Notes for American Government, Chapter 6, Section 4 "Voter Behavior"

1. Voter Behavior
American Government, Chapter 6, Section 4

2. “Your vote is your
voice. Use it.”

3. Nonvoters
• In ancient Athens, people who did not vote or
otherwise take part in public life were labeled
“idiotes.”
• That Greek word is where we obviously get the
English word, “idiot.”
• Tens of millions vote in national elections, yet
millions more do not and have no excuse for it.

4. The Size of the Problem
• In 2000, 49% of the voting population cast votes in the
Presidential election. 45.8% cast votes in the elections for the
House of Representatives
• This means that more than 6,000,000 voters could have voted in
the congressional races but chose not to.
• Still, 33,000,000 more voters cast votes in 2000 congressional
elections than did in 1998.
• Off-year elections are those congressional elections in the even-numbered
years between presidential elections. They feature H.R.
elections of all districts and only those Senate elections that fall on
those years.

5. The Size of the Problem
• “Ballot fatigue” refers to the decrease in the number
of voters the further down the ballot an office is. Ex.,
there are always fewer votes cast in a precinct for
dogcatcher than for President or mayor.
• The same holds true in comparing turnouts for
elections at different levels: more for national
elections than state; more for state than county.
• Turnouts for general elections are usually larger than
primary or special elections.

6. Why People Do Not Vote
• Time should not be a significant part of the answer.
• Several million who are regularly identified as nonvoters can be
more accurately described as “cannot-voters.”
• In the 2000 election data, about 10 million of the more than
100 million who did not vote were in fact resident aliens and
unable to vote.
• Another 5-6 million were so sick or physically disabled they
simply could not go vote.
• An additional 2-3 million were traveling unexpectedly and
could not vote.

7. Why People Do Not Vote
• That leaves about 80 million actual nonvoters that
could have vote but didn’t.
• Some felt that whoever won the election would
make no real improvement.
• Others felt that things would continue to go well no
matter who won.
• Some distrusted politics and politicians so much
they had no sense of their own influence as voters.

8. Factors Affecting Turnout
• Cumbersome election procedures: inconvenient
registration requirement, long ballots, and long
lines at polling places.
• “Time-zone fallout” refers to the effect to voting on
the West Coast when the results of voting on the
East Coast and Midwest are projected before
polling on the West Coast is closed.
• A lack of interest perhaps is chief cause for
nonvoting.

9. Comparing Voters and
Nonvoters
• Characteristics of people most likely to vote:
• Higher levels of income
• Higher levels of education
• Higher levels of occupational status
• Long-time residents who are active in or
comfortable with their surroundings
• Strong sense of party identification
• Believe that voting is an important act
• Live in an area where laws, customs and
party competition promote turnout

10. Comparing Voters and
Nonvoters
• Characteristics of people least likely to vote:
• Younger than 35
• Unmarried
• Unskilled
• Typically live in the South and in rural
• Men
• If a person has a higher sense of political efficacy they
are more likely to vote.
• When there is a higher degree of two-party competition
there will be a higher voter turnout overall.

11. Voters and Voting Behavior
• What we know about voter behavior comes from
3 sources:
• The results of particular elections
• The field of survey research
• Studies of political socialization, or the
process by which people gain their political
attitudes and opinions.

12. Voters and Voting Behavior
• Many sociological and psychological factors
influence voter behavior.
• Sociological factors include:
• a voter’s personal characteristics: age, race,
income, occupation, education, religion, etc.
• a voter’s group affiliations: family, co-workers,
friends, etc.

13. Voters and Voting Behavior
• Psychological factors include mainly a voter’s
perceptions of politics: the way a voter sees the
parties, the candidates and the issues of an
election.
• In weighing sociological factors, one should
remember that any one voter will exhibit several
factors together.
• Check the table on page 167 to see how people
with certain single factors voted.

14. Sociological Factors
• Professional and business people (those typically
with higher incomes) have, with the single exception
of 1964, voted Republican in every presidential
election in the modern era, including 2000.
• The more education a voter has, the more likely that
voter will vote Republican.
• Gender gap – women typically vote Democrat by a
5-10% margin; men typically vote Republican by a
similar edge.

15. Sociological Factors
• Younger voters tend to be Democrats.
• In the North, a majority of Protestants vote
Republican, while Catholics and Jews are more
likely to be Democrats.
• Minorities (nonwhites) have supported the
Democrat Party consistently and massively.
• Minority voter turnout has been typically low, but is
climbing in past years.

16. Sociological Factors
• Solid voting blocks based on geography is a thing
of the past because of voter migration.
• Democrats get strong results from big cities
(North and East) while Republicans dominate
suburbia as well as smaller cities and rural areas.
• Families typically vote the same way.

17. Psychological Factors
• Psychological factors are typically stronger
indicators than sociological factors because they
affect our perceptions of politics.
• Party identification is the loyalty of people to a
particular political party.
• Straight-ticket voting is the practice of voting for
candidates of only one party in an election.

18. Psychological Factors
• Split-ticket voting is where one votes for
candidates of more than one party in an election.
• Independents are voters with no party
identification.
• The surge in the growth of independents has
made them a significant voting group in every
recent election.

19. Psychological Factors
• While party ID is a “long-term factor,” one or more
“short-term factors” can cause voters to switch
sides in a particular election.
• The most important of these short-term factors are
the candidates and issues in an election.
• Issues have become increasingly important to
voters over the past 40 years or so, since the civil
rights movement and the last years of Vietnam.