Tex Gov Political Participation

all right this is unit three it will

cover chapters seven eight nine and ten

uh voting and political participation in

texas

uh let's talk a little bit about voting

voting laws and rules vary across the

nation each state

pretty much makes their own

uh rules with regard to um

you know who can vote or qualifications

things like that although there are some

baseline things that all

states

must adhere to such as any us citizen

that is a resident of the u.s and 18

years old

now

that is just pretty general and

there are some variations as i said from

state to state states may place

additional requirements such as

registration different states have

different registration rules

residency how long you've lived where

you've lived

or exclusions for the mentally ill or

the incarcerated or people in jail

registration specifics may vary from

state to state

some states have same day registration

where you can walk up and register the

very same day

or a set number of days before the

election which is what

texas has

in general texas has a very poor voter

registration and voting rate compared to

the other states it runs around

46 out of

51 because uh they include washington dc

there which is not a state

now qualifications to vote in texas you

must be a us citizen

a resident of this texas county where

you are registering so you can't vote in

another county you have to vote in the

county you live in

at least 18 years old on election day so

you can register as a 17 year old as

long as you

by the election day you are 18 years old

no finally convicted of a felon or if

convicted fully discharged the sentence

or had been pardoned and had been deemed

not mentally incapacitated

so you can be convicted of a felony but

have that fully discharged so

completely completed what means all the

all the extra things you have to do any

any parole

requirements

thing fines you have to pay all those

are finished then you're eligible to

vote

registration can be done via postage

paid application mail-in although these

days uh there are groups of people that

are trying to

make it more difficult and actually make

it

illegal to vote

via postage paid or mail of course that

harms the right of like poor people

especially elderly people that can't

drive or get to the uh

get to the polling place to vote

forms are available at county facilities

libraries post office schools and

online registration i believe at the

secretary of state texas secretary of

state's office

historical barriers to voting um

well

we all know that uh the south in the

united states specifically has a history

of uh uh limiting or creating barriers

uh to vote

for uh certain citizens uh usually

based on race uh now the civil war

occurred as

a mechanism to free the slaves and also

some of the amendments that were added

to our constitution allowed them to

political rights including the 13th

amendment which abolished and outlawed

slavery in the united states

the 14th amendment was guaranteed with

the guaranteed due process of law and

equal protection of the laws

to all citizens meaning

all citizens of

individ all the individual states no

matter whether in the south of the north

have certain protections under the law

and then the 15th amendment which is

important here no citizen shall be

denied the right to vote based on color

race color or previous condition of

servitude

of course

there's attempts to suppress that 15th

amendment specifically for

black citizens in texas

and across the united states these

include jim crow laws

state local laws that legalize

segregation and suppress rights

um literacy tests which

of course they aren't mentioned in the

15th amendment

it says you can't deny the right to vote

based on race color or previous

condition of servitude so these southern

states would say okay a literacy test

we will

[Music]

have you read this passage and answer

some questions

and of course most newly freed slaves at

the time were illiterate so that

disqualified them

right there

also even if they could read the person

giving the test and

judging whether the answer is acceptable

is likely somebody that does not want

that person to vote anyhow so

it's very subjective whether they passed

the literacy test or not and most did

not then the grandfather clause which

was kind of the

most nefarious basically some states not

texas never had the grandfather clause

but basically it's a law that says

you can vote in this state only if your

grandfather was eligible to vote in this

state

which means basically any

newly freed slave their

grandfather was not eligible to vote so

they couldn't vote of course if you take

it to the extent in the future because

they couldn't vote and their father

couldn't vote and their grandfather

couldn't vote well that means all the

descendants of those people because they

were not allowed to vote in the state

would never be able to vote

uh poll taxes texas charged a dollar

fifty and a dollar seventy five to

register vote which was

very that's a lot of money back then uh

24th amendment uh and the harper vs

virginia board of elections overturned

that

made that unconstitutional white

primaries the 14th amendment made that

unconstitutional

they were able to have white

quote-unquote white primaries because

uh political parties are not considered

parts of government i know that doesn't

make any sense but political parties are

considered a private club and in a

private club you can basically at that

time at least limit it to the any

members you want

um but that was declared

unconstitutional and the voting rights

act wrote the voting rights act of 1965

oversight of elections in states with

traditions of suppression this did more

to uh

to equalize and to help

uh

historically uh oppress people vote

specifically black people in the south

uh did more to help

increase their voting participation than

anything else since the 15th amendment

and this was in 1965

but recently in the last

decade

in 2013 the supreme court decided that

it was no longer needed

and so now

uh and it was a close decision five to

four decisions so it was overturned the

voting rights act was basically

invalidated and now uh

by those thinking that it is no longer

necessary but of course ever since then

since that

law is out of the books

you see states specifically in the south

making laws that make it more difficult

for non-white people and elderly people

and young people to vote

voter turnout in texas texas has a

tradition of low voter turnout compared

to the rest of the country

factors affecting voter turnout voter

beliefs and attitudes

many people just don't believe that

their vote matters

and

i would strongly argue against that but

sometimes you just can't

persuade people

that their single vote matters but it

does

lack of political efficacy

political efficacy is the belief that

their vote does not matter or has no

influence so there you go political

efficacy

perceived lack of indifference to the

candidates they don't care they don't

think there's much difference in any of

the candidates

political socialization

how you acquire your political beliefs

and ideas people whose parents don't

vote are very unlikely to vote people

whose parents don't follow politics or

or pay attention their kids usually

don't

pay attention

[Music]

um demographic and socio economic

factors

age the older you are the more likely

you are to vote uh if you're an

immigrant you're less likely to vote if

you are less english proficient and you

don't speak english as your first

language you're less likely to vote

the more money you make the more you're

likely to vote and believe it or not

these days women are more likely to vote

than men

also new voter id requirements make it

difficult

sometimes

for people who don't drive so they don't

have a driver's license they're

especially the elderly and the poor a

lot of them don't have vehicles um

and

so they don't have a driver's license

just on hand so they have to go out of

their way to get a

a state id

and some of them can't

and so therefore they are

disqualified basically from being able

to vote

uh but there is political participation

other than voting uh of course

the people that do these things are

already voters so it's a small

subsection of the voting population

campaigning

helping another person

get elected to office that you support

that

adheres to your positions running for

office yourself

political activism going to meetings

speaking in front of city councils or

county commissioners or state

legislatures and legal

filing lawsuits

based on legalities or laws that you

that that you might find uh

unconstitutional or illegal

um and as i said before most texans

don't vote

so

all texans about little over 25 million

adult texans which means those that

those are the ones that are old enough

to vote

registered voters

so out of the 18 million or so adult

texans

14 million

approximately a registered vote

a little less than 5 million of those

vote in the general elections which is

every four years when there's a

presidential election

uh about looks like about one million to

two million republican primary voters

they vote in the primaries which are the

elections that decide which of the

political parties candidates

go into the general election run against

each other and democrats less than looks

like less than a million democratic

primary voters