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Politics : New FADG. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (2685)	7/21/2007 11:14:23 PM
From: Sdgla	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4152

<The right to vote is a privilege obtained either thru birth or thru Naturalization. I never forget its a privilege.> No argument from me.... educating children falls first and foremost to parents. Most need to lose what they have before they learn its true value.

To: kumar who wrote (2685)	7/22/2007 1:14:37 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 4152

Looks like the voter turnout in 2004 was almost 60%. Pretty high. The fact the election was likely to be a close one like 2000 had been probably increased it. Other interesting things: Turnout was very low back in 1996 because Clinton was considered an easy winner. The turnout that elected Lincoln was very high - and that election led to a civil war. Voter turnout %'s in American are estimates based on comparing votes cast to the estimated voting age population number. So the resulting voter turnout % doesn't take into account that as much 10% of the population is ineligible - due to being non-citizens (legal resident aliens or illegal aliens) or felons who lose their voting right in many states. BTW apparently in Cali, that ineligible to vote % is more like 20%. Personally, I think the widespread publishing of polls and election projections (and the race to declare a winner asap even though some places still have polls open) depresses turnout. en.wikipedia.org; With an intensely polarized electorate and all polls showing a close finish between President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger John F. Kerry, the turnout in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, was close to 60%, resulting in a record number of popular votes for both candidates; despite losing the election, Kerry even surpassed Ronald Reagan's 1984 record in terms of the number of popular votes received. However, this race also demonstrates the influence that contentious social issues can have on voter turnout; for example, the voter turnout rate in 1860 wherein anti-slavery candidate Abraham Lincoln won the election was the second-highest on record (81.2 percent, second only to 1876, with 81.8 percent). Nonetheless, there is evidence to support the argument that predictable election results—where one vote is not seen to be able to make a difference—have resulted in lower turnouts, such as Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election (which featured the lowest voter turnout in the United States since 1924), the United Kingdom general election of 2001, and the 2005 Spanish referendum on the European Constitution; all of these elections produced decisive results on a low turnout. ....................... Ease of voting is a factor in rates of turnout. In the United States and most Latin American nations, voters must go through separate voter registration procedures before they are allowed to vote. This two-step process quite clearly decreases turnout. U.S. states with no, or easier, registration requirements have larger turnouts.[31] Other methods of improving turnout include making voting easier through more available absentee polling and improved access to polls, such as increasing the number of possible voting locations, lowering the average time voters have to spend waiting in line, or requiring companies to give workers some time off on voting day. In some areas, generally those where some polling centres are relatively inaccessible, such as India, elections often take several days. Some countries have considered internet voting as a possible solution. In other countries, like France, voting is held on Sundays, when most voters are away from work. Therefore, the need for time off from work as a factor in voter turnout is greatly reduced. .................................... Differing methods of counting voter turnout can contribute to reported differences between nations. In the United States, there is no accurate registry of exactly who is eligible to vote, since only about 70–75% of people choose to register them.[34] Thus, turnout has to be calculated based on population estimates. Some political scientists have argued that these measures do not properly account for the large number of illegal aliens and disenfranchised felons in the United States, and that American voter turnout is higher than is normally reported.[35] .............................. In a 2001 article in the American Political Science Review, Michael McDonald and Samuel Popkin argued, that at least in the United States, voter turnout since 1972 has not actually declined when calculated for those eligible to vote, what they term the voting-eligible population.[46] In 1972, noncitizens and ineligible felons (depending on state law) constituted about 2% of the voting-age population. By 2004, ineligible voters constituted nearly 10%. Ineligible voters are not evenly distributed across the country - 20% of California's voting-age population is ineligible to vote - which confounds comparisons of states.