Demographics in Voting

Chapter 10 of the textbook focuses on the campaigns the politicians run (and how they run them), the people who go vote after the campaigning is over, how to predict how these people will vote, and ultimately the outcome of the elections. A subject I found particularly interesting in this chapter, however, was the importance of different demographics when it comes to voting, because I hadn’t really payed much attention to it in the past. I imagine many people, like myself, have often overlooked the importance of the different ethnic, social, age, gender, and educational groups of people and the impact that these factors will ultimately have on the election. It’s evident, however, that the most influential factor is the education of a person.

Of the different categories of demographics “income and education” are the least surprising to have an impact on the political activity of people. It’s not really a surprise that people who have a higher income and education tend to be more politically active than people who are not. Studies have proven that the most important factor that affects political activity is formal education, which might be a result of these people being more informed about politics or simply much more confident in participating.

Throughout history it has been noticed that African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans have all had lower voting turnouts than white Americans. But African Americans now vote about as frequently as white Americans and it has been proven that Hispanics are steadily voting more often, which might also be a result of increased confidence in their ability to participate in politics. Barack Obama’s presidency and campaigns are considered to have been very influential in raising the political spirits of minorities, seeing how turnout increased in the elections where he ran for president (especially for his second term in 2012 where African American turnout exceeded that of white Americans).

Age has also been another incredibly important variable when it comes to predicting voter turnout. It has been evident that people who are older vote more than those who are younger. An increase in confidence has been credited as one of the main reasons that voting turnout occurred, and it’s possible that this is also the reason that young people vote less than older people. Younger voters may not be as confident with their political views as those who have seen these candidates for a longer time, or as confident in finding their respective polling locations and going through the process of registering. If this is the case, then a possible solution would be to educate younger people on the process and on how to follow up on their political views.

Gender is the last type of demographic discussed in this chapter. Women, like African Americans, were prohibited from voting for a long time in history, which might be the reason they tend to have a lower voting turnout than men. That being said, the turnout percentage of women has steadily been increasing, which might also be a result of gaining confidence in their abilities to participate in politics or an increase in their education.

Even though there are many factors that seem to affect whether someone will vote or not and determine the voting turnout of different demographics, the most influential variables are education and confidence. For this reason, the best way to increase the amount of people voting (and make sure that those who vote are well informed on all candidates) is to educate our population.