Chapter 12 (AMSCO) / Voting and Voter Behavior

Franchise / Suffrage / Enfranchisement

The legal right to vote / the legal right to vote / the statutory or constitutional granting of the right to vote to a specific group of citizens

Electorate

All the citizens in a country or areas who are eligible to vote in an election

Suffrage Amendments - 15th Amendment

Prohibits denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude (African American men suffrage)

Suffrage Amendments - 17th Amendment

Direct election of senators by the people in the state

Suffrage Amendments - 19th Amendment

Prohibits denying the right to vote based on gender (granted women suffrage)

Suffrage Amendments - 23rd Amendment

Granted residents of Washington D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections

Suffrage Amendments - 24th Amendment

Eliminated poll taxes in federal elections, removing a major financial barrier for poor and minority voters

Suffrage Amendments - 26th Amendment

Lowered the national voting age from 21 to 18 driven by Vietnam War

Disenfranchisement (Poll taxes, grandfather clause, literacy tests, white primary)

The use of legal economic a violent strategies by Southern States after the Civil War to prevent African Americans from voting (Pay to vote, grandfather needed to vote, Reading tests, Allowed only white people)

1964 Civil Rights Act / 1965 Voting Rights Acts

Prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin / Designed to remove racial barriers to voting (banning literacy test and federal examiners to oversee voter registration in areas with voter suppression)

Voter Turnout

The percentage of eligible voters who actually cast ballots

Voter Apathy / political efficacy (causes, effects)

Measures indifference, Apathetic people do not care about political outcomes / measures how powerful a citizen feels (lack caused by corrupt self interest causing a lower voter turnout)

Voting blocs (gender gap, old vs young voters, African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans)

Groups of people who share common characteristics tend to vote the same way in elections (Women v men, Social security v lower voting, civil rights, immigration reform/economy/job creation, education access/civil rights/economy)

Religions Influence on voting (Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews)

Affects the political ideology and party identification agent of political socialization - a lifelong learning process which people develop their political values, beliefs, and behaviors (Republican (GOP): socially and culturally conservative, opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights / Swing Voters, Historically democratic for justice and poor but Modern Catholics split church-going catholics lean republican anti-abortion / Democrat Justice, civil rights, separate church and state, 100% democratic)

Voting Models - Rational Choice

Picks the candidate or party that they believe serves their own personal best interest

Voting Models - Party Line

Person votes based entirely on their political party affiliation rather then evaluating individual candidates or issues

Voting Models - Retrospective / Prospective

Voting based on the past performance of the candidate / Voting based on predicting a candidate’s future performance in office focusing on campaign advertisement and literature

Motor-Voter Laws (National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) 1993

Requires that the state make it easier to regester to vote via the DMV or mail, its goal to increase the amount of people that could vote and get more people throught the door

2000 election - problems with election and HAVA (Help America Vote Act)

Punch Card system lead a lot of the votes to be confused because of the chads with didn’t completely punch out causing the vote to not count also because of the confusing structure of the ballots overall / Help America Vote Act got rid of all of the punch card systems making a provisional ballot system nationwide meaning you are entitled to a vote and can share verification later

Ballots - Australian

Americans were entitled to vote in privacy on uniform ballots printed and made by the government

Ballots - Provisional

Making sure a voter still has a ballot even if their name doesn’t appear on the voter registration list (they can come back to provide id and proof of residency)

Ballots - Absentee

Lets eligible voters cast their votes by mail before the atoll Election Day which can increase voter turnout and election participation because people have less excuses

Voter ID Laws (goals, successes/failure, discrimination)

Laws requiring citizens to present forms of identification (prevent voter fraud increase confidence in security of elections / supports trust / lower income or elderly or students are less likely to have these id on them and ID can require more documents or cost money)