t natural to a human (Blumberg). It was said that supernatural forces were confiding in them, and everyone’s fear came alive when the girls mentioned witches. Tituba, an Indian slave, taught her Caribbean voodoo-inspired magic to local girls, putting the idea of witchcraft in their minds (Aronson, 1). She was never trusted among the town because she was a foreign slave. Basic common “voo-doo magic” used in modern-day shows were the “incapable witchcraft” of the 1600’s.
Voting is one of the citizens’ rights living in a country. In the past, not everyone can vote. Voting used to be for only white American men. However, our ancestors fought for that rights. Eventually, any American who are older than eighteen can vote, despite their race or gender. In addition, voter turnout is used to keep track of the voting. It is the percentage of eligible voters who cast a ballot in an election. Unfortunately, the voter turnout has been decreasing over time, and it means that there are less and fewer people who actually show up and vote. This essay will discuss the voter turnout in Harris County, Texas.
John Adams once said "You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it." For many generations, our ancestors have fought for the right to vote. It started with the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which made it mandatory that white schools integrate black children into their institutions. The outcome of the 1964 election was a landslide, favoring the democrats, which broached the issue of civil rights legislation. In 1964 “only 7% of eligible black citizens in Mississippi were registered; in Alabama the figure was 20% (Kernell, et. al 2014, 162). The low voter turnout rate was because people of color were required to take a literacy test. This all changed when President Johnson
When America was first established, they had the highest voting turnouts ever in American history. Ever since, America’s voting turn-out has dropped (Fortin). The reason for the high turn outs were because American colonists wanted change from the British’s electoral system. As history writes, American colonist rebel and over time becomes one of the greatest countries ever. Today, Americans are one of the worst countries in vote to registration as they rank 120 in the world (Pintor). Over the summer, I got to learn more about Ohio’s electoral system and voting turn outs in a first hand experience. A decreasing number of voting to registration is not only a national problem, but a local issue as well and there are creative ideas in fixing these
To examine this decline in voter turnout we must consider several factors. One of those factors is that there is no political efficacy. Political efficacy means that people are less likely to vote if they don't believe that their vote will be counted, or if they don't trust the government. Little faith in the electoral process leads to a conviction that a person's vote doesn't really matter. Citizens show lack of interest in politics because they have limited information about the government. The percentage of Americans who say they have “trust and confidence” in the presidency and Congress has decreased in the past decades. Americans’ Trust in government was 70% in 1960s, and then decreased to 40% in 1980s. A recent survey from Pew Research Center showed that “Only 2...
In experiment’s 2rd trail, a new calorimeter was placed onto the workbench. It was placed onto the electronic scale and weighed 18.600 grams. A thermometer was attached to the calorimeter. The initial temperature was 21.5 C. 50 mL of 1M Hydrochloric Acid was placed into the calorimeter. 0.250 grams of magnesium was placed into the calorimeter. A chemical reaction occurred and the temperature recorded was 43.2 C. The calorimeter was placed onto the electronic scale and weighed to be 68.839 grams. Afterwards, the calorimeter was discarded. In the experiment's third trial, a new calorimeter was placed onto the workbench. It was then placed onto the electronic scale and it weighted 18.600 grams. A thermometer was attached to the calorimeter. The initial temperature recorded was 21.5 C. 50 mL of 1M Hydrochloric Acid was placed into the calorimeter. 0.350 grams were added into the calorimeter. A chemical reaction occurred. The recorded temperature is 51.8 C. The calorimeter was placed onto the electronic scale and the total mass is 68.921 grams. All materials were
The Gravimetric Stoichiometry lab was a two-week lab in which we tested one of the fundamental laws of chemistry; the Law of Conservation of Mass. The law states that in chemical reactions, when you start with a set amount of reactant, the product should theoretically have the same mass. This can be hard sometimes because in certain reactions, gases are released and it’s hard to measure the mass of a gas. Some common gases released in chemical reactions include hydrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen and water vapor.
There needs to be a policy to ban cigarettes, it kills the smoker, in addition, could kill the person exposed to the smoke from cigarettes. “The cigarette is also a defective product, meaning not just dangerous but unreasonably dangerous, killing half its long-term users” (Proctor), cigarettes are not healthy in any way making it a defective product, it mainly kills the smoker rather than helping them. It was produced to be inhalable smoke harming anyone who smokes them making it a defect because in the past the tobacco was too harsh to be inhaled. The policy would help cigarette smokers, especially since they don’t even like the habit of smoking cigarettes, knowing it harms them.
Smoking is a nasty habit. Cigarette smoke is toxic and harmful to breathe. People gag and choke just by getting a whiff of cigarette smoke of a passing smoker. Others can have life-threatening reactions. People have the right to clean air and to enjoy life without the stink of smoke. A smoking ban will solve this problem.
The production and sale of cigarettes should be made illegal because cigarettes are having a negative impact on society, they harm non-smokers by second hand smoking and cause many serious health risks.
In the experiment, you will conduct a similar experiment and calculations starting with magnesium metal. A known mass of magnesium will be heated in air and will combine with oxygen. The mass of magnesium oxide will be measured; the increase in mass will be oxygen. The calculations will be similar to those shown above.
From many perspectives, the word smoking means different things to different people. Some might think smoking means relaxation while others might think of smoking as a harmful disease. Cigarettes were invented over a century ago. Since then, many people have started to smoke which has led to many issues that the world faces today. Smoking is a serious issue that needs the attention of all American citizens. Even though the United States cannot control what other countries think about this issue, they can definitely set an example for others to follow. Smoking causes major issues for the smokers themselves and for other people around them. Due to the health effects caused by smoking cigarettes and secondhand smoke, the American government should