I’m nervous. This is my first time voting and I don’t want to mess it up. I walk into town hall, a building that seems to be reserved for special events. I wait for a few moments; finally I reach the older woman who is handing out ballots. She asks for my name, which I answer with a clear “Deirdre Ball.” She checks a list of pre-registered voters. Earlier in the week, someone had come to my high school to register high school seniors that are old enough to vote. The person that came to my high school was working on her own; she didn’t have a large-scale organization behind her. All she cared about was making sure that everyone who was able to vote did. It turned out my name wasn’t on the registration list, a mystery of which I’ll never know the cause. This didn’t prevent me from voting. All I had to do was show the older lady my ID and she filled out a sheet. This situation got me thinking though, how many people struggle with trying to vote? How many people’s opinions aren’t being heard because they don’t know how to register?
The organization Rock the Vote has been helping young people engage in political activity for over 20 years. According to their website, rockthevote.com, Rock the Vote first started as a result of attacks on freedom of speech and artist expression. This all started in 1990 in Los Angeles California, and was founded by a man named Jeff Ayeroff, who was a Virgin Records executive. He also had the assistance of Steve Barr, who was a campaign worker and political fundraiser. On their website, Rock the Votes says that they work “with artists to grab the attention of young people, and engage them in building a political movement to fight for young people and the issues that affect their lives.” In 1992, two yea...
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...er turn out in the years since it’s founding, I would say that Rock the Vote hasn’t been very been very successful. Although it may bring attention to voting and increase voter registration, it has not been successful in actually getting people to the polls.
Works Cited
Kawahinma-Ginsberg, Kel, Dr. A Voter Turnout Time Series For 1972-2010. 12 Nov. 2011. Raw data. Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, Tufts University.
LaMendola, Maura. "About Us." Rock the Vote:. Rock the Vote, 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Powers, Doug. "Rock the Vote Crumbles." The American Spectator. N.p., 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Rock the Vote Staff. "History of Rock the Vote." Rock the Vote:. Rock the Vote, 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Softley, Jeff. "MTV's Rock the Vote: Beyond Useless." The Raw Story. Raw Story Media Inc., 2013. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
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
Austin Ranney does not dread that low voting is hurting American democracy. Arend Lijphart believes that democracy is meaningless without voting. The fact that to many people do not vote for Presidential or Congressional elections concerns him. With numbers like 49 and 55 percent of the eligible population voting on Presidential elections, Lijphart questions the actual democracy in America. Low voting turnouts is giving large groups more control over government ideals. Lijphart thinks the best way to solve this problem is to raise turnouts in a variety of ways. Things like weekend voting and easier ways of acquiring absentee ballots will increase the number of voters. Also, having multiple elect...
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.
Research has brought about an abundance of reasons why youth are becoming less engaged in the political process. Education, absence of political knowledge, the media and family influence, indifference to election campaigns, inadequate amount of change, and lack of motivation are all possible factors in influencing the youth voter turnout.
The United States national elections have been experiencing a steady decline of eligible voters showing up to vote. This steady decline has been ongoing since experiencing a significant increase in voter turnout from 1948 through 1960. Over the years there has been significant, meticulous research done to try to pinpoint the cause of the decline in voter turnout over years. All of this research has led to the production of an enormous number of literatures written on the perceived causes. The vast amount of literature produced has led to a number of competing explanations about this decline. The quest for the answer to the question of, why this decline in voter turnout, is very important for an overwhelming majority of Americans and our democratic system because the people/voters can only truly be represented by our government if all eligible voters go out and vote. For this paper I will examine four theories that attempt to explain the decline. The four theories that I will discuss are voting barriers, campaign contributions, negative campaign advertising, and finally the cultural explanation. However, through thorough exploration and critiques of the strengths and weaknesses of these four theories, we will find that the cultural explanation theory is currently the most persuasive theory in the group. Finally, I will also explore some reasons as to why citizens do vote as well.
It’s very unsettling to know that there was a six percent decrease in young voters (ages 18-29) in the 2012 election compared to 2008 (Circle Youth data). In 2007 the National Conference of State Legislatures publicly released a report and data set on voter turnout in democratic countries. This is a quote from that report titled Getting out the Vote, “It should be noted that in 1972, 18-year-olds were added to the eligible voting population, thus decreasing the percentages. Nonetheless, voter tu...
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.
TerBeek, Calvin. “’Swing’ voters are still partisan.” Chicago Turbine. N.p., 20 Nov. 2013. Web. 8 Dec. 2013. .
Pammett, J., & LeDuc, L. (2003). Explaining turnout decline in Canadian federal elections: A survey of non-voters. Elections Canada, 40.
The issue of low voter turnout is not an unfamiliar topic for most of us. We already know of this issue, but certainly we must not have cast a glance on the issue in the same perspective as Charles M Blow has written. He attracts the readers’ attention to the problem at the center at once, which is nothing but the voters’ ignorance. He deeply explores the question that why the same voter who knows that to solve most of his problems he would need the government of his choice does not show any enthusiasm when it comes to casting his valuable ballot. The same problems remain there year after year and election after e...
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...
Today in America, less than half of young voters between the ages of 18 and 24 vote (TheBestColleges.org). What most of these new adults fail to realize, is that their government depends on them to vote and elect new leaders to represent their country. Many of them make excuses to avoid voting, when really, they benefit most from voting.
The U.S. is not known for high voter turnout. Consistently, the United States has fallen short in comparison to other “well-established democracies” (Fair Vote). United States has one of the lowest
America’s low voter turnout has been attributed to by the political parties’ failure to enliven the potential voters with the awareness and competitiveness in elections and the overall difficulty of the registration and voting process. The research portion of this project was predominantly provided from four books focused on voter turnout, whether it was perceived to be increasing or decreasing. The article used was found using one of the books and altogether the sources provided analytical and institutional perspectives on American voter turnout. I believe voter turnout, along with voter registration is steadily declining in America due to multiple factors, though the topics touched on above are largely impacting us today.
Green, Donald. "Youth Voting” THE CENTER FOR INFORMATION & RESEARCH ON CIVIC LEARNING AND ENGAGEMENT. Tufts University, 2012. Web. 02 Oct 2013. .