Voter Turnout

http://www.idea.int/publications/vt/upload/Voter%20turnout.pdf
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/closerace1.html

This week, we focused a lot of time on voter turnout in America, why it is so low, and things we could possibly do to increase voter turnout. With that in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see if the United States is the only country suffering from a lack of voter turnout. As it turns out, according to the website I found, voter turnout around the world has been going down since about the 1980s. With this in mind, I think it is especially important to understand the reasons why.

The first explanation given by our book is that there is a lack of competition among candidates. Although this holds true for many elections in the House and a number of elections in the Senate, I would disagree that there is a lack of competition in Presidential elections. Especially recently, Presidential elections tend to be very close, as the second website I attached shows. Using this information, I would disagree with this argument as to why voter turnout is so low.

Another reason the book gives for low voter turnout is the expansion of the electorate. After women were given their right to vote, it took many years for them to finally use their right. This would obviously cause a drop in voter turnout, but this was decades ago, so we can eliminate that explanation. In 1971 the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18. Young voters, age 18-25, make up a large percent of the population, but a fraction of them vote. This is an obvious problem for voter turnout. However, I do not personally believe that young adults not voting is alone the reason why voter turnout is so low.

I believe that the number one reason why voter turnout is so low is because of the wasted vote logic. The wasted vote logic is the notion that people do not vote because they do not think their vote matters, they do not think by voting anything they want to change, will. This leads, in turn, to people losing interest in politics as well, which could be another reason for low voter turnout. People age 18-25 especially feel like their voices are not heard in politics because we do not have much power, so this age group is especially vulnerable to wasted vote logic. I find it interesting to ask nonvoters why they chose not to vote. Some people respond with "I didn't have time", "I didn't know where", "I didn't register" (even though Wisconsin is same day registration), and the list continues... but I always seem to find it amazing how many people respond "What does it matter... my vote sure doesn't".

So... my proposal to increase voter turnout is to make the public realize that their vote really does matter. To do this, I think that we need to have parties that involve the public more, and have candidates who actually listen to what the public says... even after they get elected. Making elected officials more responsible to the people, I believe, would increase the voter turnout in America because people would feel like their voices are being heard... rather than Washington being run by the 'political machines and elites', people would feel like they run Washington. It is time to put more power in the hands of the people, and less power in the hands of the elites and political machines.