05 - POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Political participation encompasses the various activities of citizens in a country that influence policy making and the selection of leaders. Participation takes many forms, some forceful, some subtle, and others highly organized. Americans in general are comparatively active in politics, but the United States is notorious among modern democracies for its low voter turnout rates.

TYPES OF PARTICIPATION

The Verba and Nie Study

In a classic study of American political participation conducted in the early 1970s, Sidney Verba and Norman Nie asked Americans about their role in several kinds of political activities:

• voting in national and local elections
• working in campaigns
• participating in community affairs and local organizations
• contacting public officials
• giving money to a candidate or party
• helping form a political group or organization
• attending political meetings, and belonging to a political club.

Verba and Nie came up with six different kinds of citizens, that ranged from complete activists to complete inactivists. Between these groups were campaigners, communalists, contacters, and voting specialists. Only about 11% of the American population could be classified as complete activists, with voting being the most commonly reported type of participation. The most common form of political participation, with about 72% of the interviewees reporting voting regularly in presidential elections. Curiously, the actual percentage of eligible voters who actually vote is considerably lower, seldom climbing much above 50% in any given presidential election.

Political Protest

Although expression of political opinions and attendance at political meetings are not unusual forms of political participation, political protests are less common. Even though most people don't participate in them, protests are accepted as a form of political expression designed to achieve changes in government policies and actions. The media's attention to protests probably make them seem more frequent than they are, and protests are often orchestrated to provide television coverage for a group's complaints.

Sometimes political participation is violent. During the 1960s, planned and unplanned demonstrations resulted in conflict with police, riots, and even deaths, such as the 1970 incident at Kent State University when four people were killed when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on anti-Vietnam War demonstrators.

VOTING

EXPANDING SUFFRAGE

A long term trend in United States history has been to gradually expand voting rights, so that today very few individuals are excluded.

Originally the Constitution let individual states determine the qualifications for voting, and states varied widely in their laws. All states excluded women, most denied blacks the franchise, and property ownership was usually required. During the 1830s when Andrew Jackson was president, most states loosened their property requirements to embrace universal manhood suffrage, voting rights for all white males. After the Civil War the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed blacks the right to vote, and the Nineteenth Amendment extended the vote to women in 1920. The last major expansion of voting rights occurred in 1971 when the Twenty Sixth Amendment changed the minimum voting age from 21 to 18.

VOTER TURNOUT

Voter turnout can be measured in two different ways: by showing the proportion of the registered voters that actually voted in a given election, and by showing the percentage of the voting-age population that vote. According to recent figures, American statistics look much better if the first method is employed. If we take the proportion of registered voters, more than 80% vote in presidential elections; if we take the percentage of the voting-age population, between 52 and 57% actually vote, a figure much lower than most other democracies. For example, in Great Britain and Canada, about 3/4 of all eligible voters vote in major elections, and in Italy and Australia, approximately 90% vote. Because the figures differ so widely in the U.S. when using the two methods, many observers have believed that the main problem with getting people to the polls was the difficulty of voter registration.

Voter Registration

Laws vary according to state, but all states except North Dakota require voter registration. Until a few years ago some states required voters to register as much as six months before the election. In other words, if someone moved into the state, forgot to register, or passed their eighteenth birthday, he or she would be ineligible to vote in any elections for six months. These rigid requirements were the result of voting abuses of the early 20th century (ballot box stuffing, people voting twice, dead people voting), but in recent times, they are believed to be responsible for low voter turnout. Federal law now prohibits any state from requiring more than a 30 day waiting period.

Most recently, in 1993 Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, the "motor-voter" bill, that allows people to register to vote while applying for or renewing a driver's license. The act also requires states to provide assistance to facilitate voter registration. Removal of names from voting rolls for nonvoting is no longer allowed. Supporters of the law claim that it will add some 49 million people to the voting rolls, but of course it remains to be seen whether or not the actual percentages will increase. In the 1996 presidential election, only some 49% of eligible voters actually voted, a figure even lower than those for most other recent elections.

Other Reasons for Low Voter Turnouts

Two other reasons are often cited for low voter turnout in the United States:

Americans vote for so many officials on many different levels of government, they cannot keep up with all the campaigns and elections, so they don't know who to vote for, and as a result, don't vote. Americans vote for more public officials and hold more elections by far than any other modern democracy. In most states, general elections are held every year or two, as well as primary elections and special elections on local matters.

Other countries have stronger incentives for their citizens to vote. Some hold elections on holidays or Sundays, and some have strong political parties that not only encourage people to vote and sponsor strong call-up campaigns, but provide transportation to and free gifts, food, and even medical care at the polls.

In some studies that compare political participation rates in the United States with other countries, Americans tend to engage more frequently in nonelectoral forms of participation, such as campaign contributions, community involvement, and contacts with public officials.

WHO PARTICIPATES?

Participation is very uneven in American political life. Almost every study of political participation comes to the conclusion that people of higher social status are more likely to vote than others, no matter how you measure social status (level of education, income, or occupation). The most important single determinant of voting behavior is probably level of education. Those who finish elementary school are more likely to vote than those who do not; those who graduate from high school have higher turnout rates than those who do not; and college educated voters have the highest rate of all.

Some other factors that correlate to political participation are:

• As religious involvement increases, so does political participation
• Whites participate in politics at higher rates than blacks, but the differences are much less if level of education and income are controlled. Some studies indicate that if blacks and whites of the same socioeconomic status are compared, blacks may participate more than whites.
• Older people are more likely to vote than are younger people. Voting levels for 18-24 year olds are the lowest of any other, older age category.
• Some studies find that Republicans are more likely to vote than are Democrats, but contradictory studies show the rates to be almost identical.
• Men and women vote at about the same rates.

It is important to note that any one individual is affected by many factors: his or her age, social class, education level, race, gender, and party affiliation. Thus factors crisscross, making it very important to control for other factors that may produce a counter influence. For example, in order to compare gender differences in voting rates, a researcher would have to compare men and women of similar ages, education level, race, and party affiliation. Otherwise, the voting behavior may be caused by a factor other than gender.