Voter Turnout

American voter turnout in the past most recent presidential election, in my opinion, was embarrassing. The less than fifty percent of adults that turned out made Americans look like they just do not care. There are many factors that contribute to voter turnout. One of these is the registration requirements. This is the practice of placing citizens’ names on an official list of voters before they are eligible to exercise their right to vote. It started out as a way to keep people from casting more than one vote. This was a good idea until people started forgetting to register, or didn’t get around to it before election day. After this, voter turnout started to decline. Some of the reasons people don’t register are because they don’t know when or where to do it. Poor and less educated citizens are the most likely to not turn out. Even if they do know where and when to go, a great deal of them do not have transportation or time to get there. Not all states go about making this knowledge very publicly known in some areas. Sometimes citizens also have to have legal residency by living in the s

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There are many arguments why American voter turnout is so low compared to the voting in other countries. A way in which a few states have increased their voter turnout is through more relaxed registration laws. Another reason for low voter turnout is due to the fact that Americans don’t really see a difference between the major political parties. Americans thought that it would add mainly lower-class voters to the registration lists. In other countries, it is the public officials’ duty to enroll citizens on registration lists. They encourage the lower classes to vote through class-based organizations and traditions. This causes less confusion with the different election days and requires less effort of them to vote. A lot of places in the South have problems with voter turnout because they make the locations difficult for people to find or get to. I have yet though to get out and actually vote. Other countries also do not have the problem we do with poor and uneducated people not voting. In Idaho, Maine, and Minnesota they allow people to register at their polling place on election day. This means they either have feelings of personal non-interest or unconcern with politics, or feelings of personal powerlessness; implying that the government does not care about their opinion. When I got my driver’s license in Georgia, my registration card was sent to me in the mail. ame place for a certain amount of time in order to be eligible to vote.

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