110
votes
Accepted
Why don't poor people vote in the United States?
They are several reasons at play as to why poor people don't vote.
Voter ID laws and registering to vote
The Government Accountability Office found in this report, that in most state it costs ...
- 8,457
72
votes
Accepted
Is there evidence that the Republican Party leadership wants fewer people to vote?
"They had things—levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."
Donald Trump on Fox and Friends
“Just what America needs, ...
- 965
68
votes
Why don't poor people vote in the United States?
tl;dr- People who made less than $15,000/yr were 30% less likely to vote because a significant portion of that segment of the population was disaffected.
Disaffected people tend to lack an interest ...
- 2,077
56
votes
Accepted
Why did Wisconsin Republicans oppose postponing the April 7th election despite COVID-19 shutting down nearly all polling places?
Rural voters aren't afraid to go to the polls to keep a conservative state supreme court justice in power.
The April 2020 ballot does include the U.S. presidential primary, but that will have little ...
- 2,502
53
votes
Why did Wisconsin Republicans oppose postponing the April 7th election despite COVID-19 shutting down nearly all polling places?
Republicans prevented this change because at the core it is beneficial to their electoral prospects.
There are many layers to fully understanding this issue, but to address it in brief I think a few ...
- 1,535
42
votes
Is there evidence that the Republican Party leadership wants fewer people to vote?
While this is older and from 1980 here is Paul Weyrich coming out and saying more people voting is bad:
Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want ...
- 18.4k
39
votes
Accepted
Why would people protest the Puerto Rico statehood referendum by boycotting?
The main point of objection by the boycotters is that the referendum essentially does not accomplish anything. It is not legally binding and would not significantly advance the movement for statehood ...
- 1,854
35
votes
Is there an operating political system in which an election can be invalidated because of a too little participation?
Yes, Article 81 of the Macedonian constitution (found here in Macedonian, or here in English) provides that the successful candidate in a Presidential election is elected by majority vote, provided ...
CDJB♦
- 109k
32
votes
In the U.S., why isn't turnout and activism proportional to the impact the powers of the position has on the voter?
Because local elections are about policy, national elections are about identity.
I don't know how those stand in terms of people's priorities, but one sure is a whole lot easier to parse than the ...
- 8,706
28
votes
Is there evidence that the Republican Party leadership wants fewer people to vote?
In the 2012 Obama vs Romney presidential election, Pennsylvania state House Republican leader Mike Turzai admitted openly that the whole purpose of a voter ID-law was to suppress Democratic votes and ...
- 2,468
24
votes
In the U.S., why isn't turnout and activism proportional to the impact the powers of the position has on the voter?
Because those elections get almost no coverage and unless people are paying attention it can be easy to miss them. The presidential elections get years of coverage so everyone knows when they are ...
- 18.4k
23
votes
Is there an operating political system in which an election can be invalidated because of a too little participation?
The Russian Federation had minimum turnout requirements for presidential and Duma (parliamentary) elections until 2007, but they've since abolished the rule:
Since 2007 the minimum turnout of 50 % ...
- 831
22
votes
Is there an operating political system in which an election can be invalidated because of a too little participation?
A minimum turnout is commonly used for referendums. See Referendums by country on Wikipedia, which has an entire column on minimum turnout. Sometimes this minimum is formulated as purely a minimum ...
- 49.3k
21
votes
Why did Wisconsin Republicans oppose postponing the April 7th election despite COVID-19 shutting down nearly all polling places?
It is not just the presidential primary being held today, but also a number of elections to local government. The Wisconsin GOP argued that it is essential to ensure that the positions in local ...
- 28k
20
votes
Is there a tendency for democracies to pander to older voters?
Yes.... and no. There is a tendency to pander to voters. Not "voters" as in eligible voters, but voters as in more likely voters.
In the United States, younger voters vote the least, as a ...
- 21k
19
votes
Do left wing organisations fight against disenfranchisement in countries/states where disenfranchised voters typically vote for right wing parties?
Disenfranchisement is a pretty rare political tactic on either the left or the right outside the United States, which has close to the lowest voter turnout rates among places that have genuine ...
- 88.3k
16
votes
Accepted
Do more voting rights really make it harder for Republicans to win?
Speaking nationally, Democrats currently have a 6%-7% advantage over Republicans in terms of voter representation. In fact, Democrats have a lead among every demographic group except white males ...
- 76.4k
15
votes
Accepted
Do non partisan elections have lower turnouts in the United States?
This effect has been fairly well researched, for example by Schaffner, Streb, & Wright in their 2001 paper Teams Without Uniforms: The Nonpartisan Ballot in State and Local Elections in Political ...
CDJB♦
- 109k
13
votes
Why did Wisconsin Republicans oppose postponing the April 7th election despite COVID-19 shutting down nearly all polling places?
Let's look at the timeline
Evers proposed an all-mail-in election towards the end of March
Republicans objected, but they did have reasons
“Governor Evers just proposed procuring, printing, ...
- 53.1k
12
votes
Is there evidence that the Republican Party leadership wants fewer people to vote?
Yes, lots of it. For example, Republicans are generally opposed to felon voting. Felons are obviously people. They do this entirely in the open, and there is no secret about it.
The Atlantic
National ...
- 4,035
12
votes
What is the correlation between swing and change in votes cast from the 2016 to 2020 US presidential elections among major parties?
The data for this question, and many you ask, is readily available from the MIT Election Lab, specifically here I used the "U.S. President 1976-2020" dataset.
The correlation between the ...
- 7,169
11
votes
Why did Wisconsin Republicans oppose postponing the April 7th election despite COVID-19 shutting down nearly all polling places?
It's about not expanding vote by email, same day registration, etc. to make it easier to vote.
For instance, blue collar voters can't always show up at voting stations due to not having free time -- ...
- 30.7k
10
votes
In the U.S., why isn't turnout and activism proportional to the impact the powers of the position has on the voter?
Frankly, I think the answer is that many, if not most, people would simply disagree with the assertion that state and local elections are more influential than federal ones or that Congressional ...
- 8,588
9
votes
Why was the voter turnout so low in the second round of French elections?
More people did not really support either candidate this time around. This is evidenced by the fact that the number of empty ballots was higher in this election, where other's with the same ...
- 103
8
votes
How did political participation change after Watergate?
This answer lists some of the statistics and metrics used to measure political participation.
First, let's define political participation:
Conventional participation: Activities that we expect of ...
- 46.7k
8
votes
Did only retired people vote in a majority for the Conservatives in the UK 2017 General Election?
At first sight, I agree it looks a little puzzling, but consider that the Students were the only group that substantially preferred Labour ( 64% to 19% ), and there are not so many of them ( 3,092 ...
- 380
8
votes
In the U.S., why isn't turnout and activism proportional to the impact the powers of the position has on the voter?
There are two different components of influence here. The local government may have a lot more influence on your daily life than the federal government. But the different between having person A or ...
- 9,317
8
votes
Voter turnout and confidence in results
A vote is not an opinion poll. Instead of extrapolating the behavior of a subset of people to everyone, it measures the behavior of all people.
The conclusion from a vote is that set out by the rules, ...
- 9,313
8
votes
Why is voter turnout hitting lows in 2024 primaries, and does relative primary turnout tend to predict general election turnout?
What factors are driving the decline in voter turnout in 2024's
primaries so far?
Voter turnout is driven by the top of the ticket race.
In 2024, the top of the ticket race was the race for the ...
- 88.3k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible