VOTING IN US

Since the 1960s, there has been a trend of a decreasing voter turnout in most of the established democracies.  Voter turnout is defined as the percentage of eligible voters allowed to cast ballot in an election process. The low turnout have been claimed to be linked to indifference, disenchantment or contentment amongst the voters. This trend of low voter turnout has been considered as undesirable, and it has sparked debate pertaining to factors responsible for the trend, and best tactics and strategies that might affect it.  In an attempt to solve the dilemma, many scholars have been prompted to take sides on the reasons suspected responsible for the decline in voter turnout. There has been a division in scholarly results, because of diverse demographic, economic, technological, cultural and institutional factors. 

Many efforts have been put in place by political parties to ensure that voting is encouraged to facilitate high voter turnout in elections. Different countries exhibit different voter turnouts. For instance, in the United States, presidential elections held in 2008, voter turnout stood at 63% and 68% among the African Americans due to the Barrack Obama’s candidacy. McDonald and Samuel (2001) observed that United States, a world’s leading democracy, is ranked 140^th in terms of voter turnout among the democratically elected governments. The largest of the block comprising of the non voters is 18-24 year olds. This argumentative essay will explore various reasons why parties in united sates target at improving voter turnout, and the strategies employed to achieve it. Moreover, opportunities presented by the mass media to party are current strategies, and tactics will be discussed.

Why Each Party Wants a High Voter Turnout

The tenets of political science maintain that people engage in voting for various reasons. The voting process tends to increase if greater probability of affecting the outcome exists. For instance, in the 1996 elections of United States, the voter turnout was the lowest since 1924, because majority of voters were confident that Bob Dole was to be easily defecated by Bill Clinton.  According to Highton (1997), the existence of competitive races implies intensive mobilization campaigns though the essence of an election process focuses in increasing the number of voters, even in areas that are not targeted by campaigning. Also, voters turnout to cast a ballot in an election with an intention of improving the well being of others, as well as to exercise their political aggressiveness. Lijphart contends that voting behavior is an acquired habit that links turnout to the extent of development fostered by the habit.

Who Each Party Targets

Different parties have employed different strategies and tactics on diverse voter groups to improve the voter turnout in United States elections.  Democrats have used various tactics to improve voter turn out among the Hispanics minority group. In the past elections, Hispanics have preferred voting for a republican candidate, thus if democrats are to increase their chances of winning in the presidential election, McDonald and Samuel (2001) argues that they have to reach out to the Hispanics. This is attributed to the fact that political analysis indicate that, Hispanics which is the largest and fastest growing voter group, has an immigration population that  do not have similar loyalty to the democratic party as their second, and third generation counterparts. By increasing a vote percentage among this group, increase chances of a presidential Candidate winning in close election. On the other hand, the republicans are popular among the Hispanic group and only need a small percentage to secure a win. In fact, the Republicans concentrate more on mobilizing voter turnout than convincing politics because of their popularity among the whites.

Both parties target the young voters to improve voter turnout. Campaigns are targeted at the young group because, unlike in the past decades, youth play a significant role in American elections.  Statistics shows that the millennial generations, who are mainly youthful voters, have emerged as a political powerhouse for both democrat and the republican parties. Young democrats aged 19-29 years of age account for 47% of the total number of democrats in United States, whereas 28% of youth identify themselves as republicans. 

Democrats are strategizing on increasing voter turnout among the minority and youth groups, coupled with rebuilding its coalitions among the working class whites and upper income liberals. For the past few decades, the youth vote has shifted to the left because the 18-29 age groups constitutes of more minorities than in the past. The democratic winning strategy is to keep and hold the increasing votes from the Hispanic and African American voters. 

Techniques to Increase Voter Turnout

Democrats strategically reach out to the Hispanics by aggressively using Spanish-language TV as a vehicle of reaching to most of the voter group. The Hispanic electorate is a dominant group forming a majority of Latino voters in the country. Over the years, Democrat’s tactics have been shown to include heavy running of democratic adverts in test markets aimed at wooing the Hispanic voters, as well as a continued outreach mission to Latino and Hispanic voters in all states. This is achieved through effective communication of party’s message using bilingual fashion and carrying out aggressive campaigns on TV, print, radio and on internet.

In addition, democrat’s targets using mail vote to increase voter turnout in states like Los Angeles where there is a large number of democrats. This strategy is aimed at countering the peculiar habit of voters’ tendency to detest voting by mail. Their peculiar habit is attributed to history of unaggressive campaigns to develop vote-by-mail system, as well as the lack of trust by minorities on the system. The party targets wooing democrats with long commutes and longer work days that make them hard to get to the polls. The strategy involves getting the ballot to them by mailing of registration forms to them, then making a personal knock -on-the door follow-ups.

Another approach used by democrats to increase voter turnout is by attending swearing-in ceremonies for new citizens, and encouraging them to register for voting. Political surveys have shown that for the democratic registrants, nine of ten voters registered are convinced to use vote-by-mail system. Statistics have also, indicated that about 8% more republicans vote using mail by vote tan the republicans. In response, democrats have embarked on a major get-out vote campaigns targeting mail-in-voters. This strategy seeks to boost vote turnout through vote-by-mail in the 2012 elections. This tactic is very effective considering the fact that people voting by mail, do so in higher proportion than the precinct votes. Thus, for democrats vote-by-mail means that more votes will be counted, and this strategy is critical in a close election.

How Each Group Use Media and Interest Groups

As illustrated by the success of democrats in 2008 elections, mass media plays a critical role in increasing voter turnout. This is especially important when the youth group is targeted in the party campaigns. This involves use of new media like email, the internet, mobile phones and social networks to get them to polls, or to register as voters. The social media is a very powerful tool that can improve voter turnout among the young; it has greater accessibility and preference among the group.  Millions of youth spend most of their time in social networks like Facebook, my space among others. With advent of technology, campaigns strategies are profiled and updated on social network pages on regular basis to reflect the targeted objectives, like registration deadlines and campaign events. The internet facilitates online advertising through internet ads, search advertising and Facebook advertising. Other mass media tactics include use of mobile phones to promote text messaging, use of TV, radio and print ads to campaign party strategies aimed at increasing voter turnout.

The two major parties in United States are each strategizing on winning the 2012 election, but each is utilizing different strategies and tactics to achieve its political goals. The main strategy of the republicans is to encourage its supporters to vote. This is attributed to the fact that typical republicans are well off in the society, hence, face limited obstacles in their day-to-day life relating to health, work and other amenities. Majority of them do not face difficulties when it comes to rules of absenteeism in voting, proof of identity, registration and residency requirements except for military personal with special of rule. Often republicans vote in high percentages, thus their main strategies only targets at encouraging them to vote. Also, they aim at discouraging the minority groups not to turn out for voting in order to minimize opportunity for success for the democrats.

In contrary, typical democrats face challenges regarding to their transport to work, overtime at work, thus, are affected more my similar set of rules  least affecting the republicans. This contributes to lower voting percentages, consequently, prompting Democratic Party to strategize on improving voter turnout through removal of barriers to the voting process. This is also why its strategies aim at conducting registration campaigns, completion of absentee ballot application forms among others.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is evident that every of the parties are interested in increasing the voter turnout rather than mobilizing voters through persuasion. But from the augumnet given, it is clear that the democrats are more interested in increasing turnout of voters, where as the republicans seem to be strategizing on suppressing voter turnout especially from the Hispanic and African Americans minority groups. Democrats are gearing up efforts to ensure that more voters from the minority groups turn out for the election. It has achieved this through reduction of challenges facing the groups when it pertains to voting processes.

Bibliography

Highton, B.  Easy registration and voter turnout. The Journal of Politics, (1997, May), 59(2):  565–575.

Lijphart, Arend. Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma. American Political Science Review. 91 (March 1997): 1–14. 

McDonald, Michael and Samuel Popkin.  The Myth of the Vanishing Voter. American Political Science Review. 2001. Print. 76-91.