Act of Voting By Josh Lorenzetti

http://jdsdeepthoughts.blogspot.com/

Act of Voting

The act of voting in the United States can be a complicated process. Laws about voting differ from state to state. Voter turnout for years has been struggling to get over 50% during midterm elections (elections that take place during the 2^nd year of the presidential term, ex. 2010) and getting more people voting for president. Deciding whether to use paper ballots or electronic balloting at polls and costs for each. Voter registration laws are usually always up for questioning. The point of voting is to express your opinion and help make decisions. As Americans there is always something to say and always trying to make life better for ourselves whether we are the ones doing it or relying on someone else.

Each individual state has their voter registration laws since there is no national law requiring states to have registration for voters. The laws can range from having no registration like North Dakota (only state to have no registration for voters) or having strict laws like South Carolina where you must register at least 30 days in advance. Voter registration can be confusing and lead to a decrease in voter turnout. The main purpose of voter registration is to prevent voter fraud. The three requirements for voting in the United States are 1. Must be a U.S. citizen 2. Must have residence in state you are voting in 3. Must be 18 for November elections. In the chart below it shows the number of people who are at or above the voting age population, how many of those were registered, and the number of people who voted. Keep in mind that not all people of voting age are eligible to vote. Only about 7.5 percent of people are in the non-eligible to vote category (1).

Year	Voting-age population	Voter registration	Voter turnout	Turnout of voting-age population (percent)
2010**	235,809,266	NA	90,682,968	37.8%
2008*	231,229,580	NA	132,618,580*	56.8
2006	220,600,000	135,889,600	80,588,000	37.1
2004	221,256,931	174,800,000	122,294,978	55.3
2002	215,473,000	150,990,598	79,830,119	37.0
2000	205,815,000	156,421,311	105,586,274	51.3
1998	200,929,000	141,850,558	73,117,022	36.4
1996	196,511,000	146,211,960	96,456,345	49.1
1994	193,650,000	130,292,822	75,105,860	38.8
1992	189,529,000	133,821,178	104,405,155	55.1
1990	185,812,000	121,105,630	67,859,189	36.5
1988	182,778,000	126,379,628	91,594,693	50.1
1986	178,566,000	118,399,984	64,991,128	36.4
1984	174,466,000	124,150,614	92,652,680	53.1
1982	169,938,000	110,671,225	67,615,576	39.8
1980	164,597,000	113,043,734	86,515,221	52.6
1978	158,373,000	103,291,265	58,917,938	37.2
1976	152,309,190	105,037,986	81,555,789	53.6
1974	146,336,000	96,199,0201	55,943,834	38.2
1972	140,776,000	97,328,541	77,718,554	55.2
1970	124,498,000	82,496,7472	58,014,338	46.6
1968	120,328,186	81,658,180	73,211,875	60.8
1966	116,132,000	76,288,2833	56,188,046	48.4
1964	114,090,000	73,715,818	70,644,592	61.9
1962	112,423,000	65,393,7514	53,141,227	47.3
1960	109,159,000	64,833,0965	68,838,204	63.1

*Source 2008 election results: http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2008G.html.
**Source 2010 election results: http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html

n.a. = not available. NOTE: Presidential election years are in boldface.

1. Registrations from Iowa not included.

2. Registrations from Iowa and Mo. not included.

3. Registrations from Iowa, Kans., Miss., Mo., Nebr., and Wyo. not included. D.C. did not have independent status.

4. Registrations from Ala., Alaska, D.C., Iowa, Kans., Ky., Miss., Mo., Nebr., N.C., N.D., Okla., S.D., Wis., and Wyo. not included.

5. Registrations from Ala., Alaska, D.C., Iowa, Kans., Ky., Miss., Mo., Nebr., N.M., N.C., N.D., Okla., S.D., Wis., and Wyo. not included.

Source: Federal Election Commission. Data drawn from Congressional Research Service reports, Election Data Services Inc., and State Election Offices.

Information Please® Database, © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Read more: National Voter Turnout in Federal Elections: 1960–2010 — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html#ixzz1dvKxrrp1

The chart shows that voter registration can eliminate a significant amount of people who can vote. This could be due to the fact that people do not want to take time and register themselves. However I think voter registration is necessary in high populated states in order to minimize voter fraud. No voter registration works in North Dakota because everyone knows everyone due to the small population in the state (around 635,000). This prevents almost all voter fraud because if the person running the polls knows everyone, it is easy to tell if people are voting twice because you would see them twice. Voter turnouts have a tendency to be below 50% especially if the president is not on the ballot. Sometimes this can be because people may not realize voting is important and have not been taught this. Off year elections also show that not as many people show up to vote when the president is not on the ballot. Off year elections happen every two years and are on odd numbered years. For example there was an off year election in 2005; the next off year election was in 2007. Turnout rates during off year elections are low. This is because the people on the ballot are usually just local officials, although off year elections are used to fill a federal office if it’s empty and five states use the off year elections to elect their governor. Off year elections are starting to be considered a waste of money because of the low voter turnouts. It cost the city of Largo, FL about 70,000 dollars for one of these elections (2). It costs the city of New York about 17 million to do the same thing (3)! That is ridiculous and the money going to manage those elections should be going somewhere else that is more useful. All elections are on Tuesdays which can be a major problem. This can be a problem because almost all of the voting eligible population works and those that do not work usually have school. Tuesday is tough because it is close to the middle of the week. People usually always have something to do or something going on during the week. The way people vote can also be a problem if they are using paper ballots. The paper ballots are a problem because they can be easily misplaced and lost because they are just sheets of paper and there can be lots of them. If they are misplaced or lost and not found it can lead to votes not being counted that should have been counted and that can matter. We saw that in the Bush vs. Gore presidential race a small number of votes can change who wins and losses. In this election it came down to 537 votes in which George W. Bush won the election.

To fix the voting registration problem I think there should be one national voting registration law. That law would be for a person to register 15 days prior to the election and they have to bring photo identification to the poll. This can help prevent voter fraud because both registration and photo ID cut down on people voting multiple times and they prevent people from voting who are not supposed to vote. I chose 15 days because it is not too early like a month but not same day voting registration. I think the off year elections should be moved to the even numbered years so it will occur during a midterm or presidential election. Then the only reason left to have an off year election is if there is an open seat in Congress or in the state legislature. This saves tons of money for all the cities and will allow for better voter turnout because the voter turnouts are much better during midterm or presidential elections. This way the congressional, local, state, and possibly presidential (depending on the year) will be on the ballot and people never leave something open when asked their opinion. I think voting should be moved to a different day. Weekends would not work because of football and church. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday do not work either because of being in the middle of the work day as well as people traveling for college football. That only leaves one day open and that is Monday. I think Monday works because it is the start of the week and it is typically the slowest of the work days because everyone is just getting back from the weekend. The move from the first Tuesday in November to the first Monday in November would help with increasing voter turnout. It would help voter turnout because since Mondays are the slowest day for most Americans there will be more time available to vote because taking time off work will not “cost” as much. The use of paper ballots should be ineffective. Paper ballots are inconvenient and as said earlier can be lost or misplaced easily. Electronic ballots should always be used to prevent fraud, lost ballots, and possibly double counting or not counting votes. The computer used when electronically voting should be touch screen and able to use the mouse. Then once that person is done voting a receipt is printed out showing who was voted for and the person can make sure the computer logged everything correctly this way. Once the receipt is picked up it should be dropped off into a box that would be used for an optical scanner if electronic fraud was detected. I also think the young men and women should be taught in our school system that voting is important. Teachers should encourage these kids to vote once they become of age and once they are of age to vote should still be encouraged. Some kids come from families that do not put emphasis on voting and I think these kids should know what voting means, how it can affect people, and how important it is. Then the kids can make the choice but at least they have been well informed. These proposed fixes would allow for better voter turnout and reduced voter fraud.

Works Cited

1. Elections.gmu.edu/turnout_2010G.html

2. http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/local/pinellas/are-off-year-elections-worth-the-expense-11082011

3. http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/politics/149634/off-year-election-still-costs-nyc--17-million

4. http://www.campaignyoungvoters.org/low-voter-turnout-rates-in-the-u-s-why-dont-more-people-vote.html