The United States of America was founded on the principle of democracy. The Founding Fathers believed that the power of the government was so great that it should be placed in the hands of the people. As such, the basic framework of democracy that was established by the Founding Fathers was on in which each citizen would be granted the right to vote. Votes would be cast based on which political candidate the citizen believed was best suited to meet the needs of the general public.Although the system of representative democracy as established by the Founding Fathers was to assure that the power of the government would remain vested in the hands of the people, there is one critical issue that these men were unable to foresee: a lack of political participation. While it is quite evident that a system of representative democracy provides a salient means for the government to ensure equitable representation of the people, it is also evident that this system will not work unless citizens involved in the political process fail to take an active role.
[...] Many voters, distrustful of the government made the decision to split their votes, creating a Democratic presidency and a Republican Congress Overall, the theory of anger, which has lead to apathy among American voters is one that provides some insight into the demographic trends that are present in voting statistics. For instance, Table 2 shows that individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 are the least likely to vote. Further, the data demonstrates that Hispanics and Asians are also among the least likely to vote. [...]
[...] The majoritarian/plurality elections are those in which the candidate who receives the most votes wins, such as in the case of the election of US Senators and Representatives. The proportional election system election system is one in which an electoral system is used to select the candidate, such as in the case of electing the president. In the electoral system ballots are cast by individual voters in a state. The candidate with a majority of the votes acquires the electoral votes of the state. [...]
[...] To some extend, most of these theories are supported by the historical trends in voter participation. Interestingly however, it is clear that regardless of the specific theory that is applied, no one theory can completely and totally account for the political participation of the American voter. What is evident from this research is that uncovering the reasons for such a notable decline in voter participation is quite difficult. Clearly, the apathy of the American voter—whether caused by anger, disenfranchisement or negative campaign advertising—appears to sit at the heart of the political inactivity that has occurred in recent years. [...]
[...] Further, the data demonstrates that women were more likely than men to vote and 62.1 percent respectively (“Reported values of While trends in voting by race and gender provide some insight into who votes, when the data is broken down by age and educational attainment, clearer delineations among sections of the population can be seen. For instance, the data in Table 2 shows that overall individuals aged 65 to 74 years were most likely to vote ( 73.3 percent). This age group is followed by individuals aged 55 to 64 years ( 72.8 percent). [...]
[...] electoral system in the twentieth century has been exclusion of various economically disadvantaged segments from effective participation. The two principal methods have been disenfranchisement and the repression of organizers” What this theory effectively posits is that the political system in the United States has excluded, and continues to exclude, individuals that are not part of what is conceptualized as mainstream citizens—i.e. WASPs, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestants. Due to both disenfranchisement and repression of, what are viewed as, countercultural political movements, mainstream politics has effectively managed to deter specific minority groups from taking an active role in American politics. [...]
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