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Prentice Hall PoliticalScience Interactive. Thomas R. Dye Politics in America Chapter 5 Special Topic Voter Turnout. Securing the Right to Vote. The elimination of property qualifications (1800-1840) The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) Continued denial of voting rights (1871-1964)
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Prentice HallPoliticalScienceInteractive Thomas R. Dye Politics in America Chapter 5 Special Topic Voter Turnout
Securing the Right to Vote • The elimination of property qualifications (1800-1840) • The Fifteenth Amendment (1870) • Continued denial of voting rights (1871-1964) • The Civil Rights Act, the Twenty-fourth Amendment, and the Voting Rights Act, 1964-1965
Voting: Registration Spanish language registration forms, where they are used, may ease the burden of registration for some
Voting: Registration In an effort to make registration easier, states have made registration forms available at motor vehicle stations, schools, public buildings, and even highway tollbooths
The Politics of Voter Turnout • The stimulus of competition • Political alienation • Intensity of opinions
The Politics of Voter Turnout These college students feel responsible to vote and line up on campus to fill out absentee ballots
Voter Turnout in Western Democracies Average Turnout 1991-2000
Registration and Voting in the World’s Parliamentary Elections
Percentage of African Americans Registered to Vote, 1980-2004
Nonvoting: What Difference Does it Make? A huge army of nonvoters, “hangs over the democratic process like a bomb ready to explode and change the course of history.” -Arthur Hadley “I’m not going to shed any crocodile tears if people don’t care enough to vote….I’d be extremely happy if nobody in the United States voted except for the people who thought about the issues and made up their own minds and wanted to vote.” - the late Senator Sam Ervin
Voting on the Basis of Party • In the absence of reasons to vote otherwise, people depend on party identification to simplify their voting choices. • Dramatic increase in self-declared Independents since 1970s Party Identification An informal and subjective affiliation with a political party that most people acquire in childhood
Voting on the Basis of Candidates Candidate Appeal How voters feel about a candidate’s background, personality, leadership ability, and other personal qualities • 1980s mark a critical threshold in the emergence of a candidate-centered era • Increasingly, campaigns focus on the negative elements of candidates’ history and personality
Voting on the Basis of Issues Prospective Issue Voting Voting based on what a candidate pledges to do in the future about an issue if elected Retrospective Issue Voting Holding incumbents responsible for past performance on issues