VOTING PARTICIPATION
Slide One
Audio: This presentation is courtesy of Brian Dille. I'm the speaker and I'm a Professor of Political Science at Mesa Community College, a College of the Miracle Good Community College District in Mesa, Arizona. I hope you've enjoyed this presentation.
Slide Two
Audio: Welcome to America and Arizona Government for Elementary Teachers. This is Presentation 18, Voting and Participation. In the previous presentations we've discussed the structures of American Government and the various processes of politics. We now turn to the concept of active citizenship, how citizens can use these processes within the structures to affect change and maintain their policy preference outcomes. In this presentation we will first look at the notion of active citizenship and how people and groups engage the system through voting and direct participation. We will then look at elections and campaigns. These are probably the most visible ways that people engage politics, and it's important to understand the rules and dynamics of elections in order to understand election outcomes.
Slide Three
Audio: In this presentation we will be examining the AEPA Objective 14, understand the election process in the United States, as well as the Arizona Social Studies Standards Strand 3 Concept for Rights, Responsibilities and Roles of Citizenship. As always, I recommend you look at the Strand 3 document that is articulated by grade level so that you can look at the objectives by grade level, and then at the end of this presentation go back and review that document and make sure that you understand the objectives associated with this presentation so that you can exhibit competence on those objectives.
Slide Four
Audio: When we look at political participation we can divide most people into one of four categories. They're either uninvolved and don't participate, at all, they're a voter who engages in periodic symbolic participation, they're activists who are highly motivated and periodically involved. And then there are the professionals, who do politics as a career.
Slide Five
Audio: The first group, the uninvolved, actually represent a fairly large portion of Americans. A lot of Americans don't register to vote. A lot of the people who do register to vote don't show-up to vote. Sometimes when the people vote they will only vote on a presidential election, they don't vote during midterm or local elections. Why is that? Why would so many Americans not take advantage of the freedom and the responsibility to engage the system and participate in politics? Well, there's a few reasons for it. Part of it is apathy. People tend not to engage a process unless they feel that they have a stake in the process or they feel threatened by that process. And many people don't understand the impact that politics has on them, and so they don't see politics as being something that they need to participate in. Now, of course, politics happens all around us every day, and the consequences of policy decisions affect us every day, but many people don't see those consequences and don't understand the implications. And, as a result, they are apathetic because they feel that they do not need to be involved because the outcome doesn't affect them. Another group of people who are involved are not apathetic, but are, in fact, highly engaged on a particular issue, but they have decided that the political system doesn't work for them. These are people that I refer to as conscientious objectors. They follow the issues, but they make a conscious choice not to participate. This tends to be a fairly small group, graduate students in college is the way I characterize this group. They don't have much impact on the outcome because of their lack of participation in the process. As Mario Cuomo, the former Mayor of New York said, we live in a political system that rewards participation and punishes nonparticipation.
Slide Six
Audio:The next group of participants are the voters, and this is the vast majority of the electorate. These are people who do vote. They may vote occasionally, but they do vote, but they don't pay a whole lot of attention to politics in between elections and they certainly are not what we would consider activists. They're not donating time or money or marching on the street or writing letters or doing any of those things that might make them an activist, but they are engaged in their civic duty of voting. So their participation is a periodic symbolic participation. They go through the ritual of going to the voting location, going into the booth, making their check or their slide or however or whatever voting machine they're using, and then returning from that and wearing their I Voted sticker with pride. Now political scientists have tried to figure out why people vote because from a rational point of view it doesn't make a lot of sense. The political scientists refer to this as the paradox of voting. The paradox is that if you look at the cost benefit analysis for voting the costs almost always outweigh the benefits. The cost of voting include registering, keeping your registration intact and current. You typically have to travel to a voter location that may or may not be close to your home. If you're an hourly employee you may have to take time off of work which will cost you real money or you have to vote early in the morning or late at night before or after work. You have to engage in the information costs if you want to be a conscientious voter, of taking the time to learn about the issues, learn about the candidates, so that you can make a coherent defendable position or decision. So these were all the costs that are incurred by deciding to vote. Well, what are the benefits of voting? Well, you get one vote towards the overall total of the vote that is cast. So in the United States there are 330 odd million people, only about two-thirds of those people are eligible to vote, the rest are either children or people with green cards or immigrants or whatever, so only about 200 million of those people are eligible to vote. Of those people only about 60% actually register, and so that's down to about 120 million. And of the people who register only about 50% to 60% actually show-up to vote. So out of a country of 330 million, about 80 to 90 million on a midterm election, anyways, would actually show-up and vote. Well, your vote is then 180 millionth of the outcome. Or let's not be so pessimistic, let's look at the governor's race in Arizona. In Arizona there's three million people, and if we use the same calculations we come up with about a million votes for a governor's race in Arizona. Well, that means that your vote is one one-millionth of the outcome. Now here's the paradox, is that if you assume people are rational, meaning they engage in cost benefit analysis before they take action then that would suggest that the costs that they would incur to be able to vote are greater than the benefit, the one one-millionth of a voice towards the outcome. So why then does anybody vote? Well, the political scientists struggle about that, but the answer is found in the intangible benefit, that you can't simply weigh on a scale, like one one-millionth, and that is the warm fuzzy that you get from doing your civic duty, from participating in the system, from having a say in the outcome. That has a tremendous value, as the slide says, never underestimate the value of a warm fuzzy. The cost of voting are not great and the benefit from voting is a psychological benefit that comes from knowing that you have contributed to the maintenance of the democratic order that we live in. Another way to look at it, as well, to try to address the concerns with the political scientists who are doing the math is that if you remember so many people can't vote and so many other people don't vote because they're not registered or they don't show-up, that it's as if your vote counts for more than just you because the people who do vote have a disproportionate voice because so many others choose not to use their voice. Another way of thinking of this is that you have a collective impact on your vote that goes beyond merely the mathematical equation of what your single vote might otherwise be worth. An example of this would be in central Phoenix, the central Phoenix neighborhood has a voter turnout rate, meaning the people who actually show-up and vote, of about 75%. And you can contrast that with south Phoenix, which has a voter turnout rate of about 28% give or take 25% to 30% on any given election. If you want to be elected to a city council position in Phoenix then you need to make sure that the central Phoenix people are happy because they're the ones who actually show-up and vote. The south Phoenix people may or may not like you. It's almost irrelevant whether they like you or not because they don't vote, which means their neighborhood doesn't get the attention that the central Phoenix neighborhood gets. In central Phoenix there are no potholes, the police patrol regularly, the lights all work because it's in the interest of the city leadership to keep those people happy. So your individual vote may only be one one-millionth or whatever, but if you and your group, however you define your group, vote consistently and have a high turnout rate then your group will get the attention of policymakers because they like their job and so they want people to vote for them. They're going to pay attention to the people who actually vote. This is one reason, for example, why social security will continue even though it is bankrupting the nation because old people vote and young people, the ones who are going to have to increase their taxes to pay for social security, don't vote. And so politicians will keep old people happy at the expense of young people because young people don't vote. So there is a very real power in voting, even if not individually there's a collective power that if you and your group does not participate, as Mario Cuomo said, you will be punished and the groups that do participate will be rewarded.
Slide Seven
Audio: The next group of actors are activists. Now these are people who engage in a sustained attention span. They're not like the voters who only pay attention periodically to politics. These are people who are passionate about a particular issue or a particular candidate. These are people who follow that issue or candidate over time. And they're people who give of their means or their time to promote their cause or their candidate. They do this because of the passion that they feel for the cause or candidate they're supporting. And they become invested in the outcome of that policy debate or that election. I've seen people who are volunteering on campaigns and they put their whole life and soul into that campaign. And when their candidate wins, they're on top of the world. And when their candidate loses, they fall into a deep funk for days because they're personalized that battle. And the same holds true for issue advocates when their policy preference goes through Congress, they're elated. And when a judge overturns that policy for constitutional reasons, they're devastated. And so activists are involved because they get a personal benefit emotionally from the outcome. In addition, there are advocates who are -- oh sorry, activists who are engaged because they have more than an emotional benefit: they have an actual benefit. They're group has a tangible benefit from policy. Maybe it's a welfare check or maybe it's a subsidy to their farm. Or maybe it's a tariff on their good. They get a tangible benefit from policy. And so those groups are highly motivated to pay attention and have their voice heard and be an activist in favor of or in opposition to the policy that affects them most. Now activists are the vocal groups that draw a lot of the attention in American politics. Now activists can become professionals as they develop a -- expertise on the issue that they're advocating for.
Slide Eight
Audio: Which leads us to the last group of activists -- or of actors and that's the professionals. The professionals do politics all day. It's their job. They are career professionals who are paid for what they do. And they do that because they're passionate but also because they are good at what they do. And that ability to effectively make policy and advocate for policy preference is recognized by other groups. And it is sought out and it becomes a marketable skill. This is one reason why if you are good at politics, you can do it professionally because others who don't have the time or skills will pay you to use your time and your skills to advocate for policy. In addition, those who win election and are elected into office are part of this category as well. And these are people who either are paid or volunteer but spend large amounts of time in the development and pursuit of public policy. So again, even if they're not getting paid they should be considered in this professional class of actors.
Slide Nine
Audio: So now that we know what categories to put political actors, let's talk a bit about why political action is important. And the first part of this is to talk about the importance of civil society. Civil society is that part of the society that is a voluntary association. It is not organized by the government. It's not regulated by the government. It's not supported by the government. It is people doing things with other people simply because they want to. Examples of this would be churches. It would be people meeting in coffee houses. It would be the Boy Scouts, the PTA, The Oprah Book Club: these are all groups of people who get together to pursue a common interest. And it may not even be a political interest but it's a common interest all the same. The Rosarian Society just loves gardening and culturing roses and so they form an organization to promote their garden. That is civil society. And what I'm arguing is that this civil society is an essential part of a functioning democracy. In fact it is so important that new democracies that don't have a functioning civil society tend to fail. Where as societies that do have a functioning civil society tend to develop vibrant democracies. When authoritarian regimes take over a free society, the first thing they do is destroy or eliminate the civil society. So example: when communist regimes would take over, they would eliminate churches for example. And the reason is, is because civil society are places of organization that they government does not control. And so if it's an authorization regime, that's a potential threat. So labor unions, churches, other volunteer associations are threats to authoritarian government and the very lifeblood of a democracy.
Slide Ten
Audio: The reason civil society is so necessary for democracy is because it is in the settings of a voluntary association that people learn the habits of citizenship. They learn how to interact with others in a way that is helpful. They learn how to handle meeting, how to organize, how to treat one another. It's in all of these skills and traits that are necessary for citizenship are fostered in clubs and groups and board meetings and all the various elements of civil society. As an example, civil society teaches up not just the skill set of how to run a meeting, but how to treat one another. It teaches us how to be civil in the sense of polite as well as civil in the sense of public. If I have a disagreement with my neighbor because my neighbor belongs to a different political party, therefore I feel that my neighbor's an idiot of course because otherwise he wouldn't belong to that other party. So I might be tempted to think of my neighbor in conflictual terms. He is the opponent. He is the enemy. He is someone who I have no respect for because we have opposite views on some political issues. But then it turns out that we both go to the same church for example. Well now when my neighbor is sitting in a church pew close to me, I'm supposed to be thinking of that person in a different light. I'm supposed to be thinking of that person as a fellow member of this organization: not the idiot over there who belongs to a different political party. And maybe we work together on the Boy Scouts and now because we're working together to teach these kids about citizenship, we develop a certain level of respect for one another. Now I still might think my neighbor's an idiot because his political views are ridiculous, but at least I can acknowledge the good nature of my neighbor: that his intentions might be good even though they've gone horribly awry in his political views. Working together in civil society builds connections between citizens that go beyond politics that cement the society together so that despite our differences, despite the political disagreements we might have, we still can treat each other as fellow citizens and accord a certain level of respect to one another. Now in societies that don't have civil society, those relationships don't form. The trust that builds up between people who work together on projects, don't form. And so when there's a political struggle and one side wins, the loser side might burn tires in the intersection. You know, they're not willing to accept defeat from this other group because they don't see a common cause in that society. So, civil society teaches us how to disagree with one another in a civil way. In addition, it also teaches us how to engage in nonviolent conflict resolution when you belong to school board -- well, no that's an elected position. That's not civil society. But if you volunteer your time for the Parent-Teacher Association at the school and you want to have cookies and someone else wants to have popcorn and you have an argument over that, and you decide to have a vote on whether you're going to have cookies or popcorn and you lose, you come to terms with that. Growing up in these types of associations, having the experience of winning some battles and losing other battles, helps instill the norms of nonviolent conflict resolution. So that our politicians - people running the country - get their experience from other political jobs and when the experience they had before they entered political jobs was in these voluntary associations. And so the civil society trains - not just the citizenry - but trains the leadership in how to act in a democratic society.