Book Review-US voting

Week 1

In recent times, not many Americans bother to turnout at the polls. Voter turnout in Presidential elections is typically less than half of the potential voters. In mid-term elections (non-Presidential elections), turnout is even lower. Some fear these numbers reflect a serious problem for American democracy, which depends on citizen participation. Others are less concerned arguing that the numbers mean that things are going well in the country; if it was not going well more people would be motivated to have their voice heard through voting.

Solving the mystery of the cause of the decline in participation and understanding its true impact on American democracy are important issues for political science to address. To help us understand these issues, it is helpful to review them in their historical context, improving our understanding of electoral rules and other factors that influence voting.

Early US Elections and Voting Rules

In America’s early days, a decade before the founding fathers

arrived in Philadelphia to consider the adoption of the US Constitution, the colonies had written their own suffrage laws. These colonial laws were based on colonial precedents and English thought, which restricted voting to adult men who owned property. Both in England and the colonies, property requirements to vote were justified using two arguments: (1) men who owned property had a unique stake in society and had a personal interest in the activities of the state, especially taxation and (2) property owners had sufficient independence, free from dependence on others, giving them a voice free of control or manipulation.

Such concerns also promoted colonial governments to adopt residency and citizenship requirements. Women were also barred from voting because they were considered dependent on males and because their “nature” made them unfit to engage in politics.

It is unclear how many individuals actually voted during colonial times. It is most likely that voting percentages varied by locality. There probably were some communities with 70 or 80 percent enfranchisement of white male landowners. While other locales, such as coastal towns, cities and frontier settlements, probably were closer to 40 or 50 percent.

The American Revolution, and its calls for greater equality among men and the expansion of freedom, fostered tensions with existing colonial electoral rules. Voting was increasingly being viewed as a right, even a natural right by some. The view was supported with republican theory and notions of the social contract that considered government legitimacy as requiring, what John Locke termed, the consent of the governed.

An important expansion of the voting franchise occurred in Pennsylvania during the first few months of the Revolution. With the support of prominent reformers such as Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine, and allied with western Pennsylvania farmers who had long been under represented in the colonial government, adopted a new constitution that abolished property requirements and enfranchised all taxpaying adult males and the sons of non-taxpaying freeholders. Since Pennsylvania had a “head tax,” which required each citizen to pay tax, the new state constitution greatly expanded the franchise.

A year later, Vermont went even further and adopted a state constitution that removed the franchise from any connection to property or taxpaying. Any adult male who took an oath could vote.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the states had complete control over voting. But the US Constitution pierced this exclusivity by linking state suffrage rules and the right to vote in national elections by mandating that those who participated in elections for the “most numerous Branch of the state legislature” were automatically entitled to vote for members of the US House of Representatives. At the Constitutional Convention, some founding fathers advocated for national suffrage requirements, but after some debate the delegates chose to avoid additional reference to voting rights more for practical reasons than ideology. The delegates wished to avoid jeopardizing ratification as a national suffrage requirement was likely to generate opposition by state governments. Madison expressed the point in the Federalist Papers, “One uniform rule would probably have been as dissatisfactory to some of the States as it would have been difficult to the convention.”

The decision to forgo a national suffrage requirement was a significant compromise, one of many major compromises. But, the compromise would have significance for the future. While the Constitution was adopted in the name of “We the People,” the states retained the power to define the “people.” In other words, citizenship in the new nation, which was controlled by the federal government, was separated from the right to vote.

In the 1830s, voter registration became increasingly popular, especially among Whigs who feared ineligible transients and foreigners were supporting the Democratic Party. In fact, increasing immigration fueled greater interest in requiring voters to register. Although most supporters of registration laws argued they were necessary to prevent fraud, opponents insisted the real intent was to reduce participation by the poor.

In 1985, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified. The amendment provided that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. After 1865, however, the intensity of the conflict over the right to vote increased. In the South, the abolition of slavery created a new class of potential voters – former slaves. Radical Republicans believed that freedom was illusory without political rights, including the right to vote. So during reconstruction, former slaves were enfranchised. During reconstruction, southern African-Americans were elected to office, and they supported public policies that promoted education and economic welfare for former slaves. These changes were rapid and caused Southern white leaders to fear a loss of control if their region’s African-American population remained enfranchised.

Also, in 1866, the moderate majority of Republicans in Congress secured the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. The amendment created a national definition of citizenship and confirmed that former slaves were citizens. The amendment also prohibited states from passing laws that would “abridge the privileges or immunities” of citizens or deny them “the equal protection of the laws.”

This time was also part of an era known as the patronage period. It was a time when political machines, led by party bosses, dominated. Many political machines were well developed in the cities and served to increase the political power of immigrants. These machines, however, were often accused of corruption and only selectively helping certain immigrant groups at the expense of others.

Between 1870 and 1890, many states contracted the right to vote rolling back many of the gains that were achieved earlier. During this period, two significant contractions in the right to vote were made: (1) the disenfranchisement of Southern African-Americans; and (2) the loss of political rights for working class immigrant men in the North and West.

Does Voting Matter?

Elections serve many purposes. Elections give the government legitimacy so citizens will obey the laws (consent of the governed). Elections also solve the problem of succession without violence: Prior to the use of elections, contests for political power frequently involved physical violence or war. Elections also provide a means of accountability: Political leaders are held to account for their policies. For these reasons, elections are important.

Elections can also have bad effects. For example, in the United States representatives in the House only have two-year terms that require almost constant campaigning (this is known as short planning time for an election). Also, elections may legitimize policies that are bad for the public. For example, in New Hampshire, voters elected a state representative who did not like police officers.

Liphart, in Unequal Participation: Democracy’s Unresolved Dilemma, argued democratic responsiveness depends upon citizen participation. For some, a “moral obligation to vote” exists such that it is every citizen’s duty to vote.

Liphart also noted that inequality of representation and influence are biased in favor of the more privileged citizens – those with higher incomes, education and wealth. Similarly, Rosenstone et al. (1993) found that in the United States the smaller the number of participants in political activity, the greater the inequality in participation.

Other empirical studies have found that socioeconomic status and voting were positively linked. Tingsten (1937) found the general rule was “voting frequency rises with social standard.” The data clearly shows that the obvious way to reduce the inequality in voting is to increase voter turnout. Simply put, low voter turnout means unequal and socioeconomically biased turnout. Lipset nicely summed up the conclusion by stating that elections are “the expression of the democratic class struggle.”

Verba et al. (1995) in their important work titled Voice and Equality make an important observation: While policymakers are not necessarily equally sensitive to all constituents, they are sensitive to citizen inputs. Having a great concern for either their own re-election or the maintenance of power for their political party, political leaders are more responsive to voters than to those involved in other political activities such as boycotting, protesting or letter writing. For these reasons, we can be confident that voting matters.

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