Fewer Americans choosing to vote

 Fewer Americans choosing to vote
by Benjamin Duncan in Washington
Tuesday 31 August 2004 11:11 AM GMT

Fewer people vote in the US than in most other western nations

Although the United States often bills itself as the world's greatest 
democracy, voter turnout has consistently fallen through the years and 
nearly half of the American electorate chose not to vote in the 2000 
presidential election.

With few exceptions, US voter turnout has declined significantly since 
1960 as more Americans have disengaged from the political process.

In fact, a smaller number of citizens vote in the US than in almost any 
western democratic nation.

Political experts say a wide range of factors have contributed to the 
drop in voter participation, including the frequency of elections, the 
mobility of many citizens and the notion that younger voters no longer 
feel a strong sense of civic duty.

There is also the common perception that many Americans no longer care 
enough to vote, awash in a new-found age of cynicism and mistrust of 
government.

Disenchanted

"The overall sense is that people have become disenchanted somewhat with 
the political process," said Charles Jones, an expert on presidential 
elections at the Brookings Institution, a Washington thinktank.

As money, television advertising and corporate lobbying have gradually 
come to dominate the presidential campaign trail, fewer voters feel 
their voices can be heard through the whisper of a single vote, said 
Raymond Wolfinger, political science professor at the University of 
California, Berkeley, who is writing a book on voter turnout.

"Nobody believes that they're going to make a difference," he said.

Nevertheless, few scholars attribute low voter turnout to political 
cynicism. No study, they say, has ever shown a definitive correlation 
between cynical Americans and their likelihood not to vote.

"Some cynical people vote and some don't," Wolfinger said.

Italy, which boasts one of the highest voter turnout rates of any 
Western country, also has one of the most cynical populations when it 
comes to government, according to Robert Putnam, professor of public 
policy at Harvard University.

The real reason behind the trend of voter apathy in America is far more 
complicated and fragmentary, many scholars say.

Mobility factor

The mobility of the American voter is one factor, both Putnam and 
Wolfinger said. For many Americans, moving from one home, city or state 
to another is not an uncommon practice. But it often means they must 
re-register to vote under a new address, depending on the election laws 
of a particular state.

"People who move around a lot generally vote less," Putnam said.

But while a US Census Bureau survey reported that just over 67% of 
registered voters went to the polls in the 2000 presidential election, 
Wolfinger said that figure was too low.

"The proportion of Americans who vote is between 85-90% in presidential 
elections," he said.

Burnout factor

Voter mobility is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. The frequency 
by which US citizens are asked to vote in local, state and federal 
elections can overwhelm many potential voters and dilute the electoral 
process, Putnam said.

Whereas a parliamentary system such as the one in Britain only has two 
major elections every four years, Americans "could vote 30 or 40 times" 
every four years, he said.

"It just becomes a battle of too many elections," he said.

There is also a feeling among some experts that today's younger citizens 
do not feel the "obligation to vote" that many voters from previous 
generations experienced.

Generation factor

Whereas the Great Depression and the second world war inculcated a 
generation of young people with the importance of civic responsibility 
and self-sacrifice, the MTV youth culture lacks the same mentality of 
its forbearers, Putnam said.

"One long-term effect of 9/11 could be a political reawakening among 
young people"

Robert Putnam,
professor of public policy, Harvard University
"That's a big difference between the younger generation and your 
grandparents' generation," he said. "Young people today are way less 
likely to vote than young people were a generation or two ago."

While the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US were for today's younger 
generation "the same experience that their grandparents had after [the 
Japanese attack on] Pearl Harbor", it remains to be seen whether 9/11 
will have a long-term impact on civic consciousness, Putnam said.

"One long-term effect of 9/11 could be a political reawakening among 
young people," he said.

Social factor

It may also be true that in the age of television, music videos and 
modern technological entertainment, many Americans are simply too 
distracted to heavily engage in politics and other forms of civic life, 
said John Judis, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for 
International Peace.

Judis noted that voter turnout in America was much higher in the 19th 
century, when for many people political campaigns were as much about 
recreation as anything else.

"[Political events] were major entertainment events," Judis said. 
"People used to go hear speeches like we would go to a rock concert."

Conversely, this day and age finds many Americans increasingly withdrawn 
from various forms of social interaction, including politics, some 
experts say.

In his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, Putnam documented what he called 
America's plummeting "social capital", the decreasing participation of 
citizens in social networks ranging from neighbourhood watch programmes 
and church groups to political party meetings.

As Americans have become further disengaged from social networks both 
large and small, the number of people drawn to the voting booth has 
inevitably decreased, he said.

"People who go to church are more likely to vote," he said. "People who 
belong to civic groups are more likely to vote. These things make us 
more proactive and less passive."

Money factor

Of course there is always the money factor as well.

Although some scholars dismiss the theory that there is a nexus between 
the massive infusion of cash into today's presidential campaigns and low 
voter turnout, others suggest that the disparity of wealth in America is 
having an adverse impact on the political process.

A new study conducted by the American Political Science Association 
titled American Democracy in an Age of Rising Inequality, reported that 
America increasingly is comprised of two "classes of citizenship" in 
which the affluent sector has far more access to political leaders than 
the low-income sector.

The report said the two major political parties spend most of their time 
"recruiting" assistance from those "who are already the most privileged 
and involved", and that the economic imbalances in the US are becoming 
more severe than in most other democratic countries.

These developments have most likely dissuaded some poorer American 
citizens from joining the political system, the report said.

"What we are witnessing now is not only low voter participation among 
the disenfranchised in this country," said Lawrence Jacobs, one of the 
authors of the report. "There is also a growing sense of powerlessness 
that is tearing at the heart of democracy itself."

Hope

Despite such problems, several analysts say they expect a larger turnout 
this year, in part due to the controversy surrounding the 2000 election 
but also because of the added weight of the post-9/11 "war on terrorism".

"I actually think it's quite possible that voter turnout will go up this 
election," Putnam said.

Unlike some presidential elections of years past, many experts believe 
the clearly-defined issues at stake and the political tension between 
Republicans and Democrats will draw more voters to the polls this November.

"This year both sides are highly motivated," Jones said. "There seem to 
be big differences between the parties."

Aljazeera
By Benjamin Duncan in Washington

You can find this article at:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FA105EFE-921B-4253-A65F-7B9B49C7D258.htm 

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