1) The Act of Voting- Focus on issues such as voter registration, voter turnout rates, how people vote (i.e.- paper ballots, optical ballots, etc...NOT which party they vote for) and when and where elections are held.
The problem is voter turnout is dismal because the government has made it too hard for people to vote through voter registration. Granted, there are many federal buildings that people can register to vote and the Motor Voter Act allows people to register to vote at the DMV. Turnout among young voters is especially low. When the 26th Amendment was made to law, hundreds of thousands of people became eligible to vote. The problem is many young people don't vote and therefore the U.S. voter turnout numbers suffer. GALLUP, a respected polling agency, created a bar graph1
The bar graph data is a very telling indicator that voter turnout among young people is dismal. I personally think it's sad that my age group, the age group that represents the future of America, can't show up to the polls. Many countries aren't as liberal when it comes to suffrage and less people have the right to vote. We should take advantage of our right to vote instead of staying home from the polls.
Not only is voter turnout poor among eighteen year-olds to twenty nine year-olds, it is also poor in our nation as a whole.
But for many SC residents, the voter registration process was unnecessarily complicated by the new SC voter ID law. The law requires that you bring a government issued photo ID when you register to vote. Regardless of what party you support, this complicates the voter registration process for many people. According to election officials there are roughly 217, 000 active voters in the state who do not have a driver's license or State ID card.2
The new law also makes it harder for people in rural areas to vote. Many people in rural areas don't live near big cities, and therefore don't have many federal buildings in their general vicinity. Without federal buildings close to their homes, they would have to go out of their way to get the new ID to vote. A list of the federal buildings in SC shows you they are only located in major cities3. If the residents in rural areas live in small towns away from big cities, they may also not have a public transportation system that can get them to a federal building to get their ID. An example of these areas is Lana, SC. The new SC Voter ID law puts unnecessary stress on residents of rural areas in the voter registration process.
The new law also makes it hard on elderly people, many of whom are not licensed drivers and may have expired forms of ID, to vote. If the elderly do not have this new form of ID, they will be effectively prevented from voting. This added weight to the voter registration process is unneeded. Many people who agree with the voter ID law believe it will prevent voter fraud. I did some research to figure out how many actual cases of voter fraud have been reported, and I found through my research the South Carolina Election Commission has few to no confirmed cases of voter fraud. 2 Just to be clear, there one source in particular said the South Carolina Election Commission had zero cases of voter fraud. Since voter fraud is obviously not what this law is preventing, there must be some ulterior motives behind the law.
For many people, such as minorities who are hourly wage workers, taking a day off to get a government issued ID is impossible.The Bureau of Labor Statistics shows in Table 1 that roughly 25,000 minorities are hourly wage workers4. Many hourly wage workers need every penny they earn at their jobs, and some work 2 jobs. And even if they could get a day off, many minorities can't afford public transportation to get to the correct building, even if they live in the city. Many minorities also just don't have a State-issued ID. In Columbia's Ward 8 (near the historically black Benedict College), almost half of the voters do not have a state issued ID (1, 272 of those voters are African-Americans)2.To be blunt and honest, I feel like the new SC Voter ID law is a barrier to keep minorities from voting.
Saying it's a barrier may be a strong statement, but it wouldn't be the first time barriers such as these have been in place to get around the 15th Amendment (which says you cannot be denied the right to vote based on race). Before the Civil Rights Era, literacy tests prevented African-Americans from voting. In our class, I personally remember how the "literacy" test I took was very difficult. These "literacy" tests did not measure the ability to read, they were a mechanism that prevented minorities (mainly African-Americans) from voting because most white citizens passed the test and most minorities did not pass the test. Even if a Caucasian did not pass this test, the Grandfather Clause (which allowed you to vote if your grandfather could vote) allowed many Caucasians to vote. In the 1930s, there was also a poll tax on voting, which many African-Americans could not afford to pay and therefore they could not vote. All of these statues were part of Jim Crow Laws, which prevented minorities (specifically African-Americans) from voting.
Now to be fair, I did pick extreme examples, and I do realize this law is probably not at the same level of directly preventing minorities from voting as my previous examples. I personally believe the concept is still there, and this law is a tool to prevent minorities from voting. This law has been brought to the Department of Justice is examining whether or not the law violates Civil Rights.
The solution to this problem would be to allow the Federal Election Commission to monitor these elections more closely, to prevent the rare instances of voter fraud that may occur.
Another problem with our voting process is if you actually get through the process, the only day you can vote for President in the U.S. is the First Tuesday of November. For many of the roughly 73,000 hourly wage workers reported by Bureau of Labor Statistics (in the U.S. Department of Labor) reaching the polls on that Tuesday is impossible. My solution to the problem would be a Saturday voting date, which would allow more people to have flexibility to come to the polls.
The other reason voter turnout is dismal is because voting machines have no paper trail. Our voting machines are currently electronic. I think our electronic voting machines are not very secure. This lack of security is because you have nothing to prove the results of an election besides a data file, and a data file can be corrupted. I think if Americans saw a more reliable voting system, their external efficacy (how much you believe you effect the political system) would increase. I also think we need to change the way we vote to get Americans to trust the government again. Specifically with the 2004 Presidential election, the hanging chad debate in Florida lowered many people's external efficacy.
This bar graph5from the United States Election Project shows a decrease in voter turnout from 2004 to 2008. I believe this decrease in turnout is because of a low external efficacy, caused by the many problems associated with our voting system today. I believe one reason that caused the drop in external efficacy is the poor functionality of voting machines. The solution is to use simple paper ballots with check boxes and large font to prevent electronic data corruption.
Many of my previous descriptions may sound very negative and even pessimistic, but I do think we can improve voter turnout as a country. I think we can solve this problem if we give tax credits to people who vote. I think that we should also give some tax credits to corporations that encourage their employees to vote. I believe if we give people real incentives to vote, then they will be more likely to go to the polls. I also think that if they are encouraged to go to the polls, they will be more become more informed in the political process and engage in the process in a positive way. If the voters became more informed, then American people would have a higher internal efficacy (individual believes they understand the system of government).
I just want to make sure it's understood that everything I've said in this blog is an opinion, and if you agree or disagree with my opinion, I encourage you to COMMENT on my blog.
1http://www.gallup.com/poll/111310/Young-Voters-Favor-Obama-How-Many-Will-Vote.aspx
2http://news.yahoo.com/scs-voter-id-law-could-hit-gop-seniors-205414552.html
3http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/101497
4http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2010.pdf
5 http://elections.gmu.edu/CPS%20registration%20rate.jpg
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