Why do Significant Numbers of American fail to vote?
Between 1960 and 1996, the turnout of American’s voting in a presidential election had fallen by 14%. This brought the percentage to 51% of Americans turning up to vote. This decline in turnout is due to a number of reasons;
- The Decline in numbers of party Activists
- Loss of Political Efficacy
- Many elections have low-stimulus characters
- Most elections are uncompetitive
- Poor Turnout among young people
- People are happy with what they have
- It is difficult to understand the voting system
Out of these reasons, I feel some stand out the strongest. These include; the understanding of the voting system, poor turnout among young people and that people are happy with what they have.
Understanding of the Voting System
All Voting systems can be fairly difficult to understand and this includes the very democratic American System. It is no longer just the people with learning difficulties that find the system hard to understand, as it is no longer the person with the majority vote wins, therefore because people don’t understand it, they tend to stay away rather then get confused and embarrass themselves. This also links with the ability of people having to register to vote. To register they have to attend a government building, and some people do not have the time, or means of transport too do this, therefore they decide as it’s not a law too vote, they don’t bother. Also, even if people do register the ability to get too a polling station is a problem. As everything is very spaced out in America, and generally a car is needed to travel between places, if a potential voter does not have a car, they will not bother too vote. This can also be linked with the 2000 Presidential Election, when roadblocks were put in plce in parts of Florida, stopping people from reaching the polling stations, this not only ensured a particular candidate won the vote of Florida, it also stopped a significant number of voters voting.