Essay On Voter Turnout

In a democratic society such as the United States voting is vitally important to our society as a whole. In this important role of our society billions are spent for our elections in the effort to increase voter turn and win the election. With elections taking place every year within the Federal, state, and local elections a long with the presidential election that takes place every four years. The ever rising cost of elections is topping out at $6.5 billion during the presidential year election and $3.9 billion during midterm elections including the not so high profile races during off years. The smaller races make up for the overwhelming majority of the elections throughout the United States. All of this money spent in an effort to convince and get voters to vote for them. There are so many different ways to reach and acquaint the voter to the candidate running for office using such methods as commercial ads, direct mail, phone calls and face to face door knockers. With this in thought does the amount of money and time spent campaigning make that much of an impact on voter turnout?

With the use of the more modern ways of conducting campaigns there has also been a decline of those who work for a political party with only 6 % in the 1970s and dropping to 3 % in the 1990s. Nonpartisan organizations such as the Lions, Rotary and Kiwanis have also declined in membership leaving less for that in person contact (Gerber and Green, 2000). Both the partisan and non-partisan organizations are changing in how they reach out to mobilize the voter; these efforts have become largely impersonal and predominantly employing the use of mass marketing techniques over the face to face interaction. Political campaigns are typically conducted now by political consultants, direct mail, telephone calls, door knockers and commercial