Explain the low turnout in U.S. elections. :: essays research papers fc

Explain the low turnout in U.S. elections.     "Miller lighthearted and bud lighteither way you end up with a mighty weak beer" This is how Jim Hightower (a Texan populist speaker) described the choices that the U.S. electorate had in the 2000 elections. This insinuates that at that place is a clear lack of distinction between the parties. Along with numerous others, this is one of the yards why the turnout is so low in the U.S. elections. In trying to explain the low figures at the U.S. elections, analysts have c all(prenominal)ed American voters unbiassed to indifferent to downright lazy. I disagree that the 50% (in recent elections) of voters that weaken to turnout to vote are lazy and that they have just reason non too. I will also show that the problem lies at heart the system itself in that the institutional arrangements, electoral and g everyplacenmental, do not pass water an environment that is conducive to mass participation. I will addre ss these principal(prenominal) issues and several others that have an effect on voter participation. In doing so I will compare America to other established democracies. around registration laws in the past had clearly been designed to abstain trustworthy races and types of people from registering, these restricted rather than assisted voter turnout. In the southern they made provisions to stop African-Americans voting and the North implemented obstacles such as the poll tax and literacy tests. These were blatant attempts to stop people who were not of the typical voter, an educated white male landowner from casting a ballot. Typically in the South turnout historically tends to be demean than that of the North. An example of this is the contest between Kennedy and Nixon when only 40% of the south cancelled out to vote compared with 70% of the rest of the nation. These southern states tend to be the ones who were part of the old Confederacy. They still seem to have similar sem ipolitical ideologies, as in the most recent election George W. Bush took all these states in defeating Al Gore. It seems that the stigma connected to the civil war that finish over 130 years ago still seems to loom over American politics. However due to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, procedures for registration have occasion frequently more user friendly in allowing a much wider scope of American citizens to register. Because of this Act I am going to deoxidise on the more recent elections and explanations for the low turnout.