The Lost Voters: Misrepresentation of Low-income Voters

The focus of chapter 4 was identifying the social, economic, and political climate of American and how each element affects United States government and politics. One of the main themes within the economic portion of American society is the overall increase in people suffering from poverty. The United States is at a pivotal point in its economic history in which the rich are getting richer and the poor is getting poorer. Ideally within a democracy, the government would work to install programs that would breakdown the wage gap and stimulate the economy. The main problem with motivating politicians to create these kinds of programs is that they would not directly correlate to constituent support. More often than not, citizens who are in poverty are poorly educated and therefore are not heavily involved in politics. Typically, “the poor are politically invisible; they represent a small minority of the electorate and have had few organized groups to push their interests.” (96). Politicians do not yield a large voter turnout by funding programs that support the impoverished, and therefore politicians more often allocate their money to middle and upper class citizens.

This gap between income and political involvement is an example of one of the many ways in which American government can fail as a democracy. In most cases, people of low-income make up the majority of citizens within a voting region, but they represent the minority of voters that are represented in official elections. As a democracy, elections should reflect the majority, unfortunately, elections only reflect the majority of people who actually vote. Because low-income people are less likely to vote, the cycle of undereducation and misrepresentation in politics is constantly perpetuated from each election year to the next. This cycle of misrepresentation relates to previous blog posts that identified the flaw within America’s voting systems.

A possible solution to this misrepresentation would be to create more political awareness within low-income communities. If people had a better understanding of how their vote could actually affect their lives on a personal level, then they would most likely become more politically involved. Another possible solution would be encouraging politicians to act on behalf of the majority within their region and not just simply the majority of their voters. This strategy would be counterintuitive. Any politician that does not work in favor of its major constituents is less likely to be reelected, and is inadvertently counteracting the frame and morals of democracy itself.

5 Responses to "The Lost Voters: Misrepresentation of Low-income Voters"

Helen Spiller says:

September 25, 2017 at 12:44 pm

I entirely agree with your blog post here about the lack of voters and how they become lost; however, I think the issue at hand is far more severe than you have laid out. I would argue that what would make our democracy succeed is ensuring the voice of all citizens, even the most poor and out of touch. An article written FiveThirtyEight magazine asserted that if all the voters who stayed home on election day voted, then Clinton would have won the election. That is a huge deal and something that should not be overlooked. The fact that so many Americans did not vote that the winner of the election was, arguably wrong, shows a major flaw in our democratic system.
Dahl wrote in his article, “Who governs America?” that these citizens who actively choose not to participate in elections are disenfranchising themselves from the country. The lack of participation increases inequality and anger with the government, yet these people still choose not to participate. However, the blame cannot be placed solely on those who choose not to vote. Perhaps, as Camryn noted in his article, the blame falls also on our own government for not encouraging voting and ensuring the ease of the process. All in all, this issue of political action among far too many americans creates a horrible cycle of anger and disenfranchisement with the government and, as the FiveThirtyEight, article would argue, the election of the wrong leader for the majority of americans.

Enten, Harry. “Registered Voters Who Stayed Home Probably Cost Clinton The Election.”FiveThirtyEight, FiveThirtyEight, 5 Jan. 2017, fivethirtyeight.com/features/registered-voters-who-stayed-home-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/.

Dahl, Robert A. Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961. Print.
Grace Miller says:

September 27, 2017 at 6:07 pm

I agree with you that this is a major issue, but I believe you missed one of the main reasons why this gap between the rich and poor correlates with the gap with voters and nonvoters. Voter suppression was a very prominent topic of conversation before the 2016 presidential election, as Donald Trump said that voter fraud was a large issue our country should be focusing on. Acts such as shutting down DMVs in low income neighborhoods or minority neighborhoods, silences the voices of many people, who tend to vote left.
The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity was created in May 2017 to combat the issue of voter fraud, but many critics say that in actuality it will be used to silence the votes of minority citizens. Another issue is how difficult it is to get the correct forms of identification to vote for many poor populations, as DMVs tend to be located in wealthier neighborhoods, farther away from the homes of the people needing the IDs. On top of minorities and lower socioeconomic groups being suppressed in elections, there is always the suppression of the young vote. Many college students have to go through a lengthy process to request an absentee ballot from their state to be sent to them, and if they are going to a university in their home state, find that there aren’t polls on or near campus.
To conclude, I don’t think education is the biggest hurdle when it comes to voting, although it would help. I believe the best solution currently is to make getting to polls more accessible, and helping in the process of getting government issued photo IDs, or allowing people to vote with other forms of identification.
Jackson Puckey says:

September 27, 2017 at 7:41 pm

One of the determining factors in poverty has always been shown to be education. It’s quite rare to meet a high school dropout who has become a billionaire in the same way that it is rare to find a Phd holder collecting TANF benefits. Similarly, education also dictates voter turnout. Over 80% of people who hold postgraduate degrees voting in the last election while, in comparison, less than 40% of people without high school diplomas voted. This illustrates an absolutely massive gap in voter turnout based on both education and income.
Excluding some voter suppression barriers, political resources are now, as Dahl said, “noncumulative.” However, poorer people still turn out in lower numbers. This illustrates a critical lack of education in civics and the importance of voting in our democratic society. The only solution to making lower class citizens vote in greater numbers and, more importantly, do so intelligently, is to stress the importance of civic participation at all levels of education. This destroys the last remnants of cumulative politics where only those who have the chance to attend higher education have this importance impressed upon them.
Politicians have said for decades that education is the “silver bullet” to many of America’s problems, ranging from crime to poverty to health. In this way, it acts in the same way in voter education. While many uneducated voters choose not to vote, as discussed above, it is also critical that everyone who votes have a clear understanding of who they are voting for and why they are voting for them. There are many examples on both sides of the aisle of voters choosing their candidate based on superficial characteristics (race, gender, religion, etc.) or promises over which their office has no control (such as Newt Gingrich’s $2.50 gas promise in 2012). Every citizen of this country deserves and needs an extensive education on civics.
Stella Von Spreckelsen says:

September 27, 2017 at 8:51 pm

I agree with your post completely, the lack of voting from poor people is a huge issue in our democracy. When poorer people do not vote, they lack representation in government, a system that is meant to help them out. Without this representation, schools in poorer neighborhoods are not funded properly and not given enough resources, they will not be able to educate their students properly and will not have enough support systems to keep kids in school resulting in higher drop out rates. This is a vicious cycle that is seen in many low income neighborhoods and needs to be broken. Low education rates correlate to poverty in life, therefore, if there is a large group of uneducated poor people, they will most likely not vote in elections and their situations will most likely not improve because the government is not aware of their needs.
I also agree that voter fraud is an issue that usually targets poorer people in the U.S because the rich and more educated want to keep the poor out of politics. The rich benefit off of a government that fails to take into consideration the wealth gap and continues to give the rich low tax breaks. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer when poor people do not participate in government.
Adam Samee says:

September 27, 2017 at 10:00 pm

Your points on political awareness within the low income citizens is extremely essential to the analysis of our representative democracy. It is of great importance to focus on the low income turnout because as citizens it is crucial to our social contract. A great example of another solution would be to require voting to people receiving welfare and other benefits. If all people are not represented then it is not truly the majority of the country. Political Awareness comes into play when you begin to have this class of America start turning out in more complete numbers on days of voting. Your last point of the morals of the democracy is essential. The 3 benchmarks of popular sovereignty are not upheld when citizens of all backgrounds do not turn out at the polls.

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