Political Participation – Text Notes – Week Six

Instructional
Objectives

1. Explain why the text believes that the
description, the analysis, and the proposed remedy for low voter
turnout rates in this country are off base.

2. Compare the way turnout statistics are
tabulated for this country and for other countries, and explain the
significance of these differences.

3. Describe how control of elections has
shifted from the states to the federal government, and explain what
effects this shift has had on blacks, women, and youth.

4. State both sides of the debate over whether
voter turnout has declined over the past century, and describe those
factors that tend to hold down voter turnout in this
country.

5. Discuss those factors that appear to be
associated with high or low political participation.

 Text
Outline

I. A closer look at nonvoting

A. Alleged problem: low turnout
compared to Europeans

1. But this compares registered
voters to eligible adult populations.

B. Common explanation: voter apathy on
election day

1. But the real problem is low
registration rates

C. Proposed solution: get-out-the-vote
drives

1. But this will not help those who
are not registered

D. Apathy not the only cause of
nonregistration

1. Costs here versus no costs in
European countries where registration automatic

2. Motor-voter law of 1993 took effect in
1995-increased registration throughout the country

E. Voting is not the only way of
participating

F. Important question is how different kinds
of participation affect government

II. The rise of the American
electorate

A. From state to federal
control

1. Initially, states decided who
could vote for which offices

2. This led to wide variation in federal
elections

3. Congress has since reduced state
prerogatives

a . 1842 law: House members
elected by district

b. Suffrage to women

c. Suffrage to blacks

d. Suffrage to eighteen- to
twenty-year-olds

e. Direct popular election of U.S.
senators

4. Black voting rights

a. Fifteenth Amendment gutted by
Supreme Court as not conferring a right to vote

b. Southern states then used evasive
stratagems

(1) Literacy test

(2) Poll tax

(3) White primaries

(4) Grandfather clauses

(5) Intimidation of black
voters

c. Most of these stratagems ruled out
by Supreme Court

d. Major change with 1965 Voting
Rights Act; black vote increases

5. Women’s voting rights

a. Several western states
permitted women to vote by 1915

b. Nineteenth Amendment ratified
1920

c. No dramatic changes in
outcomes

6. Youth vote

a. Voting Rights Act of
1970

b. Twenty-sixth Amendment ratified
1971

c. Lower turnout; no particular
party

7. National standards now govern most
aspects of voter eligibility

8. Twenty-third Amendment ratified 1961,
gave District of Columbia residents the right to vote in
presidential elections

B. Voting turnout

1. Debate of declining percentages:
two theories

a . Real decline as popular
interest and party competition decreases

b. Apparent decline, induced in part
by more honest ballot counts of today

(1) Parties once printed
ballots

(2) Ballots cast in
public

(3) Parties controlled
counting

(4) Australian ballot began to be
adopted in 1910

c. Most scholars see some real decline
due to several causes:

(1) Registration more
difficult-longer residency; educational qualifications;
discrimination

(2) Continuing drop after 1960
cannot be explained according to Wilson but clearly
political efficacy plays a role. Watergate, Vietnam,
etc…

III. Who participates in politics?

A. Forms of participation

1 . Voting the commonest form of
particpation, but 8 to 10 percent misreport it

2. Verba and Nie’s six forms of
participation

a. Inactives – People who rarely
vote, do not get involved in organizations, and do not even
talk much about politics. They account for about 22 percent
of the population.

b. Voting specialists – People who
vote but participate in little else politically. They tend
not to have much schooling or income, and to be
substantially older than the average person.

c. Campaigners – People who not only
vote but like to get involved in campaign activities as
well. The are better educated than the average voter, but
what distinguishes them most is their interest in the
conflicts of politics, their clear party identification, and
their willingness to take strong positions.

d. Communalists – people who tend to
reserve their energies for community activities of a
nonpartisan kind. Their education and income are similar to
those of campaigners.

e. Parochial participants – People who
do not vote and stay out of election campaigns and civic
associations, but who are willing to contact local officials
about specific, often personal, problems.

f. Complete activists – An individual,
usually outside government, who actively promotes a
political party, philosophy, or issue he or she cares
personally about.

B. The causes of participation

1. Those with schooling, or
political information, more likely to vote

2. Churchgoers vote more

3. Men and women vote same
rate

4. Race

a. Black participation lower
than that of whites overall

b. But controlling for socioeconomic
status higher than whites

5. Level of trust in
government?

a. Studies show no correlation
between distrust and not voting

6. Difficulty of registering?

a. As turnout has declined,
registration barriers have been lowered

7. Several small factors decrease
turnout

a . More youths, blacks, and
other minorities in population, pushing down percent
registered

b. Decreasing effectiveness of parties
in mobilizing voters

c. Remaining impediments to
registration

d. Voting compulsory in other
nations

e. Possible feeling that elections do
not matter

8. Democrats, Republicans fight over
solutions

a . No one really knows who
would be helped by increased turnout

b. Nonvoters tend to be poor,
minority, or uneducated

c. But an increasing percentage of
college graduates are also not voting

d. Hard to be sure that turnout
efforts produce gains for either party: Jesse Jackson in
1984 increased registration of southern whites even more
than southern blacks

C. The meaning of participation
rates

1 . Americans vote less, but
participate more

a. Other forms of activity
becoming more common

b. Some forms more common here than in
other countries

2. Americans elect more officials and
have more elections

3. U.S. turnout rates heavily skewed to
higher status persons

Important
Terms

activist An individual,

usually outside government, who actively promotes a political party,
philosophy, or issue he or she cares personally about.

Australian ballot An election
ballot of uniform size printed by the government and cast in
secret.

campaigners According to
Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who not only vote but like to get
involved in campaign activities as well. The are better educated than
the average voter, but what distinguishes them most is their interest
in the conflicts of politics, their clear party identification, and
their willingness to take strong positions.

communalists According to
Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who tend to reserve their
energies for community activities of a nonpartisan kind. Their
education and income are similar to those of campaigners.

complete activists According
to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who are highly educated, have
high incomes, and tend to be middle-aged rather than young or old.
These people participate in all forms of politics and account for 11
percent of the population.

Fifteenth Amendment The
constitutional amendment that guaranteed the right to vote regardless
of race, color, or pervious condition of slavery.

grandfather clause A
state law allowing people to vote, even if they did not meet legal
requirements, if an ancestor had voted before 1867. The clause was
used as a vehicle to enable poor and illiterate whites to vote while
excluding blacks (who had no ancestor voting prior to 1867). Such
clauses were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

inactives According to Sidney
Verba and Norman Nie, people who rarely vote, do not get involved in
organizations, and do not even talk much about politics. They account
for about 22 percent of the population.

literacy test A state law
requiring potential voters to demonstrate reading skills. The laws
were frequently implemented in a discriminatory fashion to prevent
otherwise qualified blacks from voting. These tests were suspended by
the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

motor-voter bill A law passed
by Congress in 1993 that requires states to allow people to register
to vote when applying for a driver’s license and to provide
registration through the mail and at some state offices that serve
the disabled and provide public assistance. The law took effect in
1995.

Nineteenth Amendment An
amendment to the Constitution allowing women the right to
vote.

parochial participants
According to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who do not
vote and stay out of election campaigns and civic associations, but
who are willing to contact local officials about specific, often
personal, problems.

poll tax A state tax paid
prior to voting. The tax was designed to prevent blacks from voting
since poor whites were usually exempted through a grandfather clause.
Poll taxes have been made illegal.

registered voters People who
are eligible to vote in an election and who have signed up with the
government to vote.

Twenty-sixth Amendment The
1971 constitutional amendment that lowered the voting age in both
state and federal elections to eighteen. Congress had attempted to
achieve this goal through legislation, but the Supreme Court ruled
that the federal government had no authority to do so with respect to
state elections.

Twenty-third Amendment The
1961 constitutional amendment permitting residents of Washington,
D.C., to vote in presidential elections.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 The
federal law that suspended the use of literacy tests in elections and
authorized federal examiners to order the registration of blacks in
states and counties where fewer than 50 percent of the voting-age
population were registered or had voted in the last presidential
election.

voting-age population The
percentage of people in a country who are eligible to vote because
they satisfy the minimum age requirement.

voting specialists According
to Sidney Verba and Norman Nie, people who vote but participate in
little else politically. They tend not to have much schooling or
income, and to be substantially older than the average
person.

white primary The exclusion of
blacks from voting in the primary elections of political parties.
Such primaries were employed largely in the South where the
Democratic party won almost all general elections. In effect, winning
the Democratic primary meant winning the election. The Supreme Court
voided the use of white primaries.