Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2008 - Essay Example

Official Reports According to the U.S. Census Bureau report “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2008” , 131 million of voting-age citizens in the United States participated in mid-term elections in 2008. This represents increase of 5 million voters when compared to the same type election from 2004. However, in the same 4-year period the voting-age citizen population increased by roughly 9 million. The 131 million corresponds to 64% of all voters. It is important to note here that voting rates are usually higher in years with Presidential elections than in Congressional election years. The US Census Bureau reports that approximately 66% of Non-Hispanic Whites voted, 65 % of Blacks, while Asians and Hispanics had rates bellow 50%. When broken by age, data collected and compared shows increase for the 18-24 population, decrease for 45-64 group, with 25-44 and 65 or older groups showing no significant change. Regionally, people in the Midwest are more likely to participate in elections than people from other regions. At the same time, Midwest region also saw a decrease in voter numbers, together with the Northeast. The only increase in voters was recorded in the South, with West recording unchanged rates. The Bureau, also collected responses from voters that did not participate and voted and four main reasons for that were- schedule or people being too busy to go to polling places, ill, disabled or having family emergency, 13% believed that their vote would not make a difference and, finally, a similar percentage just did not like the candidates or campaign issues. My interviewee For the purpose of this paper I have selected to interview my high school Social Studies teacher. She is a middle age, educated, white person with liberal views. I have known this person for years and always appreciated her opinion and input. We have met in her school office and spoke for hour and a half on December 5th. The interview took place in after-school hours, as she was kind to dedicate some of her free time for this conversation. The interview was very informal but at the same time very informative as she, often times, is an opinioned and critical about our system of democracy. The Interview The first question I posed to her was whether she was a registered voter and whether she votes on regular basis. The answer to this was a simple yes and yes. Next, I asked why does she vote and what voting means to her ? After this question, I got more detailed response. She said that she votes because voting is one of the privileges of our democracy. At the same time, she emphasized that voting is not just a right we, as citizens of the US, have, but it is also an obligation for all of us. Simply put, she asserted that if given this right we should practice it and participate in elections. For most people that is the only way to have at least some influence on political processes in our country. Voting, for her, means that as a “zoon politikon” or a political being, I have a say in major decisions about my own and my country’s present and future. At this point, our conversation turned into the realm of critique as I asked what kinds of problems she sees with the voting process. She said that even though we are given the right to cast our vote, what comes after that is the problem we are seeing for a long time in our political arena. She made it clear that our representative democracy is often times hampered with many issues, starting with the fact that, while we vote and exercise our rights, behind the scenes some other players involved in elections are really reaping the benefits of this most basic democratic practice. The main problem here is, according to her, that too much money from corporate businesses and lobby groups is poured into pockets of political candidates. This, in turn, creates a problem when the elected officials go to Washington as they, frequently represent interests of their generous donors and not citizens themselves. In her opinion, this is why many people are discouraged from voting, as they see what kind of difference their votes will make. I, then, posed a question how she sees voting practices of the US citizens in that light. She continued by saying that majority of the general public believes that there is something, better yet a lot, wrong with what goes in Washington. They see it every day, they see the bickering and inability of the two major parties to work on issues in a bipartisan manner. She was surprised with the data I presented from the US Census Bureau, as she believed that often times numbers of voters that actually vote were much lower. The lack of interest and enthusiasm she sees as a consequence of problems in our capital. I wanted her to elaborate a little more on this topic as I asked her to explain why people are not more immersed into the process. Not surprisingly, she said that besides disappointment with Washington, people are very often busy thus detached from our political life. You cannot expect a single mother, working two jobs and trying to raise a family on her own to have free time to study particular candidates and their agendas. This is also true for many middle class workers and others. In those circumstances, people either vote for incumbent candidates, ones that has been in the office for a while, or for those they see most in the media. Accordingly, the candidate with more money available to put into the campaign- money that comes mainly from special interests- usually wins. At this time, I asked her to describe how she sees political campaigns ran by candidates and how much impact they have on voter turnout. She believes that many campaigns today are nothing more than a collection of insults, false accusations and smears against the opposing candidate and this, in her mind, turns away significant number of voters. The educated population expects to hear about issues of interest, not about the other candidate’s past transgressions or his or her, often times, distorted statements. My next question continued on the same note, as I wanted to get her view on influence of the media on election process. Media plays increasingly important role in the elections. For many voters, media is the only way to get introduced to candidates and to assess their views and opinions. The main problem she sees in this context is the fact that anybody can get air time in any of the media outlets if prepared to pay for it. Media, contended her, should draw a line between hate and smear messages and real, meaningful ads and refuse to air the former. Also, she believes that in many cases media is not objective as many of the newspapers, TV and radio stations and internet outlets clearly favor some candidates over the others. After this, critical part of the interview, I tried to steer the conversation more toward technical issues about the voting process. In that regard, I asked her to explain why voter turnout is higher in years with Presidential elections, as opposed to Congressional election years. Here, she expressed that she believes that Presidential elections are seen by many as more crucial for the country. She clearly said that is a mistake since Congressional elections are equally important. What people are missing to notice here is our system of checks and balances that gives many powers to the President, but, also, to the Congress. In that light, any elected official in Washington is armed with the power to promote or to oppose any of really important issues. She reminded everybody of the ongoing tug-of-war between the President and the Congress over tax cuts and wanted everybody to learn from this example that sometimes the President has to enter negotiations with the Congress and achieve results. In the conclusion of this interview, I focused on more technical issues and asked how effective the voting process is, especially after we saw that few votes can impact the country in a profound way. She understood that I was alluding to 2000 Presidential elections and Bush winning over Gore. She noted that election procedures improved in the last ten years and now the process is improved, although not yet completely perfected. She emphasized that in the future elections she predicts that electronic media, and especially the Internet will play ever-growing role. At the end of this very pleasant and informative conversation I asked my interviewee whether she has a message she wanted to get across to the US voters. She said, yes, my message to other voters is to take opportunity and vote whenever they can. With all the problems listed in the course of this interview, going out and voting is still worth doing. We cannot accept the current status quo that often times portrays our democracy as being in a perpetual stalemate. Conclusion My interviewee in the light of official numbers was not typical. While she showed some of inclinations the general population has, she does vote, she is critical of the voting process and its results, but sees the voting practice as a right and an obligation. In regard to her race she does fall into a typically white population, same as in the area of education. Her attitudes toward voting are fundamentally positive, but critical at the same time as she sees room for many possible improvements. Her attitude toward voting is explained in detail throughout the interview. Appendix Interview Questions 1. Are you a registered voter and do you vote on regular basis? 2. Why do you vote and what voting means to you? 3. What issues do you see with the voting process? 4. How do you see voting habits of US citizens? 5. Why lack of interest on part of voters? 6. What problems do you see with political campaigns and how those problems affect voter turnout? 7. What is the role of media in elections? 8. How do you explain differences in turnout for Presidential and Congressional Elections? 9. Are there any technical issues that affect voting? 10. What is your message to the voting population? Read More